Is this the end for Yellow Pages?

This week saw the latest edition of the Yellow pages distributed around Newcastle city centre. This photo shows what I saw on my way back from a meeting. A wheelie bin with a pile of Yellow Pages stacked up next to it!

I'm not sure what this picture tells me other than they companies these were delivered to did not need the Yellow Pages or thought it was surplus to requirment.

My belief is that the days of Yellow Pages and similar directories are well and truly over. Why would you thumb through a directory when you can have all the information about the services you are looking for at you finger tips via a computer or mobile phone - what is more you can often get much more information about these business online that you could ever do in the Yellow Pages. At the end of the day your business could be spending hundreds or thousands of £££'s each year on advertising in these directories only for your advert to end up dumped next to a wheelie bin in a back alley of Newcastle!!! What a waste.

Spend your adverting budget smarter! Make sure you are trying out new ways to make contact with prospective clients. My first port of call, use the money you would spend on telephone directories on advertising using Pay Per Click Advertising.

Of course there are some businesses who will make more money than they spend in telephone directories and to those business I say keep doing it.... but also try Pay Per Click advertising.

And don't stop there. There are dozens of ways to attact customers online, try one out each month and you could be looking at a different business this time next year.

Alternative Ways to Get Visitors - Social Networking Optimisation

I often talk about search engine optimisation (or SEO) to help drive good quality traffic to your website. I also promote pay per click advertising (or PPC) as an alternative way, and a quick win way of getting traffic to your website.

Well I am going to look at a few other alternatives that will also help you get visitors. How about exploiting the advertising potential of Social Networking websites such as Facebook, Myspace and Bebo? These website collect (or more accurately are volunteered) masses of information about the people who use them. What do they do with this data? well now they are offering you the opportunity to target the exact niche for your business. Admittedly you are more likely to succeed in some markets more than others but here is the crack -

If you have a product, say you sell very baggy jeans - you know the sort I mean, the ones that seem to be below the bum line yet still just about stay up - well you business would know that the age group to target these is the 16 - 24 year olds. But there is more, you are likely to know people in this age group who are into Hip Hop music are likely to be interested in your product. Well the likes of Facebook will allow you to specify that you only advertise to these people when they are looking through Facebook. Something worth trying out? I think so. Try our Social Networking Optimisation

Ask.com has a face lift. Will anyone catch up with Google

Ask.com has had a bit of a face lift. Is this an attempt to eat into Googles market share?

Probably. But it is still difficult to see the day when Google is not the dominant player in the market. Ask is probably the only search engine that is making any positive dent in the Google empire - but ironically it relies on Google to make its money - the sponsored adverts display on the results pages of Ask are actually Google Adwords, these ads are server by Google to Ask and then a commission is paid if anyone clicks on the ad! So Google is in a no lose situation with this, if they lose market share to Ask they are still getting the advertising revenue.

I guess Google will keep an eye on the share that Ask gets, after all they don't want any one muscling in too much and getting to big for thier boots.

Good luck to Ask is what I say, a little competition didn't do anyone any harm.

Another Successful Internet Market Seminar

Once again we ran the Internet Marketing for Business seminar and I have to say that this one was even better than the last.

The seminar was held at La Riviera Restaurant on the Quayside which for those who are not familiar with it is a great quality Italian Restuarant Newcastle & Gateshead.

During the Internet Marketing Seminar we covered the three principles of great internet marketing.

1. Driving visitors to your website - this could be using SEO, PPC and email marketing - plus a whole host of other tools and options - including blogging ;)
2. How to convert the traffic ito leads and sales.
3. Using continuous marketing techniques to convert the leads into sales

The comments we got back from the seminar were great -

"Very good presenter and easy to follow presentation. Good hand out material and all very relevant" - Sue Pender, Business Link North East

"Excellent - all made sense. My concentration do not slip at all which says a lot about the quality of the presentation" - Maggie Cottier, MSC Training, Newcastle

"Really well covered, informative, relevent and practical with REAL tips. Very Good" - Penny Jones, Business Link North East

"Very understandable, pitched at a 'Laypersons' level. Excellent" - Judith Falla, Business Link North East

"Enjoyed the whole session" - Peter Moran, Newcastle City Council

"Well presented and very easy to follow. Informative" - Bruce Allison, Design Aid

We are running the next seminar in September - please visit www.marketingontheinternet.co.uk for more details - or if you want a taster of what it is all about why not download our internet marketing podcast