This Says It All About The Yellow Pages

If you're marketing to consumers over age 60, the yellow pages are still necessary.  If you're marketing to consumers under age 40, you probably don't need a presence at all.  If your target customers fall in between 40 and 60, a yellow page presence may be necessary, but not on the scale (and expense) of the past.

The death of the yellow pages makes marketing more complicated for service companies.  You can no longer take out a big yellow pages ad and simply wait for the phone to ring.  Today, you must use search engine local search, SEO, SEM, and increasingly, social media.  Are you?

For HVAC contractors attending HVAC Comfortech in Baltimore in September, I'm teaching a class on social media.  Be sure to attend.  I'm also starting on a book titled, "Social Media for the Service Contractor," that will be given away to anyone attending my class at Comfortech.  If there are any copies left, I'll make them available for sale.

Keep customers out of the Yellow Pages

From my latest Contractor column...

Whatever your opinion is on the Yellow Pages as a way to get new customers, you probably want to keep existing customers away from the Yellow Pages and all of your competitors' ads. Here's eight simple ways to keep them out of the Yellow Pages.

Read more at Contractor Magazine.

Personally, I'm kinda proud I got called a marketing "authority." Someone needs to tell my wife and kids I'm an "authority." They don't know.

Tell The Yellow Pages To Play "Let's Make a Deal"

Are yellow pages publishers so desperate they're willing to make deals? It seems so.

It's tough to be a yellow pages publisher today. Extremely high profit margins have attracted new competitors. A long history of unresponsive personnel, poor customer service, extremely aggressive salespeople, and a we win/you lose attitude have resulted in high levels of customer antipathy. Then, the growing use and convenience of the Internet has started eating into your very business model. Businesses no longer feel trapped; they have alternatives. Pardon me while I shed a tear or two over their plight.

Yup. It's tough when your competition's increasing and your customers hate you and need you less and less. Throw in a recession and life gets so bad that you're forced to actually negotiate in good faith. Worse, you might even have to agree to getting paid for real performance.

Stunningly, this is exactly what some contractors are encountering if they're insistent enough. Recently, a Dallas air conditioning contractor managed to get the yellow pages to agree to a minimum call volume each month or the ad was heavily discounted (almost free). Moreover, to "count," each call had to last a minimum length of time. All calls, of course, were routed through a special number for tracking.

This program is especially attractive for air conditioning and other industries that experience seasonal demand. Why pay for 12 months of advertising when the ad only works for three or four months?

The contractor was able to negotiate this plan because he was willing to walk away from the deal and abandon the yellow pages altogether. The threat was credible. He had done it before.

When the yellow pages reps brought the contractor the contract and demanded he sign on the spot, the contractor refused. He explained, matter-of-factly, that he'd been lied to, too many times by this company. He would take the contract home and read every word. The yellow pages rep meekly agreed.

You may never have as much negotiating power with the yellow pages as you have today. Today you do not need take or leave their offer. Today you can give them yours.

Free Marketing Ideas – Part VI

Continuing the series...


17. Make Your Fax Cover Page A Marketing Piece

When you send a fax, do you use the Microsoft Word fax cover page template? Why? Why not promote your company? Tell people what you do, offer reasons for calling your company, and give the recipient a coupon. Make your fax cover page a marketing piece.

While it’s true that we send fewer faxes, every now and then, its easier to fax a document than email it. Some situations, such as those requiring signatures, necessitate a fax. If you’re going to print and fax the cover page anyway, why not make it work for you?


18. Paperclip A Business Card To Every Bill

We all like to do business with the people who do business with us. It’s human nature. So every time you send in a bill, paperclip your business card to it. The late Tom McCart swore to me that he got one or two leads a year from paperclipping his business cards to bills.

One or two leads is nothing to get excited about, but a few business cards costs almost nothing and it takes little effort to paperclip them to a bill. More important, it supports the marketing mindset where you are constantly marketing.


19. Promote Your Company In Your Email Signature

While we may not fax much, we do email. A lot. Make sure you promote you company in your email signature. List the company name, what you do, your mission, your website, your contact information, and any awards and recognitions. This can be set to automatically be added to the bottom of any email you send using Microsoft Outlook or other email clients.


20. Save Old Yellow Pages (Cross Out The Companies Out Of Business)

When selling equipment replacements, major project, installation, or remodel work, use the transitory nature of the industry in your favor and against your competitors. Scan copies of old yellow pages directories for inclusion in a presentation book and cross out the names of companies who once advertised, but are no longer in existence. When showing this page to your prospects, comment that “A lot of companies come and go, but we’ve got a solid history, which means we’ll be around to honor all warranties and take care of your needs well into the future. Isn’t nice to have a local, family business you can rely upon?”

(c) 2009 Matt Michel

Las Vegas Roundtable - October 25-27

Service Roundtable members asked for a fall Roundtable. They asked for Las Vegas. We listened.

Hosted at the fabulous Rio All Suites Hotel & Casino, the Las Vegas Roundtable is a wholly new program with an equal focus on HVAC and Plumbing. This power packed two day meeting features some of the most demanded speakers in the industry, plus highly interactive Roundtable breakouts.

Nowhere else in the industry will you get Mark Matteson, Robert C. Viering, Charlie Greer, Ron Smith, and me together for a two day event. You do not want to miss this.

Learn More About The Las Vegas Roundtable

Hire the Yellow Pages Rep

Originally Published 11.4.2008

A whopping 60% of restaurant owners have cut their yellow pages spending over the past two years. Two thirds of the downsizers reported that, “Yellow page reps applied more sales pressure than usual and sometimes even threatening scare tactics.” While really bad yellow pages reps are probably the unpleasant exception, all YP reps are struggling. Think about it… Highly motivated, commissioned, well-trained, professional salespeople in a dying industry. Hire one! Compared to YP sales, you offer unlimited opportunity. Read more.

9 Ways To Keep ‘Em Out Of The Yellow Pages

I have a picture of a service truck with decal instructing people to look for their ad in the yellow pages. Why would anyone send a current or potential customer to a book featuring ads from all of his competitors? Don’t send people to the yellow pages. Keep them out of the yellow pages. Here are nine ways…


1. Sticker Everything

When you’re in the home, place stickers everywhere you can. Make it easier to find your number on a sticker than in the yellow pages. Electricians should sticker the breaker box. Air conditioning contractors should sticker the furnace and disconnect. Plumbers should sticker water heaters and disposals. Landscapers should sticker the sprinkler control box. Everyone should consider placing stickers on the inside of the cabinet door under the kitchen sink.


2. Give Customers Magnets

Recently, we were looking for the name and phone number of our t-shirt vendor. Janet Thomasson, the Service Roundtable’s Chief of Staff, was telecommuting. I called her for the information and while she couldn’t remember the name off the top of her head, she did know how to find it.

“Look for a magnet on the freezer door in the office,” she said.

Some of the most valuable real estate in the customer’s home is the refrigerator. It’s at the center of the home and is one of the most visited appliances. The refrigerator is usually a family bulletin board with notes, lists, drawings, awards, and pictures all held in place by magnets. Make sure your magnet is one of them. Make sure your number is available at kitchen central.

For a complementary, illustrated, digital book featuring dozens of innovative ways to use refrigerator magnets, contact Liz Patrick by email at liz@serviceroundtable.com.


3. Provide Valve Tags

Valve tags are used in industrial operations to help identify piping circuitry. Legendary plumbing contractor, Frank Blau, took the concept and added a marketing spin. Frank created residential valve tags to use for marketing purposes as well as informational. The tags provide useful information to homeowners as well as full company contact information.

Valve tags aren’t limited to pipes and valves. They can be used for electrical products, control products, and so on where you can use a tie to attach a tag.

You can easily make your own using a luggage tag or ID badge lamination kit from any office supply store. Design the cards you laminate to include full company contact information and punch outs for to identify the valve or pipe for plumbing, voltage or circuit for electrical, and so on.


4. Provide Logoed Equipment Covers to Service Agreement Customers

Air conditioning contractors in colder climates can provide winter condensing unit covers with the company’s logo as a benefit for service agreement customers (and the service agreement helps cover the cost). Plumbing contractors can offer water heater blankets with the company logo. Pool contractors can offer covers for pumps and filters.


5. Co-Brand

Walk around your own kitchen and count the visible brands. In my kitchen, manufacturer brands are visible on the faucet, sink ring, dishwasher, refrigerator, microwaves, oven, stove, vent hood, coffee maker, can opener, toaster oven, cutlery, phone, answering machine, and soap dispenser. With the exception of the soap dispenser, I can’t find the brand of the store that sold the products or the contractors who installed them.

If people are willing to accept everyone else’s brand in their home, why not place yours? Few things are as personal to people as cars, yet car dealers show no hesitation sticking their logo on the back of the cars they sell.

Co brand by including your logo and website or phone number on the products you sell. Air conditioning contractors can get their logo and phone number tastefully silk screened on thermostats and supply registers. Plumbers can replace sink rings with one’s that carry their company website and phone number when they replace disposals.

Anyone can order domed case decals like off-brand computer assemblers use or plastic or chrome trunk decals like the car dealers use. These can be attached to furnaces, breaker boxes, control boxes, condensing units, water heaters, pool equipment, and more. Raised plastic or chrome trunk decals have the advantage of permanence. Your competitors cannot use a sticker to cover up your logo.


6. Leave Reports

When you perform work of any type, leave informative reports. The reports should document system conditions. On the report include the following…

Keep This Report

This report documents system performance and may help
future troubleshooting. We recommend that you keep
copies in a file, available for review by future technicians.

The report does provide useful information to future technicians. It builds the value of the service you provide. It also provides another place outside of the yellow pages where your company contact information can be found.


7. Provide a Report Holder

Provide a clear plastic envelope to hold the reports that can be attached with double stick tape to a product, such as a water heater, furnace cabinet, and so on. The idea is to make the reports readily accessible by the technician and the homeowner.


8. Make Sure You Can Be Found On The Web

There’s already an entire generation of consumers who will not use the yellow pages, period. They never even consider it. They’re web oriented. If they cannot find you quickly on the Internet, they’ll call the company they can find.

Make sure you’ve got a website that uses your company name. Use Google Ad Words and other search tools so that your name pops up when someone searches for your product or service words in your target zip codes.


9. Use a Last Resort Discount

After everything you’ve done, someone might still find their way to the yellow pages. If you can’t keep them away from the yellow pages, try and keep them from opening the book. At the end of a call, give the customers a yellow pages discount sticker. When the customer shows a technician a yellow pages directory with the sticker on the cover, the customer saves an extra five or ten dollars.

An alternative to the yellow pages sticker is a business card sized discount card that can be inserted at the start of your trade listing in the directory. The card works on the same principle as the sticker.

© 2007 Matt Michel