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EFFECTIVE YELLOW PAGE ADVERTISING FOR REALTORS®

Yellow Page Ads can be worthwhile or they can be one of the most costly and least effective advertising media for real estate agents and brokers. These ads are insidious because their costs are usually hidden in your monthly telephone bill. A $500 a month ad doesn’t seem like much but few business owners recognize that’s a $6,000 a year cost.

Almost every retailer advertises in the Yellow Pages because they think they have to since “everyone else does.” This has nothing to do with whether they are effective or not. If you want to have an effective ad you must follow the unbreakable rules of Yellow Pages:

1. Track your ads. Have a special telephone number or use a tracking
service for Yellow Page calls so you can determine exactly how many calls your ad brings in and how much profit they represent. Otherwise, how can you know if the ad brings in enough revenue to pay for itself? If it doesn’t cover its cost should you continue it?

2. Use a headline. Probably the biggest mistake in Yellow Page
advertising is to place the name of your business at the top of the ad.
This is the most valuable real estate and should state the benefits awaiting potential customers if they call you. If there is a real benefit customers will find your contact information regardless of where you put it in your ad.

3. Use a border. Studies show that thick, unbroken borders make ads
37% faster to read. The easier the ad is to read the more likely it is that
potential customers will actually read it. Most people peruse the Yellow
Page ads to disqualify potential prospects.

4. Use effective words. Everyone knows that the most effective words
in advertising are: “free”, “guaranteed”, “experienced” and “complimentary” for obvious reasons. Try to find a way to incorporate effective words in your ad.

5. Use white space. Many business owners mistakenly believe that they
should cram as much information into an ad as possible to increase
effectiveness. The reality is that the more crowded the ad looks the more
likely it is to turn off readers. Remember, busy people read ads to
disqualify.

6. Use color. Color makes ads stand out from the crowd and can bring a
very high return on investment. Check with your Yellow Page representative about how much more a color ad might cost. Another benefit of tracking your ads is that you can determine the incremental benefit of using color. Many Yellow Page companies will allow you to add color at little or no cost for one year to test its effectiveness.

7. Bargain for placement. The most effective locations for Yellow Page
ads is on the upper left-hand corner for the left side of the page and the
upper right-hand corner for the right side of the page. Even a small ad can have big impact with the proper placement. Negotiate with your
representative for the best placement available.

If you follow the seven rules for effective Yellow Page ads you will be
ahead of 90% of all retailers whose ads are a total waste of money.

About the Author: Michael “Soon” Lee, MBA, CRS, GRI, is a marketing expert who speaks to retailers across the country on how to develop
high-impact/low-budget marketing. He is a real estate broker and former
Marketing Director for the State of California and producer with the ABC
Television Network. Michael is President of EthnoConnect™ the Multicultural Sales Solution and can be reached in the U.S. at
(800) 41-SPEAK or by e-mail at:michael@seminarsunlimited.com.

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