Calling all Local Business! Still Wasting Your Budget with the Yellow Pages?

For local businesses with a tight advertising budget, the battle between print and online advertising has become somewhat of a title bout (think Tyson-Hollyfield I-when we all cared). What’s going to happen, is a dominant champion will arise and internet is that new champion.

Print still controls the bulk of money spent for local business advertising (Yellow Pages, etc) but the Internet is rapidly on the rise and gaining ground. A recent study done by TMP finds that shoppers are now more than ever researching online and buying locally.

"Offline local search, White Pages and Yellow Pages directory advertising is a $15 billion market and fairly static," said Stuart McKelvey, CEO of TMPDM. "Online local search is a $1 billion market and growing. The fact that two thirds of our online panel use online search as their primary source of local business information suggests that advertisers should consider the allocation of offline vs. online local search investments.”

The internet will continue to gain ground as marketers find new ways of implementing strategies into websites, blogs, social networking, online directories, bookmarking sites and more. The rise in popularity of sites such as www.yellowpages.com mean that even the phone book companies are making a huge effort to reach the people searching online.

Most individuals who search online still buy and visit offline merchants and services (brick and mortar sites). In the study mentioned above, 33% still consider print yellow pages as their primary source of local business info.

If you tip the glass over this means that 67% are using the internet and other means for getting their information.

The change is a coming people! The only question now is, how far behind the train will you be?