If you are a business owner that has used the Yellow Pages in your marketing mix you know that this can be very costly, and sometimes there is little return on this cost.  A huge cost with little return is something that most businesses can not afford to keep and remain profitable.

We have one client that was paying almost $1200 a month for their Yellow Pages listed and from what little tracking tools they had were only able to attribute about 2 customers a month from those ads.  We have now switched this client to other marketing channels which include Social Media, Blogging as well as Email Marketing.  The goal is that within three months of adding these services (at a MUCH lower cost) that we will be able to a substantial increase in traffic and revenue from these efforts.

Looking at other methods to market besides the Yellow Pages is becoming a trend with small businesses or what some call micro-business (micro-business = 10 employees or less).  Personally, I believe that there are better methods to market than the Yellow Pages where you can better track and measure the effectiveness of your marketing. 

Vistaprint conducted a survey in April of 2010 of 1,100 customers and in this survey found that  two-thirds surveyed have no interest in marketing in the Yellow Pages and only 11% plan to use it in the future.  Here is graph of the marketing channel trends of those surveyed:

In looking at this graph it is nice to see that many businesses are currently using Social Media, Online Direct Marketing and Physical Direct Marketing.  This is a trend that will continue and is one that will help small or micro-business cut cost and build focused prospect lists.

If you would like to read the full survey you can do so here at Vistaprint’s Small Business Blog.

If you are interested in learning more about how you can use social media in your business please contact us via the form below:

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Is your business on Twitter yet?

If not you should probably put it in the plans to be completed.  Twitter is now main stream and is being used by many businesses to drive traffic and increase sales.  Twitter is viral and when businesses use it they are able to touch a lot of prospects quickly.  If you are posting interesting and helpful information on Twitter it will be shared by others and give you exposure to others.

The article below is from FYIndOut and it helps expand on the topic of businesses using Twitter.

Savvy Businesses Making the Most of Twitter

Companies are beginning to realize the importance of using Twitter to monitor their brand, create relationships and turn leads to sales. According to a recent survey by MarketingProfs, “more than eight in 10 Twitter users, most of whom represent small businesses, expect their company’s use of the popular micro blogging tool to increase in the next six months.”

In addition, 66% of the respondents consider Twitter either “somewhat important” or “extremely important” to their company’s business/marketing operations, compared with 29% who consider it “not very important.”

At FYIndOut, we’re always focused on helping businesses find and promote what they’re looking for and one of our main focuses is around using the power of social media to work for business.  Twitter is fast becoming one of the top platforms that companies not only participate in, but also get real value by doing so.  Unlike most other social media sites, Twitter has the ability and breadth to be a fun and efficient way to connect consumers in our personal lives as well as help businesses and employees in our professional lives.

We have definitely seen a positive difference in using Twitter for our company.  Through Twitter, we’ve been able to connect and learn from industry trendsetters, other entrepreneurs, investors, and key media people that cover our industry.  Not having any luck reaching out to people via email or their “Contact Us” form?   Try Twitter.  You’d be amazed at how fast you’re able to connect with others.

If you are just starting to use Twitter and have any questions about our experience or think that we might be able to help, please reach out to myself (@scottjmanley) or our Community Manager, Brett Kopf (@brettkopf) and we’ll do our best.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Twitter to Move into Business Mainstream (marketingvox.com)
• Paul Chaney: Is Twitter a Business Tool? Yes! (mpdailyfix.com)

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