How about this for a market research idea to take advantage of the hot weather (ice-cream really does come into this, honest!!)
While meeting a prospective client he asked me "How do I know if I should reduce the size of my Yellow Pages advert?". Interesting question I thought. The key to this is understanding how people use Yellow Pages in the first place. This is a view based on personal experience plus some research we have done ourselves.
There are usually two reasons people use Yellow Pages :-
- they know who they are looking for, but don't know the phone number
- they are "browsing" to find a provider
Sounds simple doesn't it? Let's start with 2) first. If someone is browsing through Yellow Pages then I suspect the size, quality and placement of a display advert will always yield more enquiries than a free single line entry. I'm not trying to cover the mechanics of Yellow Pages ad design here.
So, what about 1) above? Well if we assume that people have actually already heard of you before they go delving into Yellow Pages, then maybe it is worth reducing the size of your display advert or even removing it altogether. So, how do you test this?
There are two components to the test :-
a) you need to ask a supplementary question to the next 10 people who tell you they "Got your number from the Yellow Pages". Actually there might a step before this for some of you and that is making sure that EVERY new enquiry to the firm is "sourced" i.e. asking how they obtained your phone number and from where.
One example of a supplementary question is "That's great, can I just ask, did you know of our name before you looked in Yellow Pages". Depending on the answer there are other questions you can move on to to establish if they were really a referred client rather than a Yellow Pages browser
b) if you discover that most people are true "browsers" then we need to go back to the science of Yellow Pages advert design etc. However, what if most people are actually referred clients who already knew your name? There is a theory that says they will find your number whether you have a full page, quarter page or free one line entry. So how do you find out? Here's how the ice-cream comes in.
Find a local corner shop near you, and go in and give them £50. Then this is what you do :-
- stand someone outside the corner shop with a Yellow Pages
- ask the next 30 people who come past "Excuse me, would you like a free ice-cream on this hot, sunny day?"
- if they say "No" then thank them and move on.
- if they say something like "Yes/What do I have to do/I don't give to charity" etc, then just tell them that all you need them to do is look up a phone number in the Yellow Pages.
- if they agree then tell them the name of your firm and ask them to look up your phone number.
- watch them carefully as they do it. When they find the number, record whether it's your display advert or your free line entry that they find.
Why do I think you might find a difference? Well sometimes your display ad will not be on the same page as your free line entry, and also, the human eye finds it easier to scan down an alphabetical list rather than leap all over the page trying to spot a name amongst a myriad of display adverts.
Now, please note that I have not rigorously tested this theory and cannot testify to it's robustness, but for an hour standing on a street corner and spending £50 it might be worth considering.