Why the Yellow Pages Doesn’t Work

In virtually any discussion of marketing on any of the forums for painting contractors, someone will pipe in with a comment that yellow pages doesn’t work, that door hangers don’t work, that newspaper ads don’t work, etc. If you read enough of these comments you’d come to the conclusion that nothing works.

Yet, somehow painting contractors are able to generate leads. So something must be working.

There is a lot of truth in the claims that this or that doesn’t work. In and of itself, many types of advertising don’t work, particularly if it is the only type of advertising done by the contractor.

Marketing is a numbers game. It requires multiple avenues. It requires exposing your company to consumers over and over. It requires tracking and modification. It requires patience and perseverance.

Too many contractors look to hit a home run. They want to find that one type of advertising that works every time without fail. If there were such a thing, don’t you think everyone would be doing it? If there were such a thing, do you really think that those who have found it would readily share that information?

The truth is, no method of advertising is going to work every time. No method of advertising will create an endless stream of leads without fail (or at least not in the numbers most contractors need).

More than focusing on an individual form of advertising, contractors should focus on a plan—a mix of advertising that creates exposure through a variety of means. I’ve long lost count of the people who tell us that they saw our signs, saw us in the phone book, and then found our web site when they did a search. It is the constant exposure that works, not any one particular piece of advertising.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008