The Yellow Pages – Who Wants Those Things?

Twice a year the Yellow Pages are dropped off at various businesses around every city in the US.  This used to be a momentous event, something that I remember a lot of people buzzing about.

“The new YellowPages are here!”

Offices would theme the event around recycling, and how great they were that they were doing their part for the environment.  “Bring your old YP so we can recycle it and you’ll get a new 1988 version” was the going phrase.

Then, around 1992 or so, a company called LitePages was born.  From what I remember, Litepages was an offshoot of Southwestern Bell.  As a webmaster for a federal govt agency at the time, I received a letter in the mail from them explaining that we could have one of their new CD White Pages in exchange for signing a letter stating that we’d order x percent less phone books the next go-round.   It was a win-win for both sides.

We signed up and soon had the LitePages on our intranet, and people really liked it.  For several years we’d continue to decrease our YP order and we’d receive new CD updates to the “online” system.

But somewhere along the line, LitePages disappeared.  I can’t remember if they were bought out, or if the company just stopped producing their product.  Either way, we were about done with it.  The Internet had really kicked in, and people could find more than just a phone number on a business.  Google Maps and business websites brought about complete information. Phone numbers were just a small part of what we could now consume.

Fast forward to 2009.  For the past month, this has been sitting in the hallway of a local business.  It’s collecting dust. (Yeah I know, crappy picture)

That’s a lot of wasted money for YP, or AT&T, or whoever is printing these things.  And what’s worse, this is probably the scene at businesses all over the country.

Now I’m no demographics genius, but I can actually see a need for the YPs.  Not so much at a place of business, but at homes.  Homes of old people.  Homes of people with no Interwebs.

Those sort of people probably still have a need for the good old Yellow Pages.  And that’s the type of demographic (in my mind) that still use them.  So if you’ve got a business that sells to old or not-so-well-off people, this is still your domain.

I’ve advised my clients to trim down 90% of their YP advertising in most cases.  Most of them now simply put their name, phone number, and website.  That’s all you need.  Gone are the days of spending $10k, $20k or more to be in all the city-wide and metro versions of the YPs.  Spend that marketing budget on something more 2000-ish.

As for Yellow Pages, who wants those things?

Actually, I do.  I use them to start fires in our firepit.

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