Yellowbook Disposal Ideas Anyone?

Well, it is that time of the year, and I am not talking about Christmas. It is the time of the year I receive lots of useless paper colored yellow and filled with local business ads. Although I know there are still many people that use the legacy yellow pages people are rapidly moving away from using the yellow pages and have moved to using mobile phones and the web in general to access information on local businesses.

Recently the government even gave permission to telecommunication companies to no longer have to print the white pages. Why? Because of the use of mobile phones and the internet. Phone numbers are either unlisted or people are simply doing a quick search of online directories and finding the business or person they are looking for that way.

I came back to the office today to find no less than 5 yellowbook's on my desk. I can honestly say I cannot remember the last time I opened a paper phone book to find a business. That is a common theme when speaking to people about local business marketing these days. I understand that the yellow page companies have to continue to distribute as many as possible to keep their circulation numbers looking good, that does NOT mean people are actually using them though.

Any thoughts from anyone on what they think would be a great way to dispose or use them? Lets see how creative you are, leave your response in the comments if you think you have a creative way to use these or dispose of them.

Yellowpages Marketing Ripoff

I am sure the Yellowpages has been doing this for years but I wanted to warn small business owners as they open their mail in the next few days as I had two other people mention this to me today unsolicited.

I have no idea if this is being done because they are desperate to sell paper print ads or if it is something they have always done or if it is something new they are trying for another reason  but as a person who sells advertising to companies I took major offense to the way that the Yellowpages sent their mailing asking for payment on an "order" I had made. Now keep in mind I have had the Yellowbook people visit but never the Yellowpages and have done posts about the Yellowbook visit. But in this case, and I threw it away or I would post it verbatim, the Yellowpages sent a mailing out too, as far as I can tell, all businesses in the area and I am sure a much larger area than that, asking for payment for an ad order I had placed....Ummm never placed.....

Well guess what, there was no order, by any of the other people I talked to either. Now from the marketing side I can see what they are trying accomplish, I am not naive and I do understand the value in positioning a letter to make it sound like the customer must sign and act. I get it!!!

But also, the goodwill that gets dimished by positioning like this, basically by either a) feeding on a customers lack of knowledge of marketing techniques, or b) a customers lack of time to read through what was sent, is just sickening to me.

The first person that mentioned this to me today is a very smart businessman, a long term restaurant owner who has seen it all and he almost signed it and sent it back, in effect agreeing to an order he never placed but he would of been held responsible for. Why, because he was busy and did not have the time to review it in detail, luckily he had sat it aside and decided to review it later.

After he read it he figured it out quickly that the letter was basically saying that buying send this you are agreeing, etc but in reality no order had been placed. Imagine how many people actually sign this and just send it back because they do not understand the way this scam is setup. And I do consider it just that, a scam. It preys on those that do not have the time or understanding of what is being pulled over on them. Sure I know these people should be responsible enough to watch the contracts and orders their business signs but when something like this is received from an authoritative company many small shops will sign and move on. It just is what it is.

Well, it sucks, it is wrong, and I can tell you as more people realize that the amount of print Yellowpages being actually used is dropping at a faster rate everyday people will stand for it less.

If you want to quit receiving the Yellowpages visit YellowPagesGoesGreen.org. I do not get paid for anything on that site but did help them with some of the marketing for it, to tell you the level of interest by people to know longer receive the print Yellowpages they had 165,000 sign ups in one year with ZERO paid advertising....