Think Basis It's Good For Business

Since I pride myself on not holding back my opinion, no matter how controversial, I’m just going to come out and say it: the phone book may have outlasted its usefulness. I know, I know, but before you get all huffy about how much you love selecting a business based on arbitrarily choosing a company with a sleek looking ad and a reliable sounding name, at least take a second to hear me out.

Yes, I too love the idea of conveniently being able to pull up a list of all the relevant businesses in a specific category. However, rather than just randomly browsing through a directory of names and settling on one that seems good enough, I’d prefer to have my results offered up with just a little more information than what the company chose to print in their ad. Imagine if you were somehow able to not only see all the plumbers in your area, but also simultaneously browse through reviews from some of their previous customers. That sort of information might be kind of helpful if you were trying to figure out who’s best suited to fix your perpetually clogged toilet.

Fortunately, if you’ve used a computer, a cell phone, or even have a single friend under the age of 50, chances are you’re well aware that the informational utopia I just laid out has already been happening for the past few years. The fact is, if you already know exactly what business you want to call, a quick search by name is considerably easier than pawing through a one-thousand-plus page tome. And, if you don’t know who you want to call, then scanning through pages and pages of variously sized ads is hardly the most effective way to narrow down your options. I’d say I can’t remember the last time I picked up a phone book if it wasn’t for the fact that I vaguely recall taking the freshly delivered plastic bag of phone books directly from the front door to the dumpster sometime in mid-July. The last time I actually opened one? Well, that’s another story.

Judging from a recent thread on reddit, it’s pretty obvious I’m not the only one who feels this way. Not only have phone books outlasted their usefulness from a consumer standpoint, but from a marketing standpoint they rank somewhere between burning money and just printing out millions of colorful pamphlets you never intend to pass out. People aren’t looking for your business in the phone book, they’re looking for your business online.

Unless you’re selling mechanical stairlifts to senior citizens, it’s hard to make a case for traditional phone book advertising (and that’s still making the assumption that your geriatric clientele doesn’t have a single relative who loves them enough to help out with a quick online search.)

Granted, there have to be some people who are still using phone books. I mean, I did see someone using a pay phone a couple weeks ago and it totally blew my mind that not only did that mean pay phones still exist, but this guy actually needed one. However, when I took an informal poll at my local coffee shop by asking if anyone had used a phone book in the past year, I was met with nothing more than a bunch of blank stares before everyone went back to working on their laptops and texting on their iPhones.

It should tell you something when the most recent data you can get on Yellow Pages usage is from 2007, and the media kit cited stat that “About 45 percent of adults turn to the print Yellow Pages each week” is based on average usage over the past 20 years. These stats hardly offer a compelling argument that print yellow pages haven’t already spiraled into obsolescence.

I’m curious to hear what other people think on this one. Does anyone have any clients that are still seeing decent results from the Yellow Pages? Or have phone books joined the ranks of VHS tapes as something that’s long outlasted its usefulness?

Basically, what I’m wondering is, are phone books just on their way out, or have they already died off completely?

Almost anyone who has consulted with a large number of different companies will quickly tell you there are people who “get it” and people who don’t. The unfortunate reality is that a large number of very intelligent people are still anchored exclusively to some of the more traditional marketing strategies, and either fail to understand–or see value in–even the most basic online marketing. Oftentimes the end result is a company that continues to throw money at increasingly less successful marketing efforts, while ignoring online opportunities that could be delivering a much greater ROI. The following are a few of the basic approaches I’ve witnessed firsthand from different companies when it comes to their online marketing efforts.

“Our product can only be sold by people”

For some products this might be true to an extent; however, even if the deal is never going to be closed online there’s an excellent chance your client will be visiting your website at some point during the sales process.

One particular company I worked with was convinced that their solutions could only be sold by sales reps, and neglected to make anything over $350 available to their clients for purchase online. Instead, they opted for an ambiguously worded “subscriptions starting from as low as $100 per month” and a phone number for people to call if they were interested. Right away, this alienates anyone looking to purchase during an odd hour, when the call center simply can’t be staffed. Secondly, anytime you make a statement like “from as low as…” you’re starting to anchor your prospective buyer to a dollar amount. And, when the interested party finds out that his price is actually going to be roughly three or four times the amount you anchored him to, the value in your solution is going to rapidly decrease.

Because the company was absolutely convinced their product needed to be sold over the phone rather than online, all of their marketing was centered around getting people to call in. Not surprisingly, this resulted in a large number of calls from people that were not qualified buyers, and an equal amount of email correspondence from people looking to clarify a simple pricing structure so they could determine whether it was going to be worth their time to call in the first place.

The reality of the situation was that for this particular company, their product wasn’t something that could only be sold by people. In fact, it was a fairly straightforward product. The issue was they were stuck in a model that forced customers to interact with a sales rep rather than allowing them to do their own research.

Anytime you’re working with a website that forces someone to make a phone call before completing the transaction, you need to ask yourself if the step is really necessary. What is the compelling reason to keep the person from purchasing on their own? And, more importantly, am I losing out on business because of it?

“We need to be online…”

On the opposite end from the “stubbornly old-fashioned” is the brick and mortar company that has been successfully doing business for the past X number of years and is simply trying their best to keep up with the times. These are the clients that I sometimes feel bad for, as they’re often good people that know how to run their business, know that times are changing and they need to be proactive about their online marketing if they want to stay competitive, but just don’t have any idea how to go about implementing a strategy or gauging a campaign’s success.

These are the poor business owners that end up subscribing to services that “guarantee a top 10 ranking in 100s of search engines.” Although you could easily say it’s a buyer beware scenario, they are typically small businesses in which the owner is paying out of their own pocket for whatever services they receive, and a snake oil solution with a minimal monthly cost is typically very appealing.

One company I spoke with had been working with a service for six months that was geared toward boosting their incoming leads for DUIs in a very specific geographic area. During that time, the monthly service fees continued to add up, and not a single lead was actually attributed to any of the work done by the company they had hired. All of their leads continued to be almost entirely through word of mouth and from their more traditional advertising.

For companies like this the key is to take the time to educate yourself before you commit to a long term contract. Make sure you’re clear on what the deliverables are and whether or not you’re being sold something that can actually lead to increased business. Also, if it seems like too good a deal, you might want to do a little more research before you dive right in.

“SEO = Profits”

Somewhere in between the two previous categories is the company that is educated enough to know a little bit about how the search engines work, and has even seen a reasonable amount of success already. Often these can be some of the most difficult clients to work with because they sometimes get stuck on whatever buzzword they just read an article on and fail to step back and look at the big picture. If they just read an article on social media, then that’s what they need. Never mind that it’s a local jewelry shop that does about 95 percent of their business in store. Social media is what’s hot, so they need to refocus their efforts on that.

One particular company’s CEO was practically obsessed with adding money to their SEO budget. The company had been able to generate some huge amounts of traffic and he was convinced that continuing to spend more money on SEO was going to continue to boost their online revenue. However, from listening to his explanations of what this type of strategy entailed, it became clear he didn’t completely understand what he was spending his money on and how it would actually impact the success of his company. He already had a solid hold on the keywords he needed in order to be successful, and his money would have been much better spent on tweaking the site to increase conversions.

If you fall into this group, it is important that you continue to critically examine each solution that’s brought to you, and not get wrapped up in the latest and greatest thing. If your company sells adult diapers then maybe a company blog isn’t the thing for you, even if you just heard that all the cool companies are doing it. Similarly, just because you’ve had a solid amount of success with one thing, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t constantly be looking for other things to improve and for the strategy that will give you the most bang for your buck.

“We always want to learn”

The last category is considerably harder to peg, but you know them when you see ‘em. They’re the companies that have a solid handle on what they’re doing and are constantly working on ways to improve. They’re typically the industry leaders or the up and comers that are quickly gaining a competitive edge. These are the people you talk with that end up teaching you as much as you teach them, and they tend to be relatively few and far between.

However, there are plenty of them out there, and there’s nothing holding back anyone from joining their ranks if they put in their time, educate themselves, and always have an open mind.

Not all of my ideas are good. In fact, every now and again they’ve been known to fall into the “let’s just go burn some money” category of foolishness. That’s the slot reserved for glorified pet projects with a minimal chance of providing even a marginal return on investment. Fortunately, I’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded by people that are willing (if not suspiciously eager) to tell me when my ideas are absolute “shit on a shingle.”

Obviously nobody really wants to hear their fantastic new idea might not be marketable, useful, or even possible. But, having a core group of friends and colleagues to keep things in perspective can be absolutely invaluable during those instances when your judgment is clouded by excitement or personal bias. As tempting as it is to surround yourself with people who praise everything you do, it rarely brings about a positive result.

The following is a handy chart illustrating my point:

As the number of people who politely agree with you goes up, so too does your confidence, resulting in an increased likelihood of executing your own bad idea. The end result is a false confidence surrounding a plan that should have been either tweaked, improved on, or nixed entirely if you’d been open to criticism.

With that in mind, here are a few simple reasons why you should try to encourage an open dialogue and embrace whatever feedback you get even when you strongly disagree.

1) It forces you to defend your own opinion

Regardless of whether you agree with someone’s criticisms, actively listening to their concerns and engaging in a dialogue forces you to articulate some of the finer points you might have initially glossed over when you were formulating your idea. If you find yourself unable to clearly explain how you formed your opinion in the first place, it’s usually a good indicator that you need to take a step back and do some more deliberating before rushing forward with any major decisions.

2) It can provide an unemotional perspective

It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of a particular project and fail to notice that not everyone shares your enthusiasm. Although you might be totally amped about turning the internet on its ass with your new search engine that only delivers one result, you can use the blank stares and “stupid questions” you get every time you tell someone else about your idea as a barometer for how successful it’s likely to be.

3) You often identify additional problem areas that could otherwise go overlooked

Sometimes when you’re riding the wave of an awesome idea it’s easy to overlook the core business questions you still need to identify when considering a new project. Basic questions like “Who are our competitors?”, “Is this marketable?” and “What is the ROI?” Having other people around to remind you that these are important things to consider can save you from jumping to action before you’ve done the necessary research to build a foundation for success.

4) It keeps you grounded

Lastly, even if you’re “the boss” and the decision rests in your hands, it provides a great reality check that you’re still working toward making the most informed decisions possible. If you’ve done your job and surrounded yourself with people whose opinions you value and trust, then during instances when you’re met with almost universal opposition it should certainly give you reason to pause.

This isn’t to say you need to tailor your every decision to what’s most popular among the group. It’s just that no matter how wrapped up you get in your own opinions and ideas, you can always benefit from listening to what others have to say. As much fun as it is to berate people who disagree with you and tell them they “just don’t get it,” it’s usually not overly productive.

If you’re not convinced, feel free to tell me that you think I’m full of shit. I will listen politely, defend my position, and then silently hate you forever.