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Dan Pinnington*

Chances are you already have an advertisement in one or more yellow pages directories, and you probably think you have a good ad. However, odds are your ad can be significantly improved. As you will see from this article, creating a great yellow pages ad is not as simple and straightforward as you probably first assumed. Size and colour are only two of many issues to consider when creating a good ad that will bring in new clients.

Gaining a better understanding of how and why your yellow page ad is working (or not working) is essential in two ways. Firstly, it can help you get more clients from an improved ad, and secondly, at a higher level, it can help improve all your marketing efforts as you must go through essentially the same process to create the marketing content and messaging for any other medium.

When people read magazines and newspapers, or watch television and listen to radio, they focus on content other than the advertising. In many cases, they simply tolerate the advertising. Not so in the yellow pages advertising. When people come to the yellow pages they are focusing on advertising content, and they are contemplating or have already decided to make a purchase. They are now looking for direction on where to go to make that purchase. Yellow pages ads must be constructed specifically for the yellow pages or they won’t work. Ads that don’t work will fail to attract calls from potential clients.

Most law firms do not put appropriate time and attention into creating their yellow pages ads. With their eye on costs, many firms spend most of their time debating about the relative size of the ad and whether or not to include various coloured elements. To create an ad that works, that is one that will cause people to call you or your firm, you need to spend more time understanding how best to construct your ad. To do this, you have to work to gain a better understanding of:

• who your potential customers are;
• who your competitors are;
• which content works most powerfully;
• how to speak effectively to your audience;
• how you can prevail by marketing over, under, and around your competitors; and
• how to transform readers into callers.

At its simplest, you are trying to get people to call you by offering them exactly what they are looking for. Keep in mind that you go through similar steps to create just about every marketing message.

In the Effective Yellow Pages Advertising for Attorneys, A Complete Guide to Creating Winning Ads, published by the ABA Law Practice Management Section, Kerry Randall lists six key elements for creating high-performance ads. They are:

1. Strong headlines that command attention and engage readers.
2. A laser sharp focus; a willingness to ignore most readers.
3. Arresting, eye-captivating illustrations or photographs.
4. Clearly identifiable differences (from competitive advertisers).
5. Relevant copy (text) that covers less than 50 percent of the ad space.
6. Professional looking, clutter-free layouts.

Go get a copy of your current ad right now and review it to see how many of these six key elements it has.

The right ad helps to grab and engage potential clients. You want to make sure the ad is focused at delivering a message to a core group of the best potential clients. Don't create an ad that is bland and general so it can appeal to the broadest range of possible clients. The vast majority of firms do the latter. Remember, for long-term practice development, you want to focus on bringing in the best potential clients, not any and all clients, including marginal ones.

Arresting, eye-captivating illustrations or photographs also help to get the reader’s attention, and can help distinguish you from other ads on the same or nearby pages. By creating an ad with clearly identifiable differences you can make yourself stand out from other competitive advertisers. In any given area of law most ads have the same look and feel. To stand out, you must do something different. For simplicity and better presentation it is critical that your ad include relevant copy or text that covers less than 50 percent of the ad space. It is also important that your ad be professional looking and clutter-free. This is often difficult to do as yellow pages sales people make money by encouraging people to include more words, colour and graphics in their ads.

As you are now hopefully starting to appreciate, creating a great yellow pages ad is not simple and straightforward. Colour and size alone don't matter. There are numerous other things to consider. To improve your current ad, review the Randall book. It is an excellent workbook that reviews in detail all the things you need to consider to create a yellow pages advertisement that will translate into more telephone calls. To better appreciate the various issues you need to consider look at the following list of selected chapters from this book:

• Rule #1: Give Your Potential Customers What They Want (Chpt. 5)
• Rule #2: To Be Noticed, Stand Apart (Chpt. 6)
• Your Foundation to Profitability: Research (Chpt. 8)
• Focusing on Your Customer (Chpt. 10)
• Creating the Market Leader—You (Chpt. 11)
• Words Count! Edit. Edit. Edit. (Chpt. 12)
• Call Me! Building Your Power Headline (Chpt. 13)
• Create the Best Ad in the Directory: Selecting a Top-Notch Design Team (Chpt. 14)
• Leading the Eye: Getting Readers to Call You (Chpt. 16)
• Using the Yellow Pages’ Most Powerful Tool: Emotions (Chpt. 18)
• Why Your Ad Should Talk to Women (or Men) (Chpt. 19)
• Choosing Your Reputation: Creating a Memorable Slogan (Chpt. 20)
• How About Fax Numbers, Zip Codes, E-mail Addresses, and Web Sites? (Chpt. 21)
• Good Ads, Bad Ads: Eight Examples (Chpt. 23)
• What About the "Other" Telephone Books? Core Directories, Overlays,
• Community Directories, and Specialty Books (Chpt. 25)
• What About In-Column Ads and Guides? (Chpt. 27)
• The Miracle in the White Pages (Chpt. 28)
• Where Is Value? Color, or Size and Position? (Chpt. 29)
• When Not to Advertise in the Yellow Pages (Chpt. 30)

Undoubtedly, this book will pay for itself within a few days of your new and improved yellow pages advertisement hitting the streets. It will pay extra dividends as working through and creating a better yellow pages ad will also help you gain a deeper and broader understanding of all your marketing practices, and to build a better master marketing plan.

* Dan Pinnington, LawPRO, (416) 598-5800, dan.pinnington@lawpro.ca.