A Greensboro plumbing company owner walked us through his marketing budget last month. He was spending $2,400 a month on a quarter-page Yellow Pages ad and tracking exactly four phone calls from it in the prior 90 days. His website, which cost him nothing to update, drove 38 calls in the same window.
The Numbers Triad Owners Need to See
According to a 2011 Burke study, the percentage of households using printed Yellow Pages dropped from 76 percent in 2005 to 30 percent in 2011. In the Piedmont Triad, that drop has been even more pronounced because Greensboro and Winston-Salem skew toward earlier broadband adoption than the state average. Most homeowners under 50 in the Triad now reach for Google before they reach for a phone book.
Where Triad Customers Are Actually Searching
- →Google search: Queries like "plumber Greensboro NC" or "HVAC repair Winston-Salem" return local map results above the regular listings.
- →Mobile search: Smartphone usage in North Carolina passed 50 percent of adults in 2011. Triad customers are searching from their cars and driveways.
- →Online directories: Yelp, Citysearch, and the new Google Places listings now drive more new customer calls than print directories in most service categories.
What to Do With the Money You Save
Take the dollars you would have spent on Yellow Pages and redirect them in this order. First, claim and optimize your Google Places listing. Second, get your business added to the top 10 to 15 local directories that feed search engine data. Third, run a small geo-targeted Google AdWords campaign for your highest-margin services. A High Point roofer who shifted $1,500 a month from print directories to local search saw monthly call volume more than double inside one quarter.
As a Greensboro digital marketing agency, we have seen the same pattern across legal, medical, and home services. The phone book is not coming back. The question is whether you reinvest now or wait until your competitors own the local search results.