High-Performance Yellow Page Advertising

The Six Key Elements
of High-Performance Yellow Page Ad Design.

Always focus on relevant copy (text) that covers less than 50% of your Yellow Page ad design.

Let's go back to the eye-tracking research from Perception Research Services. Their study concluded that advertising readers spend only 35% of there time reading your text, while the majority of their time with your Yellow Page ad (65%) is spent interacting with your Photos and/or illustrations.

Armed with this powerful information, why would you pack your ad with so much text that your potential customers are sent running for the next ad?

The more copy you pack in your ad, the less likely your ad is to get read. Some designers live and die by the white space. White space is important in some headings. Professional services like accounting, or attorneys should focus on white space to imply a sense of professionalism. In other categories like plumbing, and auto repair, white space can be helpful or hurtful depending on your target audience.

In any case, whatever your target audience is, text heavy ads are Yellow Page advertising suicide. Potential customers are looking for a company to meet there needs, not a dissertation on every last service you provide.

Text heavy ads also expect a lot from a reader. Potential customers will only pour through your mountain of info as a last resort. This means your ad is going to continually be the last one called, if it's called at all.

Your job is to simplify your potential clients quest for the goods and services they need. Make sure your copy is simple, and to the point. You don't want to leave them hanging, but it's equally unwise to overwhelm them with hundreds of features that don't meet their specific needs.