In a recent survey done by Gallup for SuperMedia (the people that run the phone books for Verizon) it's been shown that the number of people using the white pages dropped from 25% to just 11% of all households.  They will be ending delivery of the white pages unless you request it.

I read this with interest because it reminded me of our recent experiance with the yellow pages advertising.  We had an ad in the yellow pages as long as I can remember.  20 or so years ago the usual annual increases started getting out of hand and we reduced the size of our ad from something like a 1/10th page size to a single column 2" tall ad.

Things went along fine for a while then the increases became ridiculous.  Every time renewal came up there would be charts and info claiming how everyone on the planet used the yellow pages.  As the Internet grew in the 90s I could see from the server referral stats that more and more people were finding us through search engines.  All this was in the pre-google days too.  I would ask new customers how they found us and over the past 10 years the number who pick the yellow pages as a source has dropped to zero.

The straw that broke this camel's back was this past year they (SuperMedia) would no longer contact us at renewal time.  We received a letter informing us of the new (higher) price and that unless we contacted them it would automatically go into effect for another year.  They gave us 5 days!  Not a good way to retain customer trust and loyalty.  I was pretty annoyed so I called them up and cancelled the ad until a representative would contact us about options.  They never did.  I wasn't the only one either.  When I compared this year's book to one from a few years ago many shops pulled their ads as well.  Phone books may still be vital for large companies with higher profit margins and a wide market area but small shops serving people within a several mile radius have to rethink things.

Where do new customers come from?  Outside of word of mouth and a large store front sigh the big dog is by far google.  Bing and Yahoo! are next.  Far behind are the default ISP search engines that are powered by one of the larger companies anyway.  With the growth in smart phone use more younger customers are finding us that way.  I can see now how people are using smart phones to do local searches as they are out and about.  They do quick short keyword searches, often something like "bakery, cake, zip code" then they get a very basic search result list with the closest shops.  THAT is the new target customer block for business.

So what to do if you run a small bakery?  Phone book ads will become ever more expensive and fewer and fewer bakeries (and customers) use them.  Customers will break down into 2 basic groups.  The first wants as much detail and info as possible as they research for specialty products like party and wedding cakes.  The second are those looking to find your phone # quick from home or on the go so for them even the most basic website is a must!

As small bakers we can either continue to shell out absurdly high phone book ad rates and pass that along to our customers or leave the horse and buggy days behind and embrace newer and vastly more cost effective ways of reaching out to those looking for us.  I'm betting MY customers well appreciate my efforts to save them money.