Are Yellow Page Ads Worth the Cost?

I'm designing a marketing campaign for my church. I have a budget of
just $20,000 per year. I will definately use direct mail, personal
selling, and PR strategies in the mix. Should I purchase a Yellow
Page ad as well or would I be better served allocating that money to
other mediums?

"Scott Palmer" <sp8264@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:boulvq0cc@enews4.newsguy.com...
>
> I'm designing a marketing campaign for my church. I have a budget of
> just $20,000 per year. I will definately use direct mail, personal
> selling, and PR strategies in the mix. Should I purchase a Yellow
> Page ad as well or would I be better served allocating that money to
> other mediums?

It would be pretty tough to answer that question about an unknown church in
an unknown city and a marketing campaign for an unknown purpose.

--
McWebber
No email replies read
If someone tells you to forward an email to all your friends
please forget that I'm your friend.

Yellow Pages work very well for us, but you have to be listed first in the
heading of interest. My suggestion is to ask those who are in the population
you are interested in targeting...where do you go to find (church
information?)?
Best,
Kevin.
1-800-therapist.com

Scott Palmer wrote:

> I'm designing a marketing campaign for my church. I have a budget of
> just $20,000 per year. I will definately use direct mail, personal
> selling, and PR strategies in the mix. Should I purchase a Yellow
> Page ad as well or would I be better served allocating that money to
> other mediums?

phone book ads suck! they actually suck! (suck money out of you every
month for 1 year...you MIGHT be lucky to get decent business from it).

Search engine work on our website has been a MUCH better use of time,
cost MUCH less money and has brought us A LOT more work than the phone
book ads. The first client we got from out website paid for the 1 year
of the phone book ad in 3 months worth of business.

Get a good web designer to make a website (since this is a church you
probably have good chance of getting non-profit rates.) Then get good
SEO (search engine optimization) consultant to work on your website.
The whole thing should probably cost you less than $3k for the whole
year for a decent site (maybe 5-10 pages). A quarter page ad in the
phone book is around $10k for the baby-bells for 1 year...IF you sign up
at the last minute when their rates are dropped by more than half.
Usually it's around $1500 (at least) per month for a quarter page!! At
least these are the prices in major cities......

If you're in a small town in an obscure place on the map of the
USA....then maybe phone books might work. In major cities the phone
books are a crap shoot.

"McWebber" <mcwebber@my-deja.com> wrote:
> "Scott Palmer" <sp8264@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I'm designing a marketing campaign for my church. I have
> > a budget of just $20,000 per year. I will definately use
> > direct mail, personal selling, and PR strategies in the mix.
> > Should I purchase a Yellow Page ad as well or would I be
> > better served allocating that money to other mediums?
>
> It would be pretty tough to answer that question about an
> unknown church in an unknown city and a marketing campaign
> for an unknown purpose.

Yes. More information is needed. Please read "How to get good advice from
m.b.m.m. v.1.01" that's regularly posted in this newsgroup and follow its
guidelines. For you see, I'd advise a different marketing strategy for a
church in a small community than a major city. I'd also advise a different
marketing strategy based on what its religion is and what its competitors
are. Also, what the current demographics of its congregation and who it
wants to attract will also grealy influence what marketing should be done.

Scott Jensen
--
Peer-to-peer networking (a.k.a. file-sharing) is entertainment's future.
If you'd like to know why, read the white paper at the link below.
http://www.nonesuch.org/p2prevolution.pdf

"pheonix1t" <dangeru98dousdt@ATsbcglobal.DOTnet> wrote in message
news:bp0dep02jg6@enews4.newsguy.com...
>
> If you're in a small town in an obscure place on the map of the
> USA....then maybe phone books might work. In major cities the phone
> books are a crap shoot.

If you're in a small town in an obscure place then chances are word of mouth
or the first church fair or carnival will do a lot more for a church than
the Yellow Pages ever will.

--
McWebber
No email replies read
If someone tells you to forward an email to all your friends
please forget that I'm your friend.

On 13 Nov 2003 01:15:38 GMT, sp8264@yahoo.com (Scott Palmer) wrote:

>
>I'm designing a marketing campaign for my church. I have a budget of
>just $20,000 per year. I will definately use direct mail, personal
>selling, and PR strategies in the mix. Should I purchase a Yellow
>Page ad as well or would I be better served allocating that money to
>other mediums?

In that a church is not a consumable product with a market cycle that
you change all the time, but represents a life event or isolated
occurance, it would fall into the category of offerings which serve a
circumstantial market. In essence, since it is the individuals
non-predictable circumstance which predicates whether they are looking
for church, then whatever form of promotion you do, must be in place
prior to that circumstance occurring which brings them into the
market.

For circumstantial markets your promotion must be accessable 24/7/365.
Institutional and directory advertising (or at a minimum listing) play
a key role in circumstantial markets. The yellow pages are one form,
but there are others such as the Religion secion of your local paper,
signage, Welcome Wagon, town maps, the local chamber of connerce, etc.
Basically you need to be in place anywhere someone who is looking for
a church would refer to.

Since the yellow pages will usually list you for free, both alpha and
by denomination, you may find better uses for your money than a
display ad, though a boldface listing is usually a good investment.

Beyond your insititutional promotion, publicity releases about church
activities and events can be hugely effective. Let the world know that
a lot is happening and that the members of your parish are active and
doing things. This should be an on-going effort.

Another key component is netwoking with the community. Bring
activities into your church, and export your church into local
businesses and community events and organizations, parades, festivals,
etc. Open your hall to the scouts, charitable programs. Assist in
fundrasing, not just for your church, but other causes to benefit the
community.

Adopt some of these steps and you will find that $20,000 will go a
long way and yield a positive result.

Sherman
Whipple, Sargent & Associates
Strategic Services
Research Curriculum Development for Business Intelligence
http://www.whipplesargent.com

At the next religous ceremony -get the Preacher to ask the congregation to
think about marketing the church and next week each person to put 3
marketing ideas on a sheet of paper into the box that will be left at the
back of the church - Praise the Lord.
Jimbo www.xviper.com




I'm designing a marketing campaign for my church. I have a budget of
> just $20,000 per year. I will definately use direct mail, personal
> selling, and PR strategies in the mix. Should I purchase a Yellow
> Page ad as well or would I be better served allocating that money to
> other mediums?