Thou Shall Seek Out and Spread Out

I know that the yel­low pages’ peo­ple will hate me for this, but your yel­low pages’ ad, although an essen­tial part of your entire mar­ket­ing machine, doesn’t have to be of a large size, in color, promi­nently dis­played, or tied-​​in with other gim­micks that the yel­low pages sales­peo­ple have to offer. While nec­es­sary, the yel­low pages should only be used as sup­port systems.

The con­cept of this entire book is to teach you that cre­at­ing top-​​of-​​mind aware­ness (not “insti­tu­tional” adver­tis­ing) should be your main mar­ket­ing goal. When peo­ple have seen your ad, heard about you, or have a need for your ser­vices at any par­tic­u­lar time, your con­tact infor­ma­tion may or may not be avail­able to them at that par­tic­u­lar moment. There­fore, you want the yel­low pages to back you up and not use them as a full-​​blown mar­ket­ing medium.

Yel­low pages sales­peo­ple more than likely don’t have to sell you on the need to be in their direc­tory, but where they make their com­mis­sions is by mak­ing your trans­ac­tion as hefty as pos­si­ble by sell­ing you on size, color and other gim­micks. Quite frankly, you don’t need it! Your mere pres­ence is all that mat­ters. How­ever, there are some basic rules that you should follow.

The title of this com­mand­ment is: “Thou shall seek out (sup­port sys­tems) and spread out (among them).” Indeed, I’m a fer­vent believer in sup­port sys­tems since, when cre­at­ing top of mind aware­ness, your poten­tial clients may not nec­es­sar­ily need you at that moment, but they may do so later when your con­tact infor­ma­tion may not be avail­able to them.

Whether it’s local direc­to­ries, spe­cialty direc­to­ries, occupation-​​specific reg­istries, indus­try or trade direc­to­ries, yel­low pages, search engines, Inter­net direc­to­ries, or trade pub­li­ca­tions, you should seek them out and list your com­pany in as many of them as you can. The trick, how­ever, is to spread out. Essen­tially, being there (and being every­where) is all that matters.

Don’t be promi­nent in size or dis­play. You can have a small black-​​and-​​white tele­phone ad car­ry­ing the name of your com­pany, your tagline, what you do (your spe­cial­iza­tion), your “unique” prod­uct, and your free report offer.

How­ever, spread­ing out, espe­cially within a sin­gle direc­tory, is your best bet for higher vis­i­bil­ity. Be in as many loca­tions as pos­si­ble. For exam­ple, if you’re a hair­styl­ist spe­cial­iz­ing in house calls, your ad can say:

“Meg Kessler of ‘Scis­sors on Wheels’ is your in-​​house hair­cut­ter! Spe­cial­iz­ing in onsite spe­cial event hair man­age­ment and the cre­ator of ‘Hassle-​​Free Hair Job’. To see how I can make sure that your next event has a good hair day, or for a free copy of my report ‘Styles That Can Make or Break Your Next Pub­lic Pre­sen­ta­tion’, call right now at…”

Now, here’s the trick. The yel­low pages peo­ple might tell you to be in only one par­tic­u­lar loca­tion of their direc­tory. Don’t. Try to be in as many loca­tions that log­i­cally relate to your firm or your ser­vice, or that appeals to your market.

Your ad can be small but it should appear in as many sec­tions of the direc­tory as pos­si­ble. For instance, beyond the obvi­ous “Hair” sec­tion of the direc­tory, the pre­vi­ous ad can also appear in “Wed­dings,” “Event Plan­ning,” “Image Con­sul­tants,” “Mod­el­ing Agen­cies,” “Con­fer­ence Plan­ners,” “Color Con­sul­tants” even “Senior Cit­i­zen Ser­vices.” You get the picture.

This also applies to the Inter­net, with search engines and direc­to­ries like “Yahoo,” “Hot­Bot” and “Alta Vista.” You should not only try to be on as many of the major search engines as pos­si­ble, but also try to spread out as much as pos­si­ble among them using key­words that appeal to your market.

For instance, a search engine is one in which you con­duct a search based on a key­word — a word that you want the engine to search. It will scan their entire data­base and find as many web sites that con­tain your keyword.

You might reg­is­ter your home­page accord­ing to a spe­cific set of key­words, but if you reg­is­ter it under numer­ous key­words your hit-​​ratio will increase dra­mat­i­cally. Key­words don’t nec­es­sar­ily have to relate to your content.

Those that also indi­rectly relate to your con­tent — let alone to your firm, prod­uct, or ser­vice — should also be included. They should com­prise of any word that may be tied to ben­e­fits you pro­vide and your tar­get market.

For exam­ple, a baker spe­cial­izes in cook­ies. She not only bakes dif­fer­ent kinds of cook­ies but also cre­ates dif­fer­ent shapes, sizes, designs and arrange­ments with them. One of her many cre­ations are cookie bas­kets with bows and let­ter­ing for, among other things, wed­dings, bridal show­ers and baby show­ers. So what did she do? She reg­is­tered her page under “cook­ies,” “wed­dings,” “mar­riages,” “show­ers,” “baby,” “brides,” “grooms,” “party,” “cakes,” “church,” “gifts,” “fam­ily,” “sou­venirs,” “ideas,” “shop­ping,” etc.

Another sup­port sys­tem that is often ignored is the answer­ing machine. It should not be regarded as sim­ply being a means of tak­ing your calls and mes­sages. Turn it into a sup­port sys­tem as well. In fact, turn it into a sales­per­son work­ing for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Your mes­sage should invite peo­ple to do some­thing. That’s direct response in action! For instance, does your mes­sage invite peo­ple to just leave a mes­sage? Or does it invite them to place an order for your free report?

Tele­phone com­pa­nies usu­ally offer mul­ti­ple voice mail­box ser­vices, giv­ing the caller the abil­ity to either leave a gen­eral mes­sage or press a num­ber in order to leave a mes­sage for a spe­cific recip­i­ent in another mail­box. There’s also the option to choose the num­ber of boxes you wish to have on your phone. But a mail­box doesn’t need to be asso­ci­ated with an actual person.

Here’s a sam­ple mes­sage: “Hi! You’ve reached Craig Jones of ‘Invest­ment Mas­tery Inc.’, where peo­ple learn how to be wise with their wealth. If you wish to leave me a mes­sage, press 1. To order my free insider’s report, ‘Money-​​Making Magic: 8 Sure-​​Fire Strate­gies for Mak­ing Money in Stocks,’ press 2.”

Ulti­mately, the object of “seek out and spread out” is to use as many sup­port sys­tems as pos­si­ble. You want to be in front of your prospects often, but more impor­tantly when they decide to buy from you. In other words, spread your­self thin. Don’t be big. Be small But be everywhere!

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

• How to Capture and Captivate Attention
• The Real Problem With The Flaw of Attraction
• Two Shining Stars in an Age of Darkness
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