Legal Ads Ring Up Phone Book Profit
Updated: Despite all the innovative advertising options that today’s high-tech world has created, one form of law firm marketing is still the gold standard for many. It is the old-fashioned phone book.
Coveted ads on the front and back covers, in particular, represent money in the bank for law firm advertisers, according to the Buffalo Law Journal. The problem is, hanging onto premier spots even on less-lusted-after interior advertising pages can be a challenge, given the popularity of the phone book among law firm advertisers. Hence, directory publishers have gotten creative about putting legal advertising in other highly visible spots, such as across the top or bottom edges of the phone book’s pages.
“Consumers don’t think of it as advertising,” says Greg Garrick, Talking Phone Book’s vice president of marketing. “Where do you go when you’re actively looking and willing to buy? You go to the Yellow Pages. You don’t wait for the TV or the radio to run an ad.”
His company and Verizon Yellow Pages, which also publishes a hard-copy telephone directory, estimate that every dollar spent by law firms on such advertising can return some $15 or even more.
Some attorneys, however, view such claims with skepticism. Among them is blogger Kevin O’Keefe.
“Some lawyers may find advertising in yellow pages effective, he writes on Real Lawyers Have Blogs. “(B)ut it’s hard to believe we went to law school to get edged out by pizza and auto parts on the list of the biggest yellow page advertisers.”
(Updated at 5:43 p.m., central time.)
