When you read your Yellow Pages contract you will see initials for various items success as BLN, WBLN, WFL, and ABLN. Most of these items cost between $ 7 and $34. Do you

ever ask your sales Rep “what the heck is this?” The reason you don’t ask is because the item only cost $ 30 dollars, and you had it last year, and you don’t want to appear stupid asking questions about $ 30.. The problem is that these unidentified items can add thousands of dollars to your advertising bill.

When you read your Yellow Pages contract ask the publisher’s sales Rep what all the initials are and why do you need them. In almost all cases you don’t need them because there is a cheaper or free version available.

White page listing (WBLN) – If you have a business phone you are entitled to a free listing of your business name, address and phone number in the White Pages and the Yellow Pages.

You will be told that it’s much easier for your customer to read a bold listing (BLN) and it only cost $31 than the semi bold free listing. Unfortunately it is not $31 but $372. The $31 is for one month but the contract is for a year. It is very clever the way the publishers show all costs on your contract by the month instead of by the year, even though the contract is for a year.

Ninety percent of all business name listings in the white pages are the free listings version and their customers seem to be able to find them. People read the white pages alphabetically and the bold print can actually be confusing.

White Feature Listing (WFL) – This is the super big print that you see in the white pages. A bold white page listing (WBLN) cost $31 a month while the super bold (WFL) listings cost $90 a month or $1080 for the year. Can you imagine paying $1080 for something that is free, yet thousands of businesses have WFL’s.

Anchor Bold Listing and Number (ABLN) – If you purchase a display ad you receive a free Incolumn listing in the same heading the display ad appears. You will be told that it’s much easier for the customer to read your name if it is bold. An anchor listing is the business name, address and phone number and where your ad is located (see our ad on page 456). The price of a bold anchor listing can ranges from $30 to $114 a month or you can get it for free (ARL). As my son would say Duuuh.

Buy the largest display ad -All advertisers are told that the largest display and will receive the most calls. However research shows that the ad that contains the most pertinent information that the consumer is looking for, in an easy-to-read format, will receive the most calls regardless of size. Spend your money on ad design and copywriting instead of Yellow Pages ad space and you can reduce your advertising costs by 50% or more.

Process color ads – The Yellow Pages sales Rep will bring in a sample ad for your business that looks like it’s straight out of Time magazine. Unfortunately a process color ad adds 40% to the cost over a black and yellow or spot color ad. There is no evidence in any study of Yellow Pages advertising that a process color ad increases customer calls.

Businesses that have followed my advice have been able to reduce their Yellow Pages costs by as much as 50%. Take charge of your yellow page program, and examine every item on your contract.

Yellow Page Advertising is in just the right place for your company to be found. With the stiff competitions of the market you are in now, it is time you to consider the benefits of effective

Yellow Page Advertising gives you the perfect timing to spell out your benefits headline to your identified market and your soon-to-be clients. This is an opportunity for you to create an impact and talk about your business – how long have you been here, the need that you are answering, the benefits they can get and the associations you have with others that will highly support your trustworthiness in the market.

Yellow Page Ads are placed from the largest to the smallest. This means that categories start from the full page ad, then to the three fourth sized ad and so on. And since it is also seniority-based, the sooner your ad is submitted, the better off you are. Plan to get the size that would fit to your need and get a results oriented ad designed for you right away. This will give you the chance to be in the first list.

You don’t have to invest effort and time to create colorful designs in-house for your advertising needs. The circus in the advertising battles has created an illusion that lots of color splashed around will bring you great returns. However, scientific surveys have been conducted year after year and it yielded the same results. Colors do not guarantee better results than non-colored. So, grab the chance to get effective Yellow Page advertising now. It is one area of your advertising that can be focused on once, and the results pour in all year when done right. Clearly a benefit for you.

Yellow Page advertising gives you a focused infomercial-like message, to a focused group of people at a time when they are focused on purchasing. The advertiser will too often spoil this opportunity with a “Throw everything at the wall – and see what sticks” approach. Fact is, most people see the endless list of everything a company claims to do and they just look elsewhere for solutions to their problems.