There are many ways of advertising your business, but one of the most cost effective is by using traditional and new directory listing services:

  • Printed directories – publications such as The BT Phone Book are used by local and national customers
  • Online directories – enable consumers to search for businesses in geographical locations by business name or sector via sites such as smilelocal.com, moreuk.com, thephonebook.com and hundreds of specialist trade and professions portals
  • Online search tools – help businesses get themselves found via search engine results such as Google, Yahoo and Bing

Some people think traditional directory listings such as printed or online directories are a dying trend, but research shows that consumers still rely on printed directories to search for local services such as solicitors, florists and garage services. In fact, 38%* of customers searching for businesses such as a local garage service will reach for a printed directory first!

And it’s not just printed directories such as The BT Phone Book which are being used effectively to help businesses get noticed and generate new business. Research shows that 34%* of people looking for florists search online as their first port of call.

So which media should you use – print or online? The answer is a bit of both! And the good news is that there are a number of free services out there for businesses to take advantage of so it doesn’t have to cost the earth.

  • Printed and Online Search Directories: such as The BT Phone Book allow businesses one free listing, with the opportunity to display their business more prominently for a small charge
  • Web presence: the more web presence a company has, the more likely a customer will find them… which is why using social media such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs and forums all help in addition to directory listings and having an amazing website!
  • Online Search Marketing: businesses can help themselves get noticed online simply by maximising their online presence so that potential customers are pushed to them rather than the business having to pull customers in
  • Key words: the more times relevant key words associated with a business appear on the web, the more likely it is that a customer will see that business name in online search results via search engines such as Google

* AMR Local Search Summit April 2009