Yellow Pages Advertising Fading Fast

This post about the yellow pages "bleeding more money into online advertising" caught my eye this morning.

"Much like newspapers, print Yellow Pages will continue to bleed dollars to their various digital counterparts, from Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), to local search engines and combination search/listing services like ReachLocal and Yodle. Factors like an acceleration of the print "fade rate" and the looming recession will contribute to the onslaught."

This is in line with what I've been seeing in real estate marketing as well, and tells me that it's no different in other businesses.  The use of print advertising in it's various forms is dying and that rate at which it's dying is increasing year over year.

If you're reading this post, most likely you already know this and you're one of the ones that is already doing something about it.  If you're not, then you need to start thinking about how you're going to drive business to you in 2009 because likely it won't be the same way you've been driving business to yourself in past years.

So... Do you still use the Yellow Pages?  I'm curious how many people still use the yellow pages in their marketing plan and how many of you have completely given up on this archaic form of marketing.  If you are still using it, I'm guessing you're not still getting the results you were a few years ago.

Blog, list yourself in online directories, comment on other peoples blogs, become the local expert on your community, publish articles about your industry, if you are going to spend money on advertising do it in pay per click and CPM deals on larger portal sites that have mass traffic appeal already...

Make sure you're able to track your ads and the traffic they generate so you can see what kind of return you're getting from your ad spend.

This is all stuff that the yellow pages can not offer you and things you should expect from your advertising in this day and age.  Let's face it, that era is already over, it's time to do things more effectively, more cost efficiently and get more predictable results.

I value your comments, please tell me how you're marketing yourself in 2009.