Dial-up Service

How many times, when flipping through the Yellow Pages for a particular service, do you automatically choose the company with the largest, brightest ad? When browsing the big yellow directory for pizza, dry cleaning – or lawn care services – eye-catching, informative ads win the prize.

Jack Robertson knows this, and he has put this knowledge to good use throughout 25 years of business. “Referrals are everybody’s best source of new business,” said the president of Jack Robertson Lawn Care, Springfield, Ill. “The Yellow Pages ad reinforces that.”

MAKE THE CALL. Tapping into this often overlooked source of new leads – creating an advertisement citing experience, quality service and recognition – led Robertson to win the Professional Lawn Care Association’s (PLCAA) 2001 Best Yellow Pages Advertisement Award at the Green Industry Expo in Tampa, Fla. PLCAA initially offered the award in 2000, after brainstorming about unique ways to recognize association members, identified Amy DeFavre, member services coordinator, PLCAA, Marietta, Ga. “We wanted to come up with a different way to recognize our members,” she related.

After partnering with the Yellow Pages Publisher’s Association, PLCAA implemented the contest, awarding the winner with a plaque and $100 toward the next year’s Yellow Pages ad. Entries for the award went up in 2001, with Robertson one of the interested parties. “We work hard at our ad – it’s not something we throw out every year without any thought,” he stressed. “We think about the ad, worry about the placement and think we have a great ad as far as the Yellow Pages go. So, as soon as the contest was announced, we entered.”

Although the contest is new, Robertson Lawn Care’s use of this advertising medium is not. Robertson recognized that he cannot rely exclusively on the Yellow Pages ads for sales leads, but any sales boosts they provide make a difference.

“Yellow Pages are a necessary evil, if you will,” he joked. “It’s not anything that I really love to do, but it does have its place. We try to look at other ads around us and make it stand out as much as we can.” Since the company devotes approximately 10 to 15 percent of its advertising budget to the Yellow Pages ads, it’s important to put a great deal of effort into the ad’s efficacy, Robertson explained.

Robertson added that he features two advertisements into the yellow pages: one about quarter-page size on the first page of the lawn services information, and another, smaller ad next to the alphabetical listing for Robertson Lawn Care. The large ad includes a photo of Robertson, contact information, the fact that credit cards are accepted, a list of services and a “25th Anniversary” logo – all elements that establish the company as experienced and professional, Robertson pointed out.

In addition, Robertson is trying something new with this year’s ad. He set up a separate phone number, which only appears in the Yellow Pages ad, so the company can track the number of leads generated from the ad. “We’re having it monitored, and from that, we’ll see what cost benefit the ad offers,” he offered. “We haven’t been through a spring season with that aspect yet, but we’ll know after this coming spring.”

Of course, Yellow Pages ads offer their own unique challenges, Robertson added. “It’s very expensive, and then you have no control over where you are going to end up in the book,” he noted. “If you have a huge problem with the ad, or you don’t like it, it’s there for 12 months.” In other words, while other forms of advertising can be tweaked along the way, Yellow Pages appearances are set in stone – for a year, at least.

However, Robertson will continue to use the ad as just another component in his entire sales package. “A lot of people will call from the Yellow Pages,” he said. “They’ll see your name somewhere else, but the Yellow Pages is certainly one of the places to get your phone number – it looks like our other forms of advertising so it all fits together.”  

For more information on the 2002 PLCAA Best Yellow Pages Advertisement award, visit www.plcaa.org. – Kristin Mohn

The author is Assistant Editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine.