How much more business would you need to pay for the ad? One more case this year? A few more customers? If you're spending five, six or seven figures per year to buy the space, would you pay an extra few percent to supercharge it? To ensure your significant investment tangibly brings in the business?

Your current activities have gotten you where you are today. Wouldn't you spend a little more to take your practice to the next level? To double or triple your profitable new clients?

Don't hire an ad agency. Hire an ad.
Traditional advertising agencies can't make any money doing Yellow Pages ads.

Ad agencies are not paid by their clients, they receive a 15% commission on the price of the "ad buy." For example, an agency designs a campaign for a client and spends a million dollars of the client's money buying space in the magazines. The grateful magazines then kick back 15% ($150,000) to the agency. That's how the advertising industry works. Great creative from a reputable agency costs $50-100,000.

The Yellow Pages won't do it. They don't pay commissions to ad agencies, only to other industry insiders like Certified Marketing Representatives (CMRs). Most companies can't afford six-figure creative work, so when a Yellow Pages sales representative offers to do it for free, it seems like a good deal.

Of course, then the directories churn out the ads on their layout conveyor belts, one look-alike templates after another, spending a mere 15 minutes "designing" each ad using one of its simple formulas. This high-volume production is painless for the directories, and ensures that no ad stands out from the pack. Each gets roughly the same number of calls and everyone signs up again next year. With a bigger ad.

More than just a pretty ad:
Extraordinary creativity layered over hardcore market research.

At Red Jackal Ads, we use a different approach. We start with market research to identify the hot buttons of each audience. What drives their purchase decisions? What words and images pull their strings? When trolling through Yellow Pages advertising, what grabs their attention? What makes them stop and look closer? What motivates them to pick up the phone and call?

Then the hottest creative teams from some of the nation's top advertising agencies use that data to craft the most persuasive materials possible. We analyze the issue from all sides of the issue. Clever, funny, poignant. Direct, subtle. Conservative, aggressive. We consider headlines and graphics, photos and illustrations. We discard some ideas and create more.

Then we test again. We paste the new ideas into the Yellow Pages and track the response. What attracts their eyes? What page do they stop on? Which ad would they choose? Which firm would they call? We refine the selections and test again. Then, when we have culled the concepts to the most effective, we make them available to our clients. We removed the variables; our clients only see the proven solutions. Less effective ideas hit the cutting room floor.

Templates don't generate calls. Creativity does.
Designers don't create strategy, they fit the words on the page.

Advertising and Design are completely different skills, but the publishers act like they are the same. One is an expert in concepts, the other in layouts. One creates an entirely new way of perceiving something, the other makes it visually attractive. In leading ad agencies, they are entirely separate departments. Einstein and Monet are both highly skilled, but they are not the same.

The Yellow Pages' typists constructing your ads are faceless members of the hurried, harried production staff the directory industry requires. They print thousands of equally flaccid ads in each bulging yellow book, for dozens of books across the region. Each person pushes out 3-4 ads per hour, every hour, 40 hours per week, all year long. They ship off your ad and work on your competitors'. High-volume production is not conducive to conceiving innovative new approaches.

Does your Yellow Pages ad make you see red?
Winning the business is about content. It's about strategy. It's about messaging. Allowing the directories' typists to create your ad is like a law firm using its Word Processing Department to draft the contracts because they can type. They are completely different skills; one is form, the other is substance.

Of course, at Red Jackal Ads, we use outstanding designers, but they handle production -- after the advertising creatives have developed the strategy.

It's the creative that compels readers to pick up the phone. And that's where we shine. We turn creativity into sales.

Your current activities have gotten you where you are today. If you want to take it to the next level, you're going to have to do something different. And a better ad is the easiest way to do it.

The Yellow Pages work!
But we can make them work better!

Sure, the Yellow Pages will design your ads for free -- they know what their designs are worth. You get what you pay for.

Remember, "layout" is not the same as "concept." Design isn't strategy. And directory publishers like the Yellow Pages hire word processing implementers, not creative advertising experts. Great advertising takes too long and is too costly to create, it's not their business model.

Forms and templates are quick, cheap and easy to churn out, ad after ad for advertiser after advertiser. It's the most efficient way to pack thousands of ads into each thick yellow book. But it only works if the advertisers don't know they can do better.

Layout assembly lines.
The publishers have an efficient system. Rows of typists sit quietly churning out ads using the same tired old templates. Months pass while your ad sits waiting for its 15 minutes on the computer screen.

Their system is designed so every advertiser gets the same number of calls. This ensures that everyone signs up again next year. Consider -- if your sales rep somehow gave you a great ad that drew disproportionately more calls than your surrounding competitors, his other advertising clients would be furious with him. That's the inherent Yellow Pages conflict. We don't have that issue.

At Red Jackal Ads, our goal is to grab more than your share of the best calls.
Way, way more.

Better bait. Bigger fish.
Costly Yellow Pages space without a creative advertisement is like going fishing without baiting the hook. You'll occasionally get a nibble, but not as many as the smarter guy in the next boat. And you wouldn't bet your business on it. If you needed to fish for your survival, would you spend 10% more to upgrade to better bait? At Red Jackal Ads, we offer the best bait.

Black and white or color?
Look at the black and white versions of our ads. Don't they grab more attention than the color versions of the more typical ads? If budget is a real consideration, cut back on the amount of color you use and allocate that money to better ads. Although your commissioned sales representatives deny it (for obvious reasons), there is no conclusive evidence that color Yellow Pages ads really work better.

In fact, there are a number of credible studies that show the opposite, that color can actually reduce the effectiveness of your ad. Regardless of who's right, the incontrovertible evidence is that a great creative message is what attracts buyers.

Get noticed. Get results.

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