Business advertising

There are hundreds of people on payrolls who crank out Yellow Page ads for a living. But assembly-lining ads simply turns a designer into a seasoned hack. Being held accountable for results is the experience that counts.
You see, Yellow Page ads are a form of direct response advertising. Meaning people either respond to the ad by picking up the phone, or the ad is a failure - there’s no chalking up poor response to “creating awareness” or “building the brand.” And in direct response ads, small subtleties often create vastly different response rates. Changing two or so words or replacing a graphic element can often double – or, if you do it wrong, halve – your response rate!
This is why the design of your Yellow Page ad is more important than its size or the use of color. And why design-by-numbers, or by template, can be fatal. What works depends on context: your market, your competitors’ ads, your business itself, etc. And if the subtleties of your Yellow Page ad are wrong, you’ll be stuck with a year’s worth of wasted advertising dollars.
Has your ad design “professional” been held accountable for making telephones ring? For how long? Without five year’s experience, you might as well write the guy a check for design school. ‘Cause your ad dollars will only be financing his education in what doesn’t work.
And the same thing goes for his “help.” A lot of so called Yellow Page advertising professionals routinely outsource the design of your Yellow Page ad to "general" freelancers. But expertise in manipulating the subtleties can’t be outsourced. Without an in depth knowledge of your specific situation, any one element in this kind of “assembly line” production could contribute to producing a low-response ad. If your next Yellow Page ad isn't going to be developed from "start-to-finish" by a true Yellow Page ad design professional, look elsewhere.