When the latest YP phone books landed on Corpus Christi doorsteps recently, they were a little bit lighter and a little less whiter. The 2014 YP telephone directories recently distributed in Corpus Christi no longer include residential telephone number listings.
While it’s a cost-cutting measure for YP, phone book industry experts expect the move to be a plus for independent phone book publishers who are continuing to print residential listings.
“This is a real opportunity for independent phone books to become even stronger,” said Cindy Aldrich, the president of the Association of Directory Publishers (ADP). “This makes the independent directories all that much more valuable.”
About 71 percent of the American public still use landlines, according to figures from the Wall Street Journal. Of those, a predominant number are middle- to high-income households, according to a study by the Pew Research Center. Broken down, 29 percent of landline users report an income over $75,000 with only 21 percent reporting an income less than $30,000. Pew characterized the average landline user as someone who owns a home and has a steady, stable lifestyle.
According to a study recently published by ADP, 76 percent of adult Americans nationwide use printed phone books.
“A call in the yellow pages is worth 15 to 25 times more to an advertiser than a click from a website,” Aldrich said, citing a recent industry study.
That’s no secret at Corpus Christi Area-Wide Telephone and Internet Directory, commonly known as The Blue Book and locally owned by Dan Alvey. Since publishing his the first issue 14 years ago, Alvey has used metered phone numbers to prove that telephone directory advertising rings telephones and brings in customers. Metered numbers are phone numbers printed only in the directory. Calls from that number are forwarded to a business’s regular phone number.
“Monthly reports of call activity prove phone book listings are used and they work,” Alvey said. “And people are using them more, not less.”
He pointed to one local tire company that has used a metered line for the past several years. From Aug. 1, 2012, to May 21, 2013, the company received 808 phone calls from its metered line. The same period this year (Aug. 1, 2013, to May 21, 2014) showed 2,228 calls from the metered line.
“That proves to me that the economy has rebounded, business is back and people are using our book to find local businesses to spend their dollars with,” Alvey said.
Owner of long-time advertiser Delta Tire and Auto, Dennis Dolce, agrees.
“I attribute that increase in telephone calls to The Blue Book doing a good job of getting those books in people’s hands,” said Dolce, who has owned and operated Delta Tire and Auto of Corpus Christi for 29 years. “Yellow page advertising in The Blue Book is an important part of our advertising.”
Those ringing lines bring in business, he added. Once he gets the call, he can make the sale.
“When someone walks in your store, it’s a done deal — on the phone, they have choices,” Dolce said. “My folks are trained in phone procedures to be courteous and give them the facts. That’s where we try to excel, on the phone. That makes the difference.”
Dolce counts on the phone book to get his number to his customers, he said.
According to a study by CRM Associates of Boulder, Colo., telephone directory advertisers average $24.91 in sales for every $1 spent on advertising in a local phone book. Residential listings add to the value of the book for consumers looking for information they need on a daily basis. It’s all in one place, at their fingertips, in the Corpus Christi Area-Wide directory, Alvey said.
When the 2014 edition of The Blue Book hits the front doors of more than 192,000 homes and businesses this August, it will include the phone numbers for the 65,810 people who own listed landlines in the Coastal Bend. The Corpus Christi Area-Wide Telephone and Internet Directory combines residential and business listings of the entire Coastal Bend, making it the most complete local directory in the area.
“We are an area-wide telephone directory,” Alvey continued. “We not only have telephone listings for people in Corpus Christi but all the way from Fulton to Kingsville and as far north as Alice and Sinton. We are a complete phone book for the entire Coastal Bend area. We are committed to Corpus Christi and have been for the 14 years we’ve been in business.”
More than 65,500 people in the area have landlines, he pointed out.
“When people want to look up a friend’s phone number or a local business, The Blue Book will be the telephone directory they’ll pick up,” he said. “The economy has taken off and business is back. Our company is all about getting customers for our advertisers. Whether it’s advertising in our telephone directory or in our digital product, 101CorpusChristi.com, or in our magazine, 101 Fun Things to do in Corpus Christi, or in our newspaper, Corpus Christi Business News, we are committed to being an important part of Corpus Christi’s success for years to come.”
