Does Yellow Page Advertising Work for Pizza Shops?

As a local search marketing company, we advocate a marketing approach that includes print, Internet and mobile. That’s because consumers use a combination of Yellow Pages (74%) and search engines (76%) to find local businesses. (2012 Local Media Tracking Study, Burke Inc.)

In a recent video, Google software engineer Matt Cutts spoke about the need for businesses to focus on more than just ranking in search results:

… you should always have a very well-rounded portfolio of ways to get leads, whether it be people walking through your door, or Yellow Pages, or whatever it is, because you can’t count on any one channel always working out perfectly.

Case Study: Original Italian Pizza

Original Italian Pizza has locations in both Elmira and Corning NY. We placed their ad in our Chemung, Schuyler, Eastern Steuben Counties telephone directory, under the “Pizza” and “Restaurant” headings:

We also placed their menu and coupons in the Restaurant Menu and Coupon sections:

We wanted to know exactly how many calls their Yellow Page advertising generated. So we placed call tracking phone numbers in their ads, menu, and coupons.

2,790 Phone Calls in 13 Months

In a 13 month period (August 2013 to September 2014), Original Italian Pizza received 2,790 phone calls.

After deducting unanswered calls, hang-ups and ones that didn’t connect, the total number of answered calls was 2,063. That’s an average of 159 calls a month.

Let’s Talk ROI

Most calls to a pizza shop are people placing an order, not shopping around for the best price. That still means these ads generated over 2,000 pizza sales in 13 months— representing a potential $32,000 in revenue.

Let’s do the math.

I have no idea what Original Italian Pizza paid for their advertising. But let’s imagine they bought this program for $865 a month:

That’s a lot of money, right? But wait. The average pizza price in New York is $16. If Original Italian Pizza sold 150 pizzas each month for that price, that’s $2,400 in sales. For every dollar invested in advertising, they got back $2.77.

Take that to the bank. Oh, wait … they only give 0.06 percent interest.

It’s an Investment, not a Cost

Advertising only costs money when it doesn’t work. When done right, advertising will make you money—by producing a positive return on the money you’ve invested.

Afraid of wasting money on advertise that doesn’t work? Call us today.

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