Local Store Advertising – Yellow Pages Dominate, Internet Advertising Lags

Yellow Pages remains the most common form of Local Store Marketing utilized by franchisees.

Yellow Pages advertising is utilized by 69% of respondents to the National Franchisee Survey , followed by Print advertising –newspapers (58%) and e-mail to an internal distribution list (57%.) Purchased e-mail lists (4%), Television (14%), Billboard (15%) and Website banner advertising (17%) are the least commonly utilized forms of local store advertising by franchisees.


Click to view accompanying table.



Looking at local store advertising correlated against number of years a local franchise has been in business presents what is, to me, a surprising pattern. Print Yellow Pages is utilized by 100% of respondents that have been in business for less than a year. Other forms of local advertising have almost no representation among these businesses during their first year of operation.

After a local franchise has been in operation for at least a year, we note significant usage of virtually all forms of local advertising. This appears to be a period when franchisees experiment with different forms of advertising during which Newspaper (69%) and Yellow Pages (62%) advertising are dominant. After four years in business, we begin to notice a reduction in the use of these other forms of advertising as noted by the increasing dominance of Yellow Pages advertising and a reduction in usage of all other forms of advertising. After ten years in business this migration appears to be complete. Local franchise owners once again rely on Yellow Pages advertising with 83% of respondents reporting its use. More notable, however, is the dramatic reduction in use of virtually all other forms of advertising.

If one looks at the most experienced store owners for guidance, it appears that they find Yellow Pages advertising to be most suitable for promoting their local businesses. While Internet advertising in all its forms retains a presence, the reduced use of these advertising methods suggests that Internet advertising may not yet produce the same measurable results as print media.

Despite the inroads made by the Internet, Social Media and other technologies, the responses we’ve received to date from the National Franchisee Survey suggest that local franchise owners are not yet comfortable with the use of new media. The most experienced store owners appear to rely on Yellow Pages advertising to the near exclusion of all other options.


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FranchiseFacts – Capturing the franchise experience

Perry Shoom, FranchiseFacts
Capturing the franchise experience!

Franchisee Survey in progress at www.FranchiseFactsUSA.com
If you are a franchise owner or store manager, please participate!

Understanding the Franchise Experience blog can be found at franchisefactsusa.blogspot.com