While trading marketing ideas and e-mails with Ed yesterday, he remembered that he signed up for a Yellow Pages ad last month. When he told me that, I immediately went online (funny, huh?) to check it out.
Wow. The ad looks so retro, like it was pulled out of a phone book from the 1950′s*
It is interesting that in our Web 2.o world, we still need to leverage the old standards of advertising and place a Yellow Pages ad. I wonder how many people who need management consultants would actually grab an analog database like the Yellow Pages to find a consultant? (Not that it matters, mind you. A customer is a customer after all!)
What is also funny is the fact that over the next two years, we will spend more money on this ad then on our phone’s voice mail system. Thanks to the upgraded Google Voice service, we have a free phone number and command center. When you call our number, it automatically rings our mobile phones during business hours. If we don’t answer, one of several messages will play based on whether you are in our contact list. Then, if you leave a message, Google Voice will transcribe it and send a message to my e-mail along with the original sound message.
Just think what our 1950′s business ancestors would think of this technology that we take for granted.
*WARNING! Geek Trivia to follow: The prefix 515 would not have been possible with the old telephone exchange naming conventions of the past. There is no letter associated with the number 1 on a phone’s touch pad.
