This week I had the privilege of speaking on a panel at the Ottawa Business Summit. Spearheaded by Kathryn Schwab, our topic was Clearing Muddy Waters in Marketing, Communications And Social Media. My fellow panelists were Arash Mahin, Jim Donnelly, and Karen McNaughton
As you may imagine, social media was the hot topic.
During the Q&A we had a question from someone who runs a construction company. His question: “Are the Yellow Pages dead?”
I then told the audience about my new plumber. Last Friday night, it was apparent that the water pressure doohickey needed replacing and the thingamajig wasn’t going to make it either. After some fun clean up, I began to search for someone online.
Saturday afternoon when the plumber arrived he immediately asked me how I found him and whether it was through an online search engine. I was impressed. He continued by saying; “I really want to keep my ranking up.”
Search and Deploy
After assessing what was needed he confirmed he would be back with the right parts to fix things on Sunday morning. As he drove out I saw something in my driveway. It was a copy of the new Yellow Pages.
A plumber who is running a sole proprietorship with and an apprentice is concerned about his search ranking and the phone company lobbed their book on to my driveway. Yes, they have a website and some still prefer to use the phone book but that's still a lot of trees.
Many have doubt that social media is for real or will work for them. There is constant droning on about return on investment and misconceptions that these channels are reserved for wedding pictures and lunch choice status updates.
If you haven't spent time in the space, that would be your first step.
Do you know how your customers find you?
@knealemann
strategy. marketing. social media.
