By Pam Penfield
I found it interesting and coincidental that Bill Sniffin’s column last week dealt with the extinction of landlines in Wyoming. At the time, I was working on my own column on the very same subject for this week’s newspaper.
Several times a year, we have people stop into the News Letter Journal asking us for one of our phone books. If you’re not familiar with the phone book that we’ve published over the years, it is a very small, thin Weston County phone book with listings for Newcastle, Four Corners, Osage, and Upton.
There are maps, an important numbers section, a reverse directory by address and also by phone number, and even a toll-free directory. I still use one at home.
My Mother used to laugh at my little phone book when she visited as she lived in Rochester, New York. Her phone book was a good four inches thick, and that was just the white pages!
Even though we still get requests for our popular phone books, the last time we published one was in 2008. We’ve always had plenty of interest from both advertisers and the community to do a new one, but there’s a slight problem— no one has landlines anymore.
As small as it was, I believe today we would have trouble filling it as we’ve all gone digital— or cellular, as the case may be— and have given up our landlines.
A few weeks ago, a gentleman came to the newspaper office and asked for a whole box of phone books that they needed people to have access to – STAT!
We explained the book was a few years old, and the listings a bit outdated. He didn’t care, and said it was better than nothing!
That evening, I looked through our most recent phone book, and was proud to see that nearly every, single advertiser that ran an ad in the phone book is still in business today! That’s ten years, and that’s pretty great.
Those advertisers were: Pinnacle Bank, Gateway Auto Supply – NAPA Auto Parts, Advanced Communications, Treasured Florals and Gifts, CLT Flooring and Furnishings, Decker’s Floral and Gift, Weston County School District’s Double AAces Program, the Old Mill Restaurant, the Sundowner Inn, Weston County Health Services, Weston County Prevention Taskforce, the News Letter Journal, Home Place Realty, and the Kaffee Klatsch.
Thirteen out of 14 businesses that placed an ad in our phone book ten years ago are still in business, the only exception being the Old Mill Restaurant. May she rest in peace.
I can’t help but think that those ads did their job. Those business owners should be proud to see their ten year old ad, and know that countless others continue to see them every time they pick up one of those phone books.
That’s the power of advertising, making impressions from a ten year old publication that people still use and love.
Can putting an ad in the right place ensure you’ll be in business ten years from now? It seemed to work for these folks. Let me show you how it can work for you. Give me a call or stop down to see me anytime.
On the inside cover of the phone book, the News Letter Journal listed all of our contact information, and an invitation to “Please patronize our advertisers,” and I hope that you will continue to support them.
While you’re looking at their ads, be sure and look me up – I’m in the book!