If video on TV is so much better for capturing attention than online advertising, it would stand to reason that video is the best method for advertising online. With online video advertising in its infancy, the findings by a leading market research firm The Kelsey Group, while startling, is not surprising.

Smallbiztechnology.com just published an interview on September 9, 2008 by Assistant Editor Laura Leites with Keith Wiley, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications at Spot Runner. Wiley stated that “The Kelsey Group, recently released a study indicating that the local online video market will see an increase in growth from $10.9 million in 2007 to $1.5 billion in 2012, a compound annual growth rate of 167.8 percent. At Spot Runner, we’re seeing particularly strong growth among restaurants, jewelers, law firms and professional services companies.”

I’ve wanted to write another article about the Yellow Pages, but want to get a quick note out about a FREE webinar tomorrow, Thursday, September 11 at 1:00 PM Eastern Time.

The webinar is moderated by Dick Larkin, the Yellow Pages Commando who is a nationally known expert who formerly worked in the Yellow Pages industry and for the last couple of years has been a proponent of online “yellow page” advertising.

I believe he has found that the print version is not yet dead and he promises to provide some very interesting and useful information. The webinar will also include several experts from the Yellow Pages industry.

I have attended several of Dick’s free webinars and they are very informative. In fact, I’m upset that I missed the last one. If you’re lucky enough to read this before tomorrow, you can sign up for the free webinar at http://ypcommando.com/blog/2008/09/06/the-real-future-of-yellow-pages-free-webinar/ at the top of the page just under “Register Here”.

Years ago, people told me that the Internet would be the end of TV advertising. I told them that my fear was that demand for TV advertising time from online companies would substantially increase and push TV advertising costs higher. Today, there are a great many online businesses which spend much of their advertising budget, if not the bulk of it on TV advertising to bring traffic to their websites.

TV viewers are quite familiar with some of the largest online advertisers, Vonage.com, Monster.com, Ameritrade, Netflix, Scotttrade, LendingTree.com and Ditech.com. In fact, your knowledge of these brands probably emanates from TV advertising.

Recently, in an effort to attract more potential clients to their website, Lawyers.com began advertising on TV and joined the list of other website companies to advertise on TV. I’ve been saying for a long time that online directories can work well for lawyers, but they are usually overpriced and cannot produce a large enough stream of clients for the price.

It may seem like a good idea. You can save the 15% advertising agency commission and you can save a lot more than that if you end up with an unscrupulous advertising agency that substantially marks up the media time and then charges a commission on top of that.

The truth is that buying your own TV media time is a huge mistake, unless your law firm is large enough for an in-house professional media buyer. Buying your own TV media time is equivalent to your client being his or her own lawyer. Not only does it require experience, knowledge and services you don’t have, but it is much more work than you think, requiring time you don’t have.

I get calls every week from lawyers saying they’re not getting calls anymore from yellow page advertising. They don’t want to continue wasting their money, but they’re afraid to stop advertising and lose their spot. They want to know what’s going on and what to do.

Apparently, lawyers are not the only ones. In his article “Quit wasting money on Yellow Page advertising” by Peter Fernandez, D.C., a yellow page, print advertising and practice management consultant for chiropractors, Dr. Fernandez answers the question, “Why has advertising in the Yellow Pages changed from one of the best ways to advertise to one of the worst in just a few years?”

Additionally, Dr. Lynella Grant, author of “Yellow Page Smarts Snags More Callers” in her article “Yellow Page Advertisers: Your Calls are Going to Decrease – Here’s the Remedy” states, “Response rates to Yellow Page advertising are declining. There’s no getting around it, traditional Yellow Pages are in trouble. Fewer people use them every year. Even the best-pulling ad in the section isn’t getting the number of callers or sales it used to. At the same time, the monthly cost to maintain your same-size directory ad keeps going up.” “Some (like contractors and lawyers) are declining more steeply than others.” “Advertising only in the Yellow Pages is no longer a safe bet”.

Yellow page telephone books are distributed within small geographic areas which may be ideal for lawyer advertising, when the lawyer is not interested in clients residing more than 30 minutes from the law office. There are small yellow page books encompassing one or more villages and larger countywide yellow page books. Costco® is able to offer low prices because they buy products in very large quantities. Similarly, the more people advertising reaches, the less it costs per person, but the more it costs overall. Advertising in a county-wide yellow page telephone book is more cost-effective than in a village yellow book, but more expensive. Advertising on radio will reach more people than a yellow page book, while advertising on local TV will reach still more people. The most expensive and most cost-effective advertising is national TV which will reach the most number of people.

This article will briefly examine the various media available for lawyer advertising, including TV, Radio, Billboards, Newspapers and the Internet.

Dollar for dollar, TV is the first choice for lawyer advertising. Any additional funds can be spent on other media to cross brand with TV. The public’s perception of media shows television trumps all other media as the most effective media among adults, age 18 and over, in every category: Most Authoritative, Most Influential, Most Persuasive, and Most Exciting.

TV was voted Most Influential media by 81.8%, with newspapers far behind in second place at only 8.5%. TV scores 66.8% Most Persuasive with newspapers, again, a very distant second at 14.2%. Television was also voted Most Authoritative media by almost twice that of the second runner up, newspapers. Of course, TV swamps all other media for Most Exciting. Finally, adults age 18 and over are 3 times more likely to learn about products from television than from the next most likely source.