Yellow Pages vs Thompson local

[Roger Smith]

Hi,

I was just wondering which one do people prefer & has anyone had experienced with both?

Not referring to the website… simply the directories delivered at home.

Finally whats the market share spilt like?


Many Thanks

Roger

[APC RoadLink]

Yellow pages without a doubt for my courier / parcel business as the majority of deliveries are b2b.

[PSV Media]

This years Yellow Pages are the same thickness as the Tom used to be three years ago. I would suspect this years Tom will resemble a leaflet. They have both suffered massively this year, you just need to have a look at the recycle bins in your neighborhood the week after they have been delivered. I have never seen any media hit the way directories have in such a short period of time. The net has killed them both stone dead. There is still the odd business that will get some business through it especially if aimed at the elderly. I used to work for YP many years ago and it was like shelling peas, the incoming enquiries were unreal. I can assure you it will not be like that now and imho both the YP and Tom will no longer be in print by 2015. It will be a sad day when they both disappear but that's progress.

[JElder]

We did try both, and got results from Yellow Pages, but none from Thompsons.

This was a few years ago - we have now stopped paid advertising in the printed Yellow Pages version as we got nothing for the last couple of years - but we are in the B2B market.

[Roger Smith]

Many Thanks for the info!

[am:pm graphics]

We found yellow page advertising use to work well and Thomson adverts didn't at all.

Pauline

[patientlady]

Thompson only use your info to be able to sell the database. YP arrived on my front door step just last week and I took it straight to the back door for the bin!

[ThePublisher]

I have a copy of YP under a monitor to bring it up to the right height on my desk.

As yet, I've found no use for Thomson, it's too thin. And as for the Phone Book that arrived last week, it's more like a pamphlet than a phone directory.

[Richie N]

YP used to work well but I think now it's days are over....

[Mpg]

We used the TOM a few years ago and when we asked customers how they got our number they used to say yellow pages. The TOM also had yellow pages. So we had to ask another question TOM or Yellow pages. Any way a £900 advert netted £140 worth of business.
The only way to be sure would be to have a different phone number on each advert.

[BarryDawson]

They are both shooting themselfs in the foot, to get any kind of response out of them you need to fork out a lot of money for an advert big enough to catch the eye of whoever your clientel is.

Then it has to be catchy, had something that draws attention from any other big adverts and never ask them to design it, a 5 year old could do better!

I have my smallest paid add possible in them, purely for people to find me, either by referral from a previous client, or a previous client who found me that way before.

But otherwise, I wouldn't spend any money with them, I would be lucky if I even broke even on the incoming work from their adverts.

The final nail is the customer service. ive had many problems with both and trying to get anything done is a down hill battle.


Also to consider is how many directory's end up in a field from people hired to deliver and dump them for a quick buck.
That said I signed up to do the job last year out of curiosity, and yellow pages had the best rules about delivery including knocking on door to hand it over where possible, putting them in a place where they could not be stolen or putting through a letterbox where possible.
So at least they try to get the directory's to the customers.

BT was a case of "dump it anywhere" so that says a lot about their business model.

Just a few things on how they operate for you all to mull over.