Some Yellow Pages advice please.

[dwasplumbing]

Hi everyone,

I've had a seach through some of the older threads about advertising in Yellow Pages and found some mixed advice. I've still got some questions of my own and would like to know if anybody would like to offer some advice or opinions on them.

First of all, before anybody comes on here and slams Yellow Pages as being a waste of time and money, allow me to give you a little background info.
I'm a Sole Trading Plumber, coming into my second year of trading later in the year. I missed the deadlines for advertising with YP last year, so I've been advertising in the classified section of my local free paper that gets delivered weekly. I've also door dropped flyers in local areas and done some 'card advertising' in local shop windows. All of these have given me work of varying degrees and I think it's a good time for me to think about investing money in advertising to a 'wider audience', ie Yellow Pages.
A good friend of mine, also a plumber, advertised in YP for his first time last year and constantly tells me that it works really well for him. I've also sneakily called a few other plumbers in different areas to see if their YP advertising works and all of them have given me positive feedback.

I've already met with the local rep and she's given me pricing for a variety of different sizes and colours. Although she wasn't particularly hard sell with me, she was pushy for a "yes, I want to advertise with you", with a view to showing me some artwork samples and discussing sizes and colours etc at a later date, obviously before the deadlines. I have told her I am interested in taking things further and haven't signed anything yet, so I'm not worried about being bullied into something I can't get out of.
What I found disappointing was that when I asked her about any discounts she could offer me because I was a first time advertiser with them, she told me there were no offers. As I'm still in the early stages and have plenty of time until the dealine I didn't push this any further. However, I've spoken to my friend who advertised with them last year and discovered that the prices she quoted me are several hundred of pounds higher than what he paid for a similar ad.
I'd like to hear from anybody who has any advice or tips on getting the best deals with YP advertising, ie is it best to wait until the last possible minute before the dealine to 'do the deal' or is asking up front the best way forward? Is it a good idea to give them an ultimatum - "I'll advertise with you, but only when you offer me a good discount, otherwise I wont bother"? Obviously I don't want to give them an ultimatum like that, only to have to run back to them with my tail between my legs.
As far as I'm concerned, they should want my business and I shouldn't have to be the one who does the chasing on pricing deals. Or am I missing the point here? Are they so big that they don't have to offer discounts nowadays and operate on a "go with our rates or we don't want your business" policy?

Another point I should make....I'm intending to advertise in a book in a totally different area to where I am currently. The rep who I've been speaking to is the local rep for my current area and has said she can help me out because my current address falls into her territory. Should I continue talking with her or should I contact a rep from the area I intend to be moving to? Or should I forget the reps and just call Yellow Pages direct?

Apologies for the post being a little long-winded, so thanks for reading down this far.
In summary, what I'm hoping for is some tips and advice on prices and discounts. Also any advice or opinions on whether I should continue speaking to the rep I've already met with or find another one or speak direct to YP?
Any general advice or experiences with Yellow Pages would also be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance for reading this.

Dave.

 

[KreativeJuice]

Hi Dave,

I think it depends what industry you are in, for us total waste of money. For you possibly an earner. We have a number of clients that have us design adverts for the yellow book year after year so it must be working for them.

With regards to discounts, in our experience we were last minute, got a good discounted price but were ready with the advert to go in.

Just be careful of them bodging you up and ad (check it very very well) as they frequently get it wrong....

Kind regards

Karen

 

[CKG]

As for the price just push and push on it - it's all you can do really.

The chap who came to see me had reams and reams of data to back up his sales pitch. Things like claiming to know what your exact ROI will be and how many calls a certain size ad will pull.

To him it was a simple of case of 'if you spend £x thousand you will make £x thousand in profit, so what's your problem with that?'

They have got sharper.

As for ads in other books...

I too am a heating engineer and have tested this out and lost a few quid on it so have some hard data to back up my conclusion.

It's pretty simple really.

If you advertise in another areas book with your phone number from your area you will recieve next to no calls an 0800 number doesn't seem to improve things either. In 12 months I recieved zero calls on one book and 1 call on another book.

However, in my local book I recieved a couple of calls a month from a small advert.

Same applies to the local rags - non local number = no calls.

The big winner for me was a single line ad in the CORGI subsidised heading - loads of calls from that and it costs next to nothing - I'm still gertting calls from it and I have not advertised in yellow pages for about 2 years.

Whenever I advertise out of my local area now I use a phone number with the correct for the area, area code.

The difference in response is night and day.

 

[Mr_Wizard]

Hi.

I used to do some work for YP a few years back. They used to have 2 discount offers 'Moving In' for first time advertisers, and 'Moving Up' for second year upgrades. Maybe these no longer exist.

Outside of that discounts for 'off the street' businesses were a flat 'no' - the sales people were armed with a 'back up' campaign, if the prospect really couldn't justify the cost then they'd whip out a "look, I've been thinking, there is a way we can maybe keep all the benefits of being in the book and reduce the cost" - then they'd offer you a campaign that lost some of the features (colour; size; cross clasification; muti-directory; etc).

The one big benefit of YP over local press is that people who find you are looking for you because they need a service, they're ready to buy, nobody takes YP as a casual read (do they?). The best advice I can give though is if you do go that route - don't make your ad look like everyone elses, company/trading names are not headlines in my opinion, and get some good body copy.

When I was doing some stuff for them and listening to customer feedback most advertisers were happy with results, it was the price they didn't like.

Hope that helps.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

I've also sneakily called a few other plumbers in different areas to see if their YP advertising works and all of them have given me positive feedback.

There's nothing "sneaky" about that, it's just intelligent research.

A YP ad can be a big commitment as you don't really know how it will do until you run it.

However... a lot of savvy marketers are now "pre testing" their ads by running different headlines and appeals in google ads to see which one(s) get the best response.

Steve

 

[JustOneUK]

It's pretty simple really.

If you advertise in another areas book with your phone number from your area you will recieve next to no calls an 0800 number doesn't seem to improve things either. In 12 months I recieved zero calls on one book and 1 call on another book.

However, in my local book I recieved a couple of calls a month from a small advert.

Same applies to the local rags - non local number = no calls.

The big winner for me was a single line ad in the CORGI subsidised heading - loads of calls from that and it costs next to nothing - I'm still gertting calls from it and I have not advertised in yellow pages for about 2 years.

Whenever I advertise out of my local area now I use a phone number with the correct for the area, area code.

The difference in response is night and day.

Excellent comments
If I were to use the YP to find someone I would definately use the one with a local area code, 0800 means guaranteed inflated prices from experience. Sometimes I can't understand why small businesses use them at all. :|

 

[Ashley_Price]

Some Yellow Pages advice please.

Certainly. Just don't!

Seriously though it really depends on your type of business. I never found any telephone directories worked for our business.

 

[Matt1959]

as mentioned, people like to use local for trades. One point to make - if you are in a specific locality with its own STD number, you may not have that much competition from other firms using that STD so an ad may stand out more and you'll mop up the enquiries from that local area. If you were trading from a major city usiing its STD, you would probally have masses of competition all using the same STD so an ad would have to really tstand out to make any impact. Hopefully this makes sense!!

 

[LocalBusinessChampion]

If you want to do more research, imagine being a prospective customer for your business and do a google search for your type of business in your area and see what comes up. There might be some good local sites that offer a worthwhile alternative to Yellow Pages, it might involve a bit of groundwork on your part but you could probably get quite a few listings on various local websites (some free, some paid for) for the same money.

 

[Rapid Dave]

In my experience, YP aren't interested in discounts, don't seem to care if you advertise with them or not, have a poor Customer Service department......reps are rude & clueless, I could go on. Still use 'em but have cut it down a lot.

 

[Julies bookkeeping]

The 1st year I was with them I had a small box, I was also included on .com etc had hardly anything from it, the following year I bought half a small box and get more calls but I was not on .com etc asked why and was told a different branch have to pay extra. I have only ever paid the once have original docs etc but cannot get them to include these extras.

I have already decided next year will only get free listing as the amount of calls I do get are not enough for the amount of the listing.

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

In my experience, YP aren't interested in discounts, don't seem to care if you advertise with them or not, have a poor Customer Service department......reps are rude & clueless, I could go on. Still use 'em but have cut it down a lot.

I'll match that!