Yell - does it work?

[HSLS]

I have had a lot of enquiries from my advert in the Yellow pages. I offer language tutoring, and a lot of people will look in the Yellow Pages first for this service.

 

[Sci7]

Yell data has been incorporated into Google local.

Localisation of web search where that is relevant is increasingly common. If you are providing services of interest to a particular Geographical area ensuring that you rank highly for a local web search will I believe be more important in the near future.

Already if you are based in the UK and do a product search on the major search engines you will find UK based sites, those selling in UKP will be ranked highly.

A Yell entry puts you in a good position to benefit from the trend towards increased localisation of search results for certain classes of query.

There is much more to Geographical based SEO, but a Yell entry has its benefits.

 

[sjr4x4]

Blimey, entering the Lions Den here...

As a business directory owner, I must admit I agree with most of the criticism on this thread. The Yell web site is antiquated, feature poor, but charging premium prices.

But it has brand awareness, and this couple with agressive sales tactics seems to be it's main driver.

I've always strongly believed that as an online marketing and advertising busieness, if you genuinely believe in your product, then let people test drive it for free. Let business owners make the decision if £xx is worth the investment.

There are plenty of directories out there that will allow you a free trial or evaluation, so try them all out. Why Yell doesn't adopt this approach is beyond me.

Always be wary though, there are also lots of dodgy directories with plenty of small print that need you to cancel your 30 day trial at least 15 days before the end. Another favourite is when your asked for credit card details.. why, this is a free trial!

If you want to try an alternative, have a look at mylocalservices.co.uk you can list for a free basic listing, or a feature rich premium listing. Drop me a line and ask for a 30 day trial. If you don't like it, have a free basic listing. No stealth invoices, just good old fashioned try before you buy.

If the product can't sell itself, and you can't be convinced on ROI after 30 days of trying it out, then walk away. Simple.

Pitch over, time to watch eastenders!

 

[mtw]

Yell push hard but it never did my business any good, even though I had a bigger (and I think better) ad than all my competitors.

That was something I tried in the early days. Now I'm wiser and realise that in my field you can't beat networking. I'd rather spend money on membership of pertinent organisations that give me the chance to get face-to-face with people than waste it on Yell.

Mark

 

[tillsandcateringstuff]

Does it work? - just asking the same question myself (Yell rep been on phone!) Our answer seems to be NO! But agree it must work for some businesses out there. The hard sell does seem to be the norm - which puts most peolple off. I think you have to find what works for you in as short a time and least money spent way!!!! J

 

[centralweddings]

I will never again advertise on Yell.com

I advertised on their website as Im an internet business and can have direct link to my site. Another link would also help my google ranking.

By checking my hit counter daily - I can see NO ONE has come via Yell.com - only me when I check the link still works.

EVEN WORSE !!!!!
Other companies sit and go through Yell.com and bombard you with calles asking you to advertise with them !!!!!

I haev around 4 calls everyday - Thomson local - Adverts Space - Accountants the list goes on and on.

I asked Yell.com if I could remove my number as I was an internet business only and they said No.

Thats my story anyway !
central weddings.co.uk

 

[eventdomain]

Here is the proof that Yell/YP rarely works:

I used to run a CV writing service, took a line entry with YP book version, and it worked, got quite a few clients too. But want to point out that CV writing, although a creative service, is one of the few that WILL work in YP.

Web designers is the only 'web based' creative service that seems to do okay from YP/Yell.com. So, I figured, "Hey, it worked for my other business, it must work for my new webby business right" - WRONG.

New business back then was a search engine, and it failed big time from advertising in YP, compared to the old creative service of CV writing, which proves a lot about YP.....

My simple test proves that largely, 'web businesses' will do from very bad to making no money from Yellow Pages/Yell listings, paid or unpaid ad spots.

I'd like to point out that over the past 3 years, the Yellow Pages book version, is getting thinner and thinner, to almost 27%% its old size. This is bcos advertisers are pulling out of it/not renewing their ads.

I also think that YP/Yell ads slots are expensive, when compared to other established directories that actually are built to target specific biz types - and ofcourse I mean the niche directories/portals like:

Computer directories
Job search engines/boards
News websites
Tech directories
Industry directories like Kellysearch etc
Caterer sites

There are quite a few established niche players (and I mean players here), that will deliver far more than a YP listing ever will - for a mere few pounds a month. They are out there, and most DO stand out and quite easy to find. Others, which are very good (very good!) sadly, don't do such a great job at promoting themselves, BUT, are still damn good value for money and send targeted visitors.

So it's well worth searching for them. Most of the good niche ones will be easy to find, although they won't be found on forums or blogs, so search engines is the only way to find these. Suggest searching by keyword, rather than keyphrase, as most won't insert phrases into their directories or work by phrase searching.

If anyone wants recommendations, I'll be happy to share the good niche ones with you - as I know this industry well.

 

[eventdomain]

Do they get commision or something, as they are sooo pushy?

Yes they do, but don't know how much..

 

[eventdomain]

I currently dont use a paid listing, however I do disagree a little here. I got a website built about 6 months ago and searched yell for a designer in my local area.

I ended up using the only designer that had a link to his site. Why?

I could see his work!

PS. I have a car leasing company and do not call business lists!!!

Martin Boyd

Web/Graphic designers success isn't down to a Yell advert, I assure you of that one. Examples of work is useful, as is testimonials/reviews etc, but targeting is key to ALL advertising, and YP/Yell.com just isn't set up to do this - its way too general a subject machine.

BUT, many people reach for the Yell book for the very obvious stuff like Plumbers, Web designers, Print services etc - unfortunately it's not for advertising techy companies, it never has been. People use it when they want a tradesman or some flowers.

 

[sjr4x4]

This an old thread thats been brought back to life

Just looked at my last post, we'd only been going 6 months, think we were getting 3,000 visitors a day and charging £85 for a year!

Oh how things change

Yells updated itself, but is still expensive, still soldering on with the yellow book. But it does work for a lot of people.

Love or loathe directories, end of the day its marketing which is what its all about. Its upto to indvidual business owners to perceive the value of any paid advertising. What works for one, doesn't work for another. There are lots of low cost directories out there, theres at least 4 other ones I know of on this forum.

Theres also plenty of freebies like Free Index, Gumtree etc. So the choice is huge and varied, do a bit of research and you can get your name and business out there across multiple directories for very little cost.

This should bring you visitors, hopefully some serious enquires and a spin off is backlinks for your own site. Couple this with your other online marketing efforts, forums, link building etc and you have a nicely balanced stratedgy.

Wonder where will all be when this thread resurfaces in 3 years time?

 

[A Party Shop]

For the first time in over 6+ years we decided not to advertise in the Yellow Pages but have kept our Yell.com adverts for now.

It's always a worry making this sort of decision as in the shop, it's always difficult asking customer's "where did you hear about us?" etc

So there is no real accurate guage on it's ROI

We found the Fancy Dress section of the book over populated with competitor's adverts getting bigger and bigger and the Party Supplies section limited to free line entries.

 

[gadgy-tronix]

Yell is very strange, i put an advert on yell.com for free, then when i looked at my competitors in the yellow pages there i was as clear as daylight, jees yell must be getting desperate to stock up those pages

 

[eventdomain]

For the first time in over 6+ years we decided not to advertise in the Yellow Pages but have kept our Yell.com adverts for now.

It's always a worry making this sort of decision as in the shop, it's always difficult asking customer's "where did you hear about us?" etc

So there is no real accurate guage on it's ROI

We found the Fancy Dress section of the book over populated with competitor's adverts getting bigger and bigger and the Party Supplies section limited to free line entries.

Interesting that Fancy Dress & Party Suppliers are both targeting the same customer eg: Party Organisers, in other words the general public who are looking to set up events... yet Yellow Pages have one entire set of suppliers clearly refusing the paid option, probably due to not being exactly targeted for them.

But event planners don't use YP when seeking event suppliers anyway, - still it's interesting to find the Fancy Dress pages full of display adverts, as we counted 8 display adverts in our local YP - so why such untargeted methods? It's not cheap, its untargeted as 90% of YPs users won't be event-related - its crazy.

I don't know what Yell.com's stats are for Event supplies, but we at www. eventdomain.co.uk get about 1 million per year. Surely the business world in the UK, have sussed out by now that the only results that matter are targeted conversions from industry rich portal sites.

Do people keep using YP/Yell bcos of the branding aspect, surely not?

 

[sjr4x4]

I don't know what Yell.com's stats are for Event supplies, but we at www. eventdomain.co.uk get about 1 million per year. Surely the business world in the UK, have sussed out by now that the only results that matter are targeted conversions from industry rich portal sites.

Do people keep using YP/Yell bcos of the branding aspect, surely not?

I never thought I'd be sticking up for Yell, holy moly But I kind of disagree. It does work for a lot of people. They do have brand, they have bucket loads of targeted UK traffic. If a business knows it is getting a worthwhile return, then why stop? Would I advise a new biz to go for Yell, no, I think they could spend their money more wisely.

Without doubt they are incredibly expensive, I've said on many occasions their business model is flawed, and with the hundreds of millions of debt their in, it shows its not changing any time soon!

But as a useable resource, they are fine. They have a well constructed, optimized site. They generate god knows how many millions of pageviews per month.

1 million (is that page views, visits, unique users?) per year is pretty good for a specific industry, but only equates to roughly 2,500 visits/PV/UV per day. Take out the usual Indian traffic and other non UK stuff brings it down.

So a party planner would be well advised to advertise on a low cost industry specific site like yours, as well as directories, both free and paid, which will only increase the potential reach.

Couple that with forum posts, articles, a few links, then for not very much dosh, our Party Planner business has now got themselves a nice bit of lowcost advertising.

And all for a fraction of what they would have spent on Yell.

But write off Yell, nope. Yell bashing is easy, but the reality is plenty of people still use it. When they stop using it, then there will be no more Yell.

Do they have to change and adapt to the current market, yep. Dump the book, dump the salesforce, slash the overheads, then they can reduce the costs, and then regrow the biz.

 

[BdTS]

Web/Graphic designers success isn't down to a Yell advert, I assure you of that one. Examples of work is useful, as is testimonials/reviews etc, but targeting is key to ALL advertising, and YP/Yell.com just isn't set up to do this - its way too general a subject machine.

BUT, many people reach for the Yell book for the very obvious stuff like Plumbers, Web designers, Print services etc - unfortunately it's not for advertising techy companies, it never has been. People use it when they want a tradesman or some flowers.

I gave you examples of other technical services that I know for a fact it has worked for some time back, based upon my experiences.

You give one example of how it doesn't and it seems to mean more.

Yell recognises more or less any key-phrase, if it doesn't, it can get it added on within a day or two.

You spend an awful lot of time being critical of Yell on here.

 

[eventdomain]

You give one example of how it doesn't and it seems to mean more.

Good - it's meant to - I hope it wakes people up and makes them realise that other good directories exist besides the big guns of the web.

 

[BdTS]

Good - it's meant to - I hope it wakes people up and makes them realise that other good directories exist besides the big guns of the web.

Better than your original reply

 

[inspirevideo]

I was contacted by Yell about a month ago, they offered me what seemed like a reasonable deal but the biggest benefit I could see would be the search rankings boost. I decided to hold off for now and do further research into free/cheaper alternatives first.

Adam
inspirevideo.co.uk

 

[eventdomain]

But as a useable resource, they are fine. They have a well constructed, optimized site. They generate god knows how many millions of pageviews per month.

Are they fine, how can that be with heavy debts that force up prices, complaints about sales calls badgering already uninterested prospects and many former clients not renewing ads :| I'm not making this up, this is fact, I've dealt with Yell myself......

Personally, I feel their pricing is way off the mark when compared to what other directories offer.

So a party planner would be well advised to advertise on a low cost industry specific site like yours, as well as directories, both free and paid, which will only increase the potential reach.

Couple that with forum posts, articles, a few links, then for not very much dosh, our Party Planner business has now got themselves a nice bit of lowcost advertising.

And all for a fraction of what they would have spent on Yell.

Exactly, targeting your adverts works.

But write off Yell, nope. Yell bashing is easy, but the reality is plenty of people still use it. When they stop using it, then there will be no more Yell.

Yell.com might survive a bit longer, but if the Yellow pages gets any thinner it won't. See if advertisers pull out then all that's left is a book full of line listings with no advert content, making it tougher to sell ad space.

Will all those YP advertisers all jump onto Yell.com, I can't see it myself.

Cant sell on branding alone, there's not enough meat there, so to speak.

 

[sjr4x4]

Are they fine, how can that be with heavy debts that force up prices, complaints about sales calls badgering already uninterested prospects and many former clients not renewing ads :| I'm not making this up, this is fact, I've dealt with Yell myself......

Personally, I feel their pricing is way off the mark when compared to what other directories offer.

The problem they have is the business model they are tied into, this is the cause of the heavy debts.

They have the holy grail of marketing, brand awareness.

If I was Mr Yell MD, my plan of action Monday morning would be:

1. axe the hardcopy publishing side of the business, no more Yellow Doorstops.
2. sack all the agressive salesforce. Make no more outbound cold calls.
3. Redeploy any decent salesforce and employ them purely for online resubscritions.
4. Slash the pricing of the online adverts and simplify their rate card.
5. Move to a smaller office as they will have a fraction of the workforce.

This would drastically reduce the overhead, they could then rebuild their reputation, as they would only be selling to re-subs, or prospects that come to them, ie via PPC, marketing, Brand awareness.

No more cold calls, No more pain in the bum Yell sales pitches, and you now have an effective brand leading directory, which should make money!

So do I get the job?

 

[streetslocal]

Make no more outbound cold calls.

It pay's off for yell to make sales calls and why woul they want to stop that?

 

[sjr4x4]

It pay's off for yell to make sales calls and why woul they want to stop that?

have you seen how much debt there in?

 

[streetslocal]

have you seen how much debt there in?

Yes but then the key would be to streamline areas in the business that are leaking money.
Laying off staff would reduce staff overheads but dramtically reduce income.

 

[sjr4x4]

Yes but then the key would be to streamline areas in the business that are leaking money.
Laying off staff would reduce staff overheads but dramtically reduce income.

disagree matey. If your the brand leader, youve dumped the old publishing side, then why do you need to bombard people with cold calls?

Let people come to you. Dunno about yourselves, but we learnt this the hardway, having an office full of "youf's" using new business start up lists.

You just create a huge overhead which then puts pressure on the sales guys to sell more, which makes them aggressive, because they obviously want to meet targets etc. This then makes you another cold calling directory, which lets face it, most of these "new biz" data lists have been used to death by 100 other directories

Instead, let your customers come to you. Have a few sales guys to close down resubs or inbound enquires. The money you saved on the other sales guys salaries, spend on marketing to generate the inbound calls.

obviously each to their own

 

[streetslocal]

disagree matey. If your the brand leader, youve dumped the old publishing side, then why do you need to bombard people with cold calls?

Let people come to you. Dunno about yourselves, but we learnt this the hardway, having an office full of "youf's" using new business start up lists.

You just create a huge overhead which then puts pressure on the sales guys to sell more, which makes them aggressive, because they obviously want to meet targets etc. This then makes you another cold calling directory, which lets face it, most of these "new biz" data lists have been used to death by 100 other directories

Instead, let your customers come to you. Have a few sales guys to close down resubs or inbound enquires. The money you saved on the other sales guys salaries, spend on marketing to generate the inbound calls.

obviously each to their own

Data lists are a bad thing and i agree with that and maybe yell should not use pre set data lists hence the reason i said stream line the business.
But yell should call all free listing sign ups and try to upsell surely....

From my viewpoint,Cold calling what is that

 

[eventdomain]

The problem they have is the business model they are tied into, this is the cause of the heavy debts.

They have the holy grail of marketing, brand awareness.

If I was Mr Yell MD, my plan of action Monday morning would be:

1. axe the hardcopy publishing side of the business, no more Yellow Doorstops.
2. sack all the agressive salesforce. Make no more outbound cold calls.
3. Redeploy any decent salesforce and employ them purely for online resubscritions.
4. Slash the pricing of the online adverts and simplify their rate card.
5. Move to a smaller office as they will have a fraction of the workforce.

This would drastically reduce the overhead, they could then rebuild their reputation, as they would only be selling to re-subs, or prospects that come to them, ie via PPC, marketing, Brand awareness.

No more cold calls, No more pain in the bum Yell sales pitches, and you now have an effective brand leading directory, which should make money!

So do I get the job?

Sounds good to me, and you've presented the basis for a dream directory. Its all about the reputation and value, and to be fair Yell.com did improve their offering a touch, but not enough to warrant £400 a year.

I think it's about £8'000 for a national campaign, so they'd have to provide more traffic than Google to get those lost clients back. Can they do this? - I got my doubts about that.

How many clicks can you get for £400 using adwords say, it would be a lot though. And I would want at least 200 clicks a month for that, which works out to = 2400 clickthroughs a year.

Bearing in mind that perhaps out of that 200 monthly visitors, only 20 will be the 'right' target visitor and maybe just 10 will result in a sale, its not great.

 

[Matt1959]

the problem with Yell is that it doesnt suit every business. If someone uses Yell and it doesnt suit them, all we hear is "yell is rubbish" which is plainly not the case for everyone. btw BTDS gives good balanced info on here and didnt deserve the slap imho. Also, if you are email subscribed to posts, you can see pre edited posts in your inbox without even going on to the forum...

 

[eventdomain]

Yes but then the key would be to streamline areas in the business that are leaking money.
Laying off staff would reduce staff overheads but dramtically reduce income.

Exactly, the call centre operation must cost many thousands eg: £15k per outbound call agent salary......

 

[Matt1959]

just checked on the classification I advertise on (yellonline) Theres one page of premium ads for my classification and theres 10 ads on the page. Each advertiser can have a thumbnail image in the title of their listing. My listing is the only one out of the ten on that page to have an image and my listing stands out a mile so much so, I'd say I would get most enquiries from punters looking at that page purely because I have an image showing......

 

[sjr4x4]

...But yell should call all free listing sign ups and try to upsell surely....
From my viewpoint,Cold calling what is that

Absolutely 100%. A sign up that arrives as a freebie isn't a cold call. If you think you can offer value add by gently upselling, then why not, this is the business model we use.

If not, then you win by monetizing the traffic that arrives on the free listing. So the mission is to generate the sign ups, not a cold call in sight, and be interesting to see if the yellow doorstops eventually go down this route.

Of course the advantage the smaller more modern directories have is that they can quickly tap into this new business ethos. The likes of Yell and Thomsonlocal are supertankers when it comes to changing direction. But size, historical revenue, historical marketing spend and customer base = brand.

No doubt you could apply this to most business types. Its easy while you are small to change and adapt and undercut your big rivals. I guess the challange will be as the business expands.

Then you get lots of free exposure on forums by people talking and arguing about you!

 

[streetslocal]

Then you get lots of free exposure on forums by people talking and arguing about you!

Lol!!!!Agreed!

 

[eventdomain]

So the mission is to generate the sign ups, not a cold call in sight, and be interesting to see if the yellow doorstops eventually go down this route.

Yeah, so basically Yell.com would adopt an onsite 'upgrade your listing' to xyz? for a reasonable cost eg: £100..... for whatever time period and dump the old paper directory bcos it doesn't work that well. The ones it does work for, are in the minority.

And the advertisers that just use the yell book can be all placed as freebies in Yell.com, with an option to upgrade onsite - is this what you mean?

Be good if they did this, but would they 'let go' of what made them the branding machine they are today? But surely taking risks is what business is all about, so why cant Yell change for the customer, I don't see why not as they got the money, the experts etc.

What's the problem here... :|

 

[streetslocal]

You spend an awful lot of time being critical of Yell on here.

Myself i choose not to attack yell as quite frankly i can only dream i would be that well known and i prefer to state the benefits we offer over yell.
Most of the directory owners on this forum such as mylocalservices and freindex and UKSBD and justone offer a valuable service and its a horses for causes.

Personally these business directories do offer something.

Others i wouldnt bother with.

My theory if the site looks like it was put together with a tenners change stay away

 

[streetslocal]

I don't know what Yell.com's stats are for Event supplies, but we at www. eventdomain.co.uk get about 1 million per year.

Out of curiosity can these figures be independtly verified?

 

[sjr4x4]

Most of the directory owners on this forum such as mylocalservices and freindex and UKSBD and justone offer a valuable service and its a horses for causes.

Personally these business directories do offer something.

I've posted the money as requested

 

[Dean Dunn]

Interesting thread.

I have also considered using Yell, but there just seems to be too much noise in my category (web designer) with 23 primary links for my local city!

At the moment I've decided to go slow and steady, watch all my expenditure and concentrate on referrals. Would love to hear from where web designers have had success, personally I dont think there is one easy fix.

I'm also having clients now ask me whether they should continue with Yell or look at online advertising instead. It doesnt help though when they cant tell you where there enquiries have come from!

Regards,

Dean Dunn
Zimt Website Design

 

[eventdomain]

but there just seems to be too much noise in my category

But that just means its popular. You wouldn't want to advertise in something that:

A) Isn't used/visited

B) Is empty


Also what everyone forgets is that when Yellow pages began years ago, there wasnt much out there in advertising that was fairly cheap. At the time YP was a new concept, and every business jumped all over it - so it was very popular and trendy to 'be in'.

This isn't the case anymore, times have changed, people have moved on, they've realised that targeting produces conversions, and their customers use better more targeted search solutions to find buyers. Plus its far too easy to copy what Yell does, and the other 10'000 copycats prove this - which mean the 'uniqueness' of the general search tool is lost, and doing the 'general directory on the web' won't work.

Its not newsworthy enough, it has no excitement, and its practically impossible to better the next guy bcos its all the same stuff generated by cheap web scripts. Innovation is all that's left now, and one day, even the major search engines will be superceded by an entire niche market and probably using the portal style to accomplish 'ultimate industry portal websites' - so none of this general search stuff will matter anyway.

Satisfying the user need is where the best ideas come from, and at the time YP was great for the user. The user must be helped or how can something be popular, visted, used or talked about..

Thats my insight into the future of search

 

[streetslocal]

Its not newsworthy enough, it has no excitement, and its practically impossible to better the next guy bcos its all the same stuff generated by cheap web scripts.

Speak for yourself.
I know www.streetslocal.co.uk is not a cheap web script and nor is www.mylocalservices.co.uk nor is www.freeindex.co.uk

 

[eventdomain]

Speak for yourself.
I know www.streetslocal.co.uk is not a cheap web script and nor is www.mylocalservices.co.uk nor is www.freeindex.co.uk

What seperates the three directories that you mentioned above? I mean I see the 'local aspect' thing but hasn't this been done a million times before on the web by Google, Yell, Thomson, TouchLocal etc....

To be honest, I could have a General B2b directory set up in 2 weeks, and totally full with 20'000 listings within 2 years and totally decimate every living directory on the web. The reason I choose NOT to do this is bcos it would be pointless as the saturation is huge, and it would be much tougher to get the masses using it, bcos its nothing different, and people like different trendy websites that do a superior job.

I have never understood why so many bother duplicating a model that offers nothing different that a user can't get elsewhere on niche portals eg: Totaljobs, ZDNet, shopping sites etc, - at least niche sites differentiate themselves by a unique set of users and provide exact targeting to boot. Trying to serve the B2b world is always a mistake - its too big a thing to take on and too many others have done it before.

Are you seriously telling me that I can't find the categories or businesses that you have in Streetslocal elsewhere - bcos I'll find whatever general b2b info you want in Google probably in less than 1 hour - not that I need to Google it, as I know lots of niche sites that will do the job faster.

The problem is that you have fallen in love with your directory (and you're not alone) but you cannot afford to be emotional, it clouds judgement and everything you will do from then on won't work. And with all respect, I can and will speak for myself bcos I'm the one that got into a national newspaper and other media as well.

I know what I'm talking about.

 

[BdTS]

I see the merits of many of the business directories here.

The free-ones generally do really well from Google....the Yells of this world do well out of their own user-base due to how well-know the brand is as well.