Yellow Pages and Yell.com

[david rushton]

Hi

I was wondering what peoples views on Yellow Pages and Yell.com were. I was approached by a rep trying to sell me ad space in Yellow Pages and a listing in Yell.com

I run a web design company so our clients are B2B (I had always thought of Yell as B2C), do people still look in Yell for B2B services or are they more likely to just Google them?

Thanks in advance

 

[barney1]

We too were approached by Yell. To be honest I think if you are a in the b2c trade; plumbing, cleaning, ironing service, tyre fitters etc; then its a worth it but definitely not if your market is mainly b2b. There are plenty of good trade sites you can go on for your market; just think about what they read.

 

[PaceSetters]

Hi David

I have found, from Google analytics, that we still receive quite a large amount of referrals through yell.com. However yellow pages, which previously you could not afford to fail to advertise in, seems to bring in less and less business nowadays.

Personally if I am looking for a particular company I will Google them, but if I am looking for a service, i still check on Yell.com.

Hope this helps.

regards
Geoff

 

[Toastdesign]

I've always said to my overly pushy Yell reps that you find plumbers, electricians and chimney sweeps in the Yellow Pages, not reputable designers.

My company advertised in the printed directory for years, we only got one decent lead.

We tried a year on yell.com for around £500 - nada.

From experience, clients with micro-budgets for jobs use the Yell route, as they don't really know what they are looking for.

 

[CKG]

I had a thread going not so long ago where I got some imput on good copy for the advert on yell.com and then came back with the results several months later.

It seems on yell.com if your in a busy catagory the ad copy makes little to no difference to conversion. I found that whoever is closest geographically to the caller gets the call. Which obviously narrows down who will call you by a fair whack.

The book is the same. It all hinges around location and dialing code when your selling a service. Unless your bottom line can cope with a big multi entry campaign you're only ever going to get the scraps.

From experience, clients with micro-budgets for jobs use the Yell route, as they don't really know what they are looking for.

Is this a bad thing? It seems like a good opportunity to create a budget sevice for them. Which I would guess there is big demand for these days.

 

I agree with barney1 - it really depends what industry you are in. We pulled our Yellow Pages ad as it wasn't working for us but the Yell.com one is still bringing in worthwhile results.

 

[david rushton]

Thanks guys, you have confirmed my thoughts about Yellow Pages, as for Yell.com this still might be worth considering, in the current climate there seems to be a lot of demand for small/micro websites - maybe if the price is right we will consider Yell.com

 

[james Minion]

I was a bit miffed with yell dot com for 5 months but we have now had two sales enquiries which look like turning into sales and will more than pay for the ad. We advertised with Yell for our telemarketing services.

 

[westmill]

Hi

I was wondering what peoples views on Yellow Pages and Yell.com were. I was approached by a rep trying to sell me ad space in Yellow Pages and a listing in Yell.com

I run a web design company so our clients are B2B (I had always thought of Yell as B2C), do people still look in Yell for B2B services or are they more likely to just Google them?

Thanks in advance

I certainly wouldnt trust yell.com !
I thought they would be a company you could trust. I was so wrong.
They turned out to be a cowboy company running scams.
The scam i fell for was the 30 day free trial. OUCH ! Its a scam !
You Will Be Billed !!!!
Google yell.com scams.... I wish I had, before getting involved with them.

 

[westmill]

Im one of many yell.com victims. I fell for the free 30 day trial ..... Ouch !
In my opinion, people like these should be stopped from trading in the UK.
I trusted them because of their links with yellow pages.
There are some good companys out there.... yell.com isnt one of them.

 

[Matt1959]

so you took up a 30 day trial and were billed, how much were you asked to pay?

 

[hdm]

We had advertised with yell.com and yellow pages for many years. This year, we cancelled. If your SEO is sorted, you don't need them.

 

[lewey]

Yellow pages / Yell.com had a fantastic opportunity to get in a good position when the internet came along, but they were slow, arrogant about their position, and a bunch of thieves trying to milk every penny out of people in the short term. Google /internet search has taken over, and now the only people (in majority of cases) that use Yellow pages, Thomsen directories etc are other marketers trying to sell their advertising to you. Yellow pages is a dying business, its the same around the world, and they sooner they go bust and close the better, as their recent business practices are despicable.

 

[ThePCWiz]

Please dont bother wasting your money. We spent over 1k last year and they promised to send loads of clients to us. Total number they sent 2. just get a free line listing with them and also the thompson local.

 

[Steve202]

I placed an order for a listing earlier this year but cancelled soon after. I simply wasn't happy with the fact that I couldn't control how my advert looks and the details on there.

They also included their Call Counter Geo service in the package and then I asked about using my own number instead they said no. They also included some SEO web pages, which when I read over them, the sentences didn't make any sense and was basically list a list of key words.

If you're interested in a directory worth its weight in gold, go and take a look at www.freeindex.co.uk

 

[hdm]

Yes, I'm pretty impressed with Free Index.

 

[MASSEY]

I find a free index is full of peoe who want it on the cheap

 

[simmo28]

Yell.com sponsored advertising is simply a waste of time. Its hugely over rated and the results businesses get are very poor. you are better suited to creating a FREE Google Local Business Listing / Yahoo Local Business Listing / Bing Local Business Listing, and establishing your business in your local area for free..

This is far more effective than Buying Yell.com Sponsored listings which are a complete rip off and hardly bring any ROI on your advertising with them at all.

I have a free guide that details how you can set your own Local Business Listing for FREE http://www.eastone.co.uk/freeguide *if you dont want to opt-in to my mailing list then PM me and i will be happy to email you a copy straight away.

 

[westmill]

so you took up a 30 day trial and were billed, how much were you asked to pay?

The FREE yell.com trial costs £365 it would seem !
First I was getting threats of them handing my none existant debt to debt collectors and now they are saying I can pay half of the amount.
From the second I had the phone call from their telesales to the present, I have said nothing other than I am not intrested.
What they are doing in my opinion is criminal. I would also state that I would go to prison before I would pay 50p to crooks like yell.com.
Its like I said, yell.com is openly running scams. They must have scammed hundreds of people by now. Whats worst, is the fact that they are being allowed to continue. I dont think its enough to just stop them from trading, I believe the people responsible should go to prison.

 

[A Party Shop]

One 'possible' disturbing thing Yell are doing recently is buying a domain name with your business name and location in and putting content on it. I'm guessing that this is with the business's permission but the Registrant is Yell Limited.

EG

Your business name is Fourth Choice Letting based in Hemel Hempstead
The domain puchased and registered by Yell is fourthchoicelettinghemelhempstead.co.uk (not a live example)

Weird :|

 

[Steve202]

One 'possible' disturbing thing Yell are doing recently is buying a domain name with your business name and location in and putting content on it. I'm guessing that this is with the business's permission but the Registrant is Yell Limited.

EG

Your business name is Fourth Choice Letting based in Hemel Hempstead
The domain puchased and registered by Yell is fourthchoicelettinghemelhempstead.co.uk (not a live example)

Weird :|

They done this to me for my SEO pages. I wasn't impressed at all.

 

[A Party Shop]

I can see they have Steve by adding Burntwood to your business name.

 

[Tw Installations]

Im not the best person to ask about yell or yellow pages as I dont rate them atall.

However, If I was searching for a web design company the last place I would ever look would be yellow pages.

For a web service, its always a google search

Tommy

 

[hdm]

I think for most services, it would be a google search.

 

[BdTS]

I certainly wouldnt trust yell.com !
I thought they would be a company you could trust. I was so wrong.
They turned out to be a cowboy company running scams.
The scam i fell for was the 30 day free trial. OUCH ! Its a scam !
You Will Be Billed !!!!
Google yell.com scams.... I wish I had, before getting involved with them.

I bet that isn't actually what happened at all, because if it was, you certainly wouldn't be forced to pay for it, and it would be evidenced rather easily.

Yell don't suffer fools gladly when it comes to defrauding customers, they sack people no questions asked.

 

[mckellar]

i wish they would stop calling me every week to be honest, i dont want to be in it, yet they always phone me during my working hours

 

[eventdomain]

i wish they would stop calling me every week to be honest, i dont want to be in it, yet they always phone me during my working hours

hmmm, what amazes me is how they obtain tel numbers, and ones to make them think anyone is a hot prospect for sponsored advertising sales pitches.

Are they using an extracted or paid for list of data? Because if they are, then their clearly breaking Data Protection laws as the data owner has to consent to telesales calls - NOT the data holder. Yell needs to get permission in the first place before doing telesales....

Or is this a genuine list of companies who took a punt with the free line entries and Yell are just following up? This would need to be established before making a complaint.

Im not a fan of Yell.com and have been hassled by their call centre in India a few times and by their UK call centre - so it seems this is their main strategy for sales.

 

[ZARMarketing]

Yellow pages and Yell.com work really well for trades people such as plumbers, joiners etc. I would invest the money you would have spent on Yellow pages and Yell.com on joining your local chamber of commerce and networking opportunities.

You will probably get more ROI than if you let some sharp talking Yell rep get you to take some of their space.

Thanks,
Zoe

 

[draelectricals]

With regards to advetising in Yell.... a big fat NO! Don't do it! I'm 6 months into a deal, costing £75.00 per month (search for me on yell.com under PAT Testing North East/sunderland/durham/newcastle/seaham e.g. to see my advert), which is a decent size and near the top of the lists, however so far it has made me a grand total of £60. So not a good investment to be had. Be very careful. I don't know anyone in trades or B2B who has found it to be profitable

 

[brownhandbag]

We have had a bad experience with yellow pages so now have free ad only and have banned them from phoning us! They are on the list of companies we will never again deal with

 

[draelectricals]

I bet that isn't actually what happened at all, because if it was, you certainly wouldn't be forced to pay for it, and it would be evidenced rather easily.

Yell don't suffer fools gladly when it comes to defrauding customers, they sack people no questions asked.

This is not always the case... when I was sold the package, I was told for my field there were approx 15000 searches per year, and approx 1250 per month, of this approx 500 were in the North East, from which I should get approx 50 calls per month. They even said to me that business from yell would be worth about £5k p.a. to me.

Based on this wonderful assumption I agreed to a package, that would net me approx £4k pofit if it worked.

In my first 6 months, there have been less than 2000 searches on the field, and less than 20 in my region. From this I have had 3 calls, and 2 jobs, worth in total £60.00 I have thus far lost £390.00.

After 4 months an 0 calls I complained; I rang, wrote and emailed, and eventually got a copy of the sales call, which confirmed the above. On complaining further I was told that even though this was said, it was my choice to sign up and thus my problem that they would do nothing.

I have even had a solicitor look at the T&C but there is nothign we can do. Have tried Miss-selling but got no where.

Be VERY VERY careful before agreeing to yell.com

 

[draelectricals]

I would say for B2P companies yell is good; electricians, plumbers, builders but for B2B it isn't. I would use the money for a google campaign or to join a network

 

[Dave.F]

This is not always the case... when I was sold the package, I was told for my field there were approx 15000 searches per year, and approx 1250 per month, of this approx 500 were in the North East, from which I should get approx 50 calls per month. They even said to me that business from yell would be worth about £5k p.a. to me.

How many of the 15,000 searches are by companies selling Mobile phone contracts, fuel cards, charities, insurance, other directories / advertisers, competitors, parts suppliers, etc..etc...etc...:|.....I have had them all....

I tried yell.com once:redface: never again.

 

[eventdomain]

I was told for my field there were approx 15000 searches per year

Sounds a lot, but that will be shared by many others already using that category, and I doubt one single Town directory gets that amount by itself. The figures quoted by this sales rep, probably covers an entire region of searches and not a single town.

There could be 1000 other companies you are competing with, so its unlikely an advertiser would see 500 a month resulting in 50 calls. And 50 calls won't turn into 50 sales, maybe 2 or 3 sales perhaps - and promising a client a return of £5k in profit is just stupid, as if its that easy

I think we all know this is fantasy..

 

[3 MORE YEARS]

Don't go near Yell. I think it's difficult in b2b. I think you might be lucky to break even with them.

 

[BdTS]

Don't go near Yell. I think it's difficult in b2b. I think you might be lucky to break even with them.

Could list you a huge amount of B2B companies I've dealt with who get a good return from Yell.

 

[*Lexxy*]

BDTS - i'm surprised by your b2b results. can you give any further info as to what market sections this is in, i'd be particularly interested in Trades.


i've just had yell.com on the phone, she was pleasant enough but she really wouldn't take no for an answer!

i'd told her right at the beginning of the call that we weren't in a position to take on any paid advertising at the moment. she said 'ok, we'll just go thru the details for your free listing as it includes extra info now'. we did this then she launched into her spiel again, i politely told her again our position, she refused to accept this & went off again! so 3 times from me before she gave up. i suppose that means she's a 'good' saleswoman?!

she also told me our website wasn't on the 1st page of google for our service/town, i've just checked now (using a different browser to where i log into google local business so i didn't skew the results) & we are - ok, at the bottom, but we're there!

 

[MASSEY]

Im gettin raped by infoserve everyday and someothers google / yahoo "affiliates".

The one guy is such a knob. Everything i tell him he comes back at me and then i come back at him. I think i secretly enjoy making him think im a possible deal i think i need to give it him straight.

How can they expect me to want to pay £250 for a "prority" listing in there low rank low traffic sites any one with any sense would use that money on a more popular like thompson or yell or google adverts. But i dont even wanna list with yell or thompson because they are crap.

The days of the directories are numbered i really think it especially with all the free ones out ranking the paid and getting more trafic.

 

[eventdomain]

The general directories wont survive, it was over for them a few years back. Yellow pages can't last, as every time it comes through the door its thinner than an 'After Eight mint'.

Obviously the advertisers arent renewing adverts. Its not the advertiser's fault, theres only so much their willing to pay for a Business name and description - okay, the paper book is different from Yell's online version, but its still the same basic idea, and the Yellow Pages book didn't reduce in fees when Yell basically put it online - as it meant the web version took over and became the dominant format.

Dominant format or not, there's only so much B2b's will fork out for a link, even though many small businesses took National campaigns at £8000 pa - but it will fail for many, despite Yells sheer size, TV advertising and profile, but it isnt always about size, its about targeting/precise matching, and local reach.

Yes, Yell.com are indeed a great company and I admire them, but times are a changing, far too much for Yell.com to help people the way it used to......

 

[BdTS]

The general directories wont survive, it was over for them a few years back. Yellow pages can't last, as every time it comes through the door its thinner than an 'After Eight mint'.

Obviously the advertisers arent renewing adverts. Its not the advertiser's fault, theres only so much their willing to pay for a Business name and description - okay, the paper book is different from Yell's online version, but its still the same basic idea, and the Yellow Pages book didn't reduce in fees when Yell basically put it online - as it meant the web version took over and became the dominant format.

Dominant format or not, there's only so much B2b's will fork out for a link, even though many small businesses took National campaigns at £8000 pa - but it will fail for many, despite Yells sheer size, TV advertising and profile, but it isnt always about size, its about targeting/precise matching, and local reach.

Yes, Yell.com are indeed a great company and I admire them, but times are a changing, far too much for Yell.com to help people the way it used to......

You're actually so wrong it's laughable.

"but times are a changing, far too much for Yell.com to help people the way it used to..." they get their customers more phone calls now than they have done at any other stage of the past 10+ years it's been going.

Yell.com revenue has gone up by 40% over the past couple of years, which wouldn't happen if people weren't renewing.

As for the book being smaller, you'll find much of that is down to them wanting to make sure the book fits through people's letterbox, ergo increasing usage. Advertising in the book is declining but unbelievably, it wouldn't shock me if it steadied due to some of the things they've started doing.