Yellow Pages?

[Vision]

Just wondering your thoughts on adverts in Yellow Pages, is it worth paying more for a larger advert or just having a simple bold listing, also does anyone even use the Yellow Pages (book) anymore?

Cheers

Mark

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

What is your business? Which industry/market? Who are your customers? And is your business primarily local, offline, or national, or online?

Any YP conversations without that info are pretty limited.

 

[Morgy]

I think YP should now be on display in a Museum

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Just wondering your thoughts on adverts in Yellow Pages, is it worth paying more for a larger advert or just having a simple bold listing, also does anyone even use the Yellow Pages (book) anymore?

Cheers

Mark

I dont remember the last time I looked in Yellow Pages - its Google everytime for me now.

 

[Vision]

I dont remember the last time I looked in Yellow Pages - its Google everytime for me now.

Pretty much what i was thinking

 

[feeyd]

Yellow Pages is a dieing breed.

 

[Vision]

So is it even worth 90 odd quid a year for a basic listing?

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

Yes, could be, dependent upon you business/market and customer base.

But if you're comparing against spend for 1/2 page ad, or more than 1 directory, I would probably advise that you cost up website improvements and PPC as an alternative.

 

[Matt1959]

Yes, could be, dependent upon you business/market and customer base.

.

second time you've said that in this thread, we need a head knocking against a wall smillie - Yellow Pages DOES work for some sectors so without knowing what sector the OP works in, no one can really pass a proper opinion - just saying Yellow Pages is dead and thats it, is kind of unhelpful:|

 

[Vision]

Ok sorry,

I have a Guitar shop in a small town and also an e-commerce website listing products i sell in the shop

Mark

 

[Billmccallum]

Ok sorry,

I have a Guitar shop in a small town and also an e-commerce website listing products i sell in the shop

Mark

With music businesses and particularly guitars, many people buy them as presents and (somewhere else on the forum) we have already discussed peoples desire to try guitars out before buying.

So it is possible that a good deal of business could be generated by people picking up YP to look for a local guitar shop.

Personally, I wouldn't go for a flash 1/2 page or full page, but 1/4 or 1/8th page ad.

As with all marketing tools, you should engage the customer and find out how they found you, if they come into the shop, if they saw you online, in YP, through WOM, advice from a previous customer, etc. Similarly online, how they found your website.

Evaluate for a year and see how it goes.

 

[Matt1959]

I have a bold lineage entry that includes my web address, cost about £90pa. I regard it as a local presence and yes it does get me work...

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

I have a bold lineage entry that includes my web address, cost about £90pa. I regard it as a local presence and yes it does get me work...

It's always a good idea for a business with a local base to do this, or the small 1/4inch height boxes, which I think are about £200. Either way, this is still less usually than a small ad in a low circulating local paper once a year.

For the e-commerce side of things, i'd look to PPC.

 

[Blush]

When I opened the shop I tried yellowpages amongst other things, big raspberry for me though. Vast majority of my customers either find us via word of mouth or via the internet. We sell dancewear mainly in the shop so it is quite specialised,

 

[Gaskell]

I'm on yell.com, I dont get much business from my ad but I pay it just to be on google. Google Adwords is much better I find, its a pay & go system as well.

I've just renewed my yearly subscription to yell.com, they want a fortune to be placed in the book. Whenever I search for a business now its the internet everytime so how they justify book prices I dont know. I'd spend the book ad money on online advertising instead!

 

[termsandconditions]

Just say no.

 

[Millway Communications]

You would be better off with some pay per click with Google addwords.

 

[Barretts-Selfstorage]

We have cut back our Yellow pages adverts from having a major presence in them to only having a small advert - we feel Google Adwords are more effective.

 

[cinddy]

Yellow pages if good way to access your costumers but now Google is smart enough to solve all of your problem in seconds..!! SO, then Y to suffer for Yellow pages stuff...

 

[Rob S]

Here is a clue

I haven't used a hard copy yellow pages for years either personally or in a professional capacity.

Don't even use yell.com anymore either since they did something to their search where by those that pay more get to the top and not the guy that I am actually searching to find.

Run away.

 

[bzaza]

I'm a business owner (beauty spa) at syd cbd (australia), I spent >$6000 last year for YP ad (book & online) during the 13 months period I received ONLY 17 new customer from YP

I spent $500 per month on GOOGLE and.... I received approximately 200 new customers during the same period...

so... GO FIGURE!!

I think YP is a waste of money...the only people using YP is someone over 60 years old....and they are tooo old to read the YP book anyway....

and for people in their 40 and under....it's a no brainer ...GOOGLE generation...

 

[mrupset]

i would save your money.

the problems i have with yellow pages, they promiss you every thing and do about 5% of what you want them to,

2 other company's i know have had the same problems!!

yellow pages employee saleman, and they say anything so they reach there targets, once they sign the bit of paper you can never get hold of them

stay away of yellow pages !! its all a scam..

ps- yellow pages is getting smaller and smaller every year... think about why

 

[Barnes s b welder]

Just wondering your thoughts on adverts in Yellow Pages, is it worth paying more for a larger advert or just having a simple bold listing, also does anyone even use the Yellow Pages (book) anymore?

Cheers

Mark

BAD BEWARE ,CHECK YOUR BANKS THEY MENT TO BE TAKING UNDER £50 a month they took that plus £330 this month the £48 plus £150 the next day. have to keep ringing them and getting it paid back. if i didnt check my back account i would never of know, BEWARE, from BARNES S B WELDER

 

[mrupset]

i wouldnt bother,
yellow pages is a dieing trade,
we are advertising with them, so far we have not had a single phone call from them,
biggist waste of money, there customer service is useless too

 

[ecombiz1]

Advertising in Yellow Pages is always good for business promotion. But before advertisment target your customers location.

 

[mit74]

did BT, yellow pages and thompson and every single one made a loss. Better off hiring some one local monthly to do marketing, SEO and adwords for you.

 

[Deleted member 61074]

It depends!

Personally I rarely use YP, but recently a new neighbour asked if they could borrow my copy. Why? Being new to the area they wanted to know where their favourite shops were, a combination of YP and sat nav resulted in many 100's of £ of shopping.

 

[the locksmith]

I would doubt that many people look in yp for guitar shops. Far more likely to be google etc.

Perhaps a small lineage ad would be OK but seriously doubt it would be worth spending £1000's.

I was in YP for about 15 years and finally pulled out when they told me they were going to go to the small format book. (previous edition to the one that has just been published here in Edinburgh)

Vast majority of my new customers come from google or bing etc. I'm fortunate (touch wood) that I have a good well established customer base that gives me repeat business.

Thankfully yp have now given up phoning me telling me what a big mistake I am making etc etc,.

If you have a look at their share price it tells a fairly sad story ... shares were over £6.50 early in 2007 ... they are now strungling to get to 6 pence.

 

[internetspaceships]

As Rob was earlier, I'm in the same position. I haven't used YP or any other paper publications for years. This is from either the perspective of an advertiser or a customer.

I'm also a terrible guitarist. I looked for my latest guitar on the internet. I priced it up, then looked up my local guitar shop (on the internet,) went in and negotiated a deal with them.

 

[TheBigCheese]

I have a slightly different take on it than everyone else here.

I'm in Yellow Pages, I have a fairly large ad, its costs me about £75 a month for ten months on direct debit and I have to say it really works for me...hoping I don't jink it as I'm about to renew! :O

The reason it works for me is that a lot of my older customers (of which a good proportion of my trade comes from) don't use the internet much, or even own a computer so they still reach for the book.

It has to be said that my younger customers find us online mainly so it entirely depends on your target market. Personally I think something like guitar buying isn't something older people would do so much, so if it's the younger generation, they will be looking online and also looking at reviews of companies to buy from...have you thought about putting yourself on Freeindex to build up some good reviews?


EDIT - just seen this is an old thread...what's with the thread necromancy???

My advice still applies though to me though.

 

[joe@excitepm]

I think YP should now be on display in a Museum

I would have to disagree with that...as I feel yellow pages goes in cycles.

At the moment we are getting alot of business from it as none of our competitors are advertising in it, but now the new edition has been launched our competitors will see we are the only company in our field in it and start takings ads out again.