yellow pages response

« **on:** January 07, 2005, 07:02:01 pm »

Hi all, I will be going in the yellow pages in march for the first time. The add is costing me £862 i hope it will pay for it's self.
How many jobs on avarage do you get a month from yellow pages?
Cheers,
Rob.

« **Reply #1 on:** January 07, 2005, 08:55:09 pm »

yell.com is absolutely terrible. No response in 5 months. I have advertised in our local phone book and again absolutley terrible. I was a member of nfmw&gc and advertised last year under their heading in yp. Only one in the area and not one response from this. doesnt mean this will not work for you but if you try it monitor your response and you will be able to decide for next year whether to do it again or not

« **Reply #2 on:** January 08, 2005, 08:40:34 pm »

Had a lot of enquires over christmas from YP but I think that was down to everyone being busy.Normally receive maybe one enquiry a month which I consider to be a poor return.

« **Reply #3 on:** January 09, 2005, 07:24:54 am »

With a half page ad, we recieve up to a dozen calls a week.
Of these, some are sales calls and calls from charities.
Some will be from people just simply shopping leaving just a couple that are serious work.

Yell.com with a good web link has worked much better. Hardly any time wasters & enough work over the year to have paid for itself several times over.

Yell reps are eager to tell you how many calls you are likely to recieve per size of ad. What you mustn't think is that they are all sales calls, they will not be.

Your money could be better spent on a larger advert elsewhere that will provide more work. Just think about where your target market are and target your advert in an appropriate publication rather than at the masses.

Nicky

« **Reply #4 on:** January 09, 2005, 09:32:33 am »

If starting out I would recommend yellow pages, and leaflet drops.
What you need to consider is your return on your ad price. If you get £862.00 back in a year, and then some of these customer return the following years, you will gradually build your client base up, and the more on board, the more recommendation. You have not lost anything as you had got your £862 back. Do not think that as you are in the yellow pages it will automatically bring in thousands of pounds.
Be realistic you are with lots of other ads and customers will just look at the ads and pick as they feel.

I have a half page ad, I change a higher price than the average, but guarantee the work. We get a lot of clients who want a guarantee good job, and who live in big flash houses. We do not get customers who are ringing round for the cheapest price.

As mentioned what target market do you want.

« **Reply #5 on:** January 09, 2005, 11:29:33 am »

Ive Been in the Yellow Pages for quit a few years now it has always made 4-5 times what i have spent on it. The art to the the Yellow Pages to get your ad right, spending lots of time designing your ad, freephone numbers help but you must stand out from the rest! In my opinion the Thompson local is a waste of time!

« **Reply #6 on:** January 09, 2005, 11:39:55 am »

I agree with that comment on Thomson.
I pulled out of Thomson years ago, but have returned this year after they gave me a good deal. I am only advertised under the NCCA banner, thing is I am the only one, so it looks like my own advert, with NCCA written all over it. Now that was lucky.
So with an ad in a book containing 8 listing, 3 of which have block ads, (including mine). I have had one job in 3 months,
And that includes the xmas run. Things will need to improve big time before I return next year.

« **Reply #7 on:** January 10, 2005, 02:39:23 pm »

I think that success with YP could be geographical. In our area there are over 8 pages of CC ad's. Up the road 30 miles there are 3 pages.

We charge a high price for guaranteed work and rarely get price shoppers from other marketing avenues.

Nicky

« **Reply #8 on:** January 10, 2005, 07:41:11 pm »

do ok with yellow pages it been good to me
made a cock up though this year and signed up fro the red business pages!!!! ok no one has ever heard of it?.
also yell.com is expensive and crap
regs.brian

« **Reply #9 on:** January 10, 2005, 08:59:54 pm »

Just browsing and came across this, so thought I would chip in.

I have spent many thousands on advertising most on YP and those who take half or whole pages will be very aware of costs. Nothing has ever proved individually worthy of the cost for me over the years, but its a different story if you look at it as part of a marketing package.

So many factors come into play when advertising in YP such as:
Are you an A or a Z
Page position (right hand or left hand - top or bottom).
Location and type of business and who else is in your book.
How many sections are you in and how many books.
Size and colour of add
How many years in the book ( people like stability)
Words (just look through your own YP, bet you get a smile)
Finally "is the add actually any good - who created it"?

When you consider the above it really isn’t any wonder why there is such diverse opinions or levels of success.

Whether you get it right or wrong with YP as a single source, it acts as a great reference point and back up tool for your OTHER ADVERTISING like the "find us in the Yellow Pages" stickers on vans- YP logos on flyers and even on your web site etc.

I guess an example would be if you paid some one to do a job and they sat around till they were ready, you would get cheesed off. Same with your advertising, make it work for you and don’t rest your laurels on one add (unless you are extremely lucky) you will need to keep up all your other marketing.

Just seen how it can really work, even with terrible adds.
DP

« **Reply #10 on:** January 10, 2005, 09:17:38 pm »

Hi Guys,

I answered the poll as how many jobs booked in per month I get (5-7), but some seem to have included all calls including nuisance

.

As I have previously said my first 2 attempts at YP were hopeless but my quarter column no nonsense ad has worked really well.

I am surrounded by JP bull so I think that works in my favour.

I also treat enquires as a 'shot to nothing ' which probably helps .

Cheers,

Doug

« **Reply #11 on:** January 10, 2005, 09:19:37 pm »

Myself and my other half have been running our business for a year and decided to do a bigger ad in the YP in October so we took out a quarter page ad, which was a bit scary as I thought that I might have to fund it out of my own pocket!!

Before that we advertised mainly in the local paper.
What I have found is that for the same money we now get bigger jobs from the YP instead of the local paper who are people that want their lounge cleaned for £20. As this isn't the type of market that I wanted to be aiming at I definatly made the right decision.

The other point was and I thing that someone has mentioned it already is that I wanted to build the business up over a few years and hopefully next year I can look forward to all the repeat business from the customers that YP will generate for us this year.

Good luck with your new ad.

« **Reply #12 on:** January 10, 2005, 09:29:24 pm »

Laura,

Good first post and welcome on board

Cheers,

Doug

« **Reply #13 on:** January 10, 2005, 09:47:51 pm »

Thanks Doug. I only found the Forum a few months ago but have been to nervous to put anything on!! Wanted to make sure I knew what I was talking about first so I didn't sound like a complete idiot!!

« **Reply #14 on:** January 11, 2005, 08:39:53 am »

Don't worry Laura--we all look like that at times!

I found when I started that newspaper ads worked for about 9-12 months then died. By that time the YP ad was running- 8 jobs in 8 months. Then a new rep came round and said the ad was rubbish. He did a new one and things took off. Since then I have done my own ads and last year put my photo in instead of a drawing, 25% increase in replies and 20% increase in sales. I keep the basic look but update it each year. The ad is 2 columns wide by 65mm. He also said that big ads do not always work, it it what is in them that counts, and they should have empty space which catches peoples eye.

Trevor

« **Reply #15 on:** January 11, 2005, 07:30:34 pm »

Ok I confess.
I go to my local library and fick through the cc section in all the yellow pages in the uk. That is about 75 I think. I put aside all the ads that stand out to me, or have something to say that I like.
I photocopy these ads then make my advert out of the best of the ads.
I have a half page in the Norfolk book and it stands out from the rest.
So Laura if you want good advice, steal good ideas.

Sorry guy I just needed to un-burden myself.

« **Reply #16 on:** January 11, 2005, 07:42:59 pm »

We have justed uped our advertising into 4 new books covering all the Northwest bar 2 areas which we will expand into next year we have put a half page in colour under carpet and upholstery, and a half page 3 colour under cleaning and maintainence, i dont claim for the yp to be a great sucess but doing this equates to one half of our advertising buget for 2005, it is in the region of £20k however if our marketing stratergy works out right and we only get 15% of the work that we did in 2004 coming back for re-work then that will pay for the advertising for 2005 that way in 2006 we can double over advertising again to 8 new books and working on the same principle in percentage/estermation/rework it should only equate to 7.5% all new work will equate to non advertising costs and a greater profit margin. This technique has been adopted by a lot of major companies that advertise in the yp nationwide, i wouldnt recomend this to the one man band or smaller company but we have a 5 year plan to become nationwide so this is the way forward for us.

Regards Dave ADL

« **Reply #17 on:** January 13, 2005, 12:39:04 am »

One of my concerns about Yellow pages is the Geographical area.

Im located on the edge of three areas, possibly four.

Whereass Karl is Central to his and at the Centre of the population.

So is it Locatuion Location.

That also makes a diffrent to results.

« **Reply #18 on:** January 28, 2005, 05:24:40 pm »

Hi

Yellow pages have been a complete waste of time and money for me, i won't be spending to much on it next year!!
Yell.com paid for itself twice over on the first call i took, and has generated about 2.5k for me, thats not a bad return for £300.
Gavin is right, you need the right advert to work, i also think that some areas work better than others!

Ian

« **Reply #19 on:** January 28, 2005, 07:16:45 pm »

Quote from: Karl Wildey on January 11, 2005, 07:30:34 pm

Ok I confess.
I go to my local library and fick through the cc section in all the yellow pages in the uk. That is about 75 I think. I put aside all the ads that stand out to me, or have something to say that I like.
I photocopy these ads then make my advert out of the best of the ads.
I have a half page in the Norfolk book and it stands out from the rest.
So Laura if you want good advice, steal good ideas.

Sorry guy I just needed to un-burden myself.

and I thought you were a Joe Polish man.

Poll

yellow pages response.