Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Simon Gerrard on February 14, 2011, 06:17:10 pm
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How many of you use Yell.com?
Or have you used them but dropped them (if so why?)
Or have you never considered it?
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dropped em cos there a waste of time, i only got calls when they were plastered over the tele and that only lasts a couple of weeks, think it was the horse one when i enrolled, its the revamped J R hartley now, you'll get a few enquiries while thats on then everyone will forget about it and just google as usual.
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Dropped out myself as didnt get many enquireys.
Your right derek with the cheesy add for dave e latley trance dance mix ;D
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Waste of time and very expensive. I dropped it.
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Mmm, that's pretty much our experience of them.
Anyone happy with them?
Simon
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Waste of money...advertised with them when we first started up and all we got was calls from other advertising agency..not one job
Got ours delivered a few weeks ago and its still in its bag.
They have had there day, even yell.com is not working
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Honestly don't waste your money. Hard sell,lots of self boasting and Google adwords outperformed them by 20-1 when I was using it.
The yell group love themself, the rest of the business community lost that love a few years ago.
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Last couple of years have been pants. Before that it ok doing ok, nothing special.
Since the first of December till now 2 calls, both price shoppers that didn't book.
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Total waste of time, specially now that most people have phones with mobile internet access
Mark
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Ditto, never had a call. Google out performs them ever time. YP still works though, not how it did but we are keeping the ad in, the more our competitors pull out the better it is for us.
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I`m still getting around 16 calls a month thru yell, so I`ll give it another year.
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We're on it but not for much longer.
Without checking I'm 99% sure we haven't recoup the cost and that was one of the top listings.
If you were searching for a tradesman would you first bring up google, then bring up Yell, then do the search. When if you just bring up any decent everyday search engine you can find what you want by missing out the 'yell' bit of the equation.
Something else I don't like about it, is that it contains 'non local' people who are cheating the system by using false addresses. Until they get that sorted it's never going to be beneficial to local trades.
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I was searching for a joiner the other day for a quote on lining the back of my new van with ply board and got very poor results on google. So opted for the YP and there where tons.
I think it works better for some trades than others, but yell is poor and extremely expensive for what it does.
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A very good point Neil. I just do a Google search and that's why Adwords works. For me Yell ripped too many people off for too long in the book as well as online. Huge profit margins based on not enough real competition.
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I do okay off Yell.com and get quite a bit of commercial work from it. Out of all my marketing, Yell.com gives me my highest average job ticket.
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I think it depends on your area! some are better than others! a friend of mine who lives in county durham does ok from them! I myself cant remember ever getting one phone call in the year i advertised with them! needless to say i havent advertised with them again!
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:'(DOH...I just signed up for my first time with Yell...£400 for the year..DOH..! :o
So if not YELL...wheres best to advertise??..I get calls from Google searchers Im sure..But gets lots of sales calls from Yahoo...is anyone on with them??
Also..what/how do ADWORDS work???
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I signed up to the book and yell.com in dec for the first time, decided i needed to try for myself.
Ive had endless sales calls where they've got my number from yell.com, ive had a few jobs from the book and .com, not a great deal but its only feb so the jurys still out.
My ad was done in a bit of a hurry as the book was going to print, as i figured the only people really using the book now were the older folk i tryed to gear it toward them- family business, caring and 10% discount.
Ive had them pesky swines from Thomson local on the phone a few times telling me x amount of searches done on just there site for my services last month.
When i said im sure more searches were done on google than thomson and his figures didnt really tally with what my adwords were telling me, well it turned out he was using a pretty wide search area.
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dont wast your money,with yell or thomson..they will get more than you will..
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Our YP Rep came yesterday and wasn't very pleased that we cancelled our advertising after 30 years with them.
Simon
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We've been in yell since starting, however it's getting more expensive and we are seeing fewer enquiries.
My question to everyone is:
"What's the alternative?"
We currently spend around £200/ month with Yell and Yellow Pages, I'm quite happy with this level of advertising providing it works.
They are trying to get me to take out a sponsored listing in our area, but the price is stupid, though saying that there is a company in 2nd spot (costing him £3500pa) and he is advertising "Any carpet £10"
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I would never use this crowd again, they will tell you what you want to hear to sell it, all lies.
Buying this was the biggest mistake I made marketing wise. I was getting more interest from free advertising such as gumtree then what I was getting from this crowd. My advert cost me over £600
Never again, waste of money
Paul
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Honestly Ian you would be better putting £2500 or so towards further investment in Adwords or optimising your websites if you you don't already do that.
Yell is money down the drain.
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Got to agree or in my case i started putting money away 3 years ago what in would have spent on yell stuff n y pages and put that towards my new van.
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Got to agree or in my case i started putting money away 3 years ago what in would have spent on yell stuff n y pages and put that towards my new van.
To should be applauded Clinton for a very wise move.
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Well was a familly members idea really yorky and i did it..
Spend the money on other things in the business now mind..
Would not give another penny to yel pages etc rather as yorky said spend on add campaign or web sites
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i do well out of yell, the more people that drop out of yell there better,
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i do well out of yell, the more people that drop out of yell there better,
Well yes and no. They are losing thousands of advertisers every year yet are still putting up prices. Trouble is for every less business advertising there are thousands less people using the product so you are not actually any better off just paying more money for ther gold service.
I'm obviously not a fan of their methods of doing business. ;)
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we paid for yell.com and yellow pages for 12 months, had 2 enquiries in all that time.
refused to renew after the 12 months, that was 2 years ago and we've had more calls from customers since we cancelled saying they found us on yell than we did when we were paying stupid money for it.
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thanks for telling how yellow pages work yorky, wouldnt know only been using them for 10 years,
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The letter is already in the bin but we had one today from Yell about the FREE two months additional advert we had with them, and how they are sure we have benefitted from it ;D
Given that I always ask people where they got our number from, they'll be in for a shock when they do their follow up call to be told we have had the grand total of zero :o
So that zero from two adverts, one of which is the sponsored advert.
I can think of many better ways of spending nearly £3k than throwing it at this.
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thanks for telling how yellow pages work yorky, wouldnt know only been using them for 10 years,
Hey just pointing out you are actually no better off if less people are using the service. Your point would be fair if the same number were using with less advertisers.
Sorry if I offended you.
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you didnt offended just your experenice to mine is different thats why i use them, and earn money from them, or why would i waste my time,
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you didnt offended just your experenice to mine is different thats why i use them, and earn money from them, or why would i waste my time,
Fair enough.
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If i was asked about Yell before xmas i would of agreed with most posts on here,but the last 2 months have brought in over £2k of commercial work.I've had loads of domestics customers lately off yell as well,infact yell is my best advertisment at the mo.Maybe it's the new tv advert or just luck,not sure,but the £450ish i pay a year to yell is looking good value and i will probaby risk another year when it runs out in august.
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dropped em cos there a waste of time, i only got calls when they were plastered over the tele and that only lasts a couple of weeks, think it was the horse one when i enrolled, its the revamped J R hartley now, you'll get a few enquiries while thats on then everyone will forget about it and just google as usual.
;D
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We still get a good return from Yell and it is still up there as one of our main streams of income, I would just like it to be better and cheaper.
The local rep was round this week, I could get a medium weight advert for £379, but in his words it was a waste of time as "everyone's got mediumweight listing, you need a heavyweight listing or better still sponsored listing!"
The other thing that really bugs me is I NEVER get the same rep out from one year to the next, each time they promise, "this is my patch, I've been covering it for the past 10 years, you'll have me from now on" Next year, different person!!!
I'm up for renewal at the moment and not sure which way to go, we advertise in a few different sections for the different parts of our business and I may just kill off most of them and concentrate on one aspect.
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Well I'd never tell anybody else what to do as we all live in different areas with different concentrations of population and areas covered by the book. Adverts themselves will work differently depending upon size colour and content.
Guiness advertise not because people haven't heard of them but simply becuase it is a way of keeping their name out there and as a way of protecting market share.
So what of my personal experience? Twenty years of advertising with YP. Sure I've possibly received less direct enquiries which I can directly attribute to new enquiries generated from YP. However although I've consistnetly increased my spend on YP and Yell my turnover has risen by a greater percentage and the costs of advertising both generally and specifically on YP and Yell have fallen as a percentage of turnover and in relation to my other advertising although they are still bringing in greater levels of return business and new business.
There again YP and Yell take about 75% of my marketing budget but only comes to about 3% of my turnover.
Simon, Hope that helps.
Rog
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You look like you keep a tight check on your call figures Simon which many in business are guilty of not doing. I winder howany people just keep paying for adverts year after year without having a clue what income they generate. Your last line is interesting. 75 percent of spend and only 3 percent of turnover. You must have some amazing free advertising out there or do a hell of a lot of repeat work.
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I think the real problem with any telephone directory, indeed any advertising medium where you are on the same page as your competitors is that it invites price shoppers, whereas people that have been on your website seem to have weighed up the different companies and have all but chosen you, subject to the price being right and consequently our average job ticket has rocketed in the past few years.
I also think that even Yell have given up on their own product and are just milking it while it still has life in it. If they believed in it then they would do like 118 and maintain a fairly consistent presence on the TV, like sponsoring Emmerdale, for instance. If they did that I for one wouldn't have given up on them.
Simon
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what i don't understand is why 3 of your options don't make sense.
for instance
x amount of people have put "NO"
x amount of people have put "NEVER"
that makes sense until you realize there is an option that say "USED TOO BUT DON'T NOW"
now correct me if i'm wrong but you either used to and don't now, or you never have.
or am i just being pedantic. ;D
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I suppose it's either a polite "No, never used yell.com" or a more abrupt "Yell.com! I'd NEVER use them!"
Me, I use them, spent this morning going over what we spend on it (scary) and the rest of the morning looking at what we are going to spend on it in 2011, still (scary but more directed)
You can go onto yell.com and work out the rates for your area, fix your budget and then no need for a pushy salesman to turn up every year!
Here's the link:
http://rates.yelldirect.com/InternetRates.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1 (http://rates.yelldirect.com/InternetRates.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1)
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my beef with them is the number of logged calls they produce at renewal time , the conversion does not reflect the figure offered from them,far be it from me to be cynical but is there a chance that there is an auto caller linked to the auto logger to generate tracked calls ?
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You look like you keep a tight check on your call figures Simon which many in business are guilty of not doing. I winder howany people just keep paying for adverts year after year without having a clue what income they generate. Your last line is interesting. 75 percent of spend and only 3 percent of turnover. You must have some amazing free advertising out there or do a hell of a lot of repeat work.
Hi Yorky
I so keep a tight check. (Blame Cl***ersMate!)
What free advertising i do get, and the jobs from it, always amaze me but it amounts to something fairly insignificant.
You're right a huge amount of all my work is repeat/referral. Should I do a Clinton and stop advertisingand maintain t/o but save the advertising costs? Well that could be well scary. But as I say, whilst t/o continues to rise there seems little reason to break a winning formula.
My earlier answer about maintaining presence even if not generating new business still seems very pertinent to me.
Rog
Something seems to be working well for me.
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what i don't understand is why 3 of your options don't make sense.
for instance
x amount of people have put "NO"
x amount of people have put "NEVER"
that makes sense until you realize there is an option that say "USED TOO BUT DON'T NOW"
now correct me if i'm wrong but you either used to and don't now, or you never have.
or am i just being pedantic. ;D
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Used to means I/we did but dont advertise with them now (this is what I voted). Yes means I/we do advertise with yell.com. No or never means no we dont and have never advertised with yell.com
Well, this is my perception of the post.
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no and never are seperate, ??? ??? that was my point.
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thats 2 of the options not 3 ???
Question.... how many use yell.com? no " I haven't" and never "have done" means to me, no I/we have never used yell.com
You are correct if the right question was asked because no and never are seperate answers when asked something like "do you want a drink" or "did you pass your driving test the first time" but not when this question has been asked.
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yeah but theres 4 options, thought you was clever paul ;D
those who clicked "no" either have never used yell or used to but don't now, both options that can be clicked. therefore leaving "no" redundant.
for instance
i used to use yell but i don't now so i click "used to be but not now"
if i'd never used yell and still don't i would click "never"
based on the 2 answers above, when would i click "no"?
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;D even though three questions would had been enough, eg: yes, no and used to
I am clever enough to understand the results of the Poll :)
Maybe Ian is right...
I suppose it's either a polite "No, never used yell.com" or a more abrupt "Yell.com! I'd NEVER use them!"
The voting ratio is low on this poll so maybe the ones who havent voted didnt understand it either :-\