[JandS]

Anybody getting anything from them   only heard negatives before.
Been offered a package with all the bells and whistles for £16 per
week.

John

[davep]

How many bells an whistles? Sponsored link?

[JandS]

Not sure, he told me that much over the phone whilst I was trying
to work I had to tell him to ring me back at 5.30.
Take it a sponsored link is a positive?

John

[davep]

Thats the top one but costs thosands 

[JandS]

Can't see it being that then.
Other than that?
My personal feeling after typing in various wording
for various areas round here is that there's a big firm
at the top then of the next 2, one I've heard of but
think he just does it now and then, operates out of
a rusty old van.
The other one I've never heard of but his address isn't
one of the better areas round here and just a mobile number.

John

[Simon Moat]

Hi,

I went for a package with Yell for very similar money in May of this year, so far it's brought in two jobs, not a great return but one of the jobs was a biggy so has covered the cost for the year, the other was a small rug clean.

Hope this helps.

Simon.

[garry22]

John,

This is one of those situations where you need to be able to record the conversations.

Be very careful and make sure you ask very specific questions about how / when your business will actually show.

Last year a friend asked me to check a proposal over before he signed a cheque for near enough ten thousand quid for a sponsored type listing. We spent a whole day testing things including multiple keyword searches, using different browsers and IP addresses.

Time after time, things we were looking for did not show when they should have (despite promises from the reps). One type of ad did not show when viewed through Internet Explorer but did in Firefox. In other words, 80% of visitors (according to the server logs) would not have seen the ads!

From a personal point of view, I did find I got good responses from Yell.com but they just kept changing the rules and I stopped using them.

By all means try them but make sure you are given everything in writing (normally E-mail).

[JandS]

Thanks for replies, I declined his offer even though
he got it down to £47 per month plus the dreaded.
I actually checked out Yell.com and wasn't that impressed.
It wouldn't be my first choice of where to look for a tradesman.
Funnily enough, even though I've only got a line in it, I tend
to use Thomson local.

John

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Yell do sponsored listings of 1,2,3 then it's a smaller fee then the free ones which aren't worth it but IMO Yell is worse than YP, I still make a decent return on YP not sure how it will go with the new style book.

Shaun

[Neil Williams]

It wouldn't be my first choice of where to look for a tradesman.

But why bring up yell to look for a tradesman in (insert town name) when you can shorten the procedure by just doing the same straight into google or yahoo etc

[Matt Seymour]

I have been contacted by Yell.com plenty of times and checked them out.

The general feeling seems to be that it's just not worth the money and those funds could be better spent elsewhere.

[Simon Gerrard]

Yell certainly isn't a big puller, but IMO it is worth the £10 per week to get the exposure. Likewise Thomson Local and Y/P, they are well past their best but still worth a small ad if only so your past customers can find you. It's often a good idea to think about how you would go about finding a service you have never used before, because that is what our customers are doing. Are you advertising where you'd look for a new product or service???

Simon

[Mark Slaney]

  I had a sponsored listing with yell plus a web link. £2700 for 1st year. Really worked well,good for commercial stuff but yell recognised this and tried to up it to £4700 for second year. If that was'n't taking the p enough they even introduced 2 other sponsored listings at the top. Told them in polite terms to sling their hook. Robbing numptys.
 

[JandS]

What's a sponsored listing?

John

[will_turton]

 had them out last month trying to sell me yell.com, yp and there crap phone service, all for 2400, should be 4k, bargain i told, but yp has been crap this year the yell heavyweight listing is a waste of time so if its the worsevperforming year why the damn would i increase the amount i spend, his reply your getting more exposure, my reply i dont bloody think so

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Never heard of a Yellow Pages discount, must be struggling.

Shaun

[garry22]

still worth a small ad if only so your past customers can find you

If they have to look for you in Yell, then something is very wrong with your customer retention system

[Simon Gerrard]

With the best will in the world people will forget your company name, lose the card you gave them, use up the free spotter you gave them, misplace the postcards you send them at regular intervals and will end up thumbing through YP or Thomson till, hopefully they find you. If you aren't there they're going to think you've gone out of business.

Simon

[peter maybury]

I had a sponsored listing and in the quiet months the commitment was hard to find. canceled it after the year was up and am happy to be without the commitment as it was just buying in work.

They are asking a lot more than the service is worth and I would tell anybody to think about it very carefully. When they first started the sponsored listings they were hard to come by, because people did not want to give them up, it is a different story now. My brother has had one for years but the cost of it has now become unrealistic and he will be giving up his.

Peter

[Matt Seymour]

My over all opinion of Yell is that it is a reasonable service that will bring in some work, but it is horrendously overpriced.

They need to realise that they are not the big players they once were, get real and drop their prices accordingly.