[Ian Rochester]

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"

[pncleaning]

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   

[yorky]

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.

[clinton]

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.

[yorky]

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.

[clinton]

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

[will_turton]

 i do well out of yell, the more people that drop out of yell there better,

[yorky]

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. 

[fitz2kleen]

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.

[will_turton]

  thanks for telling how yellow pages work yorky,  wouldnt know only been using them for 10 years,

[Neil Williams]

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
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
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.

[yorky]

  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.

[will_turton]

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,

[yorky]

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.

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

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.

[derek west]

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.

 

[Ian Rochester]

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.

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

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

[yorky]

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.

[Simon Gerrard]

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