[Elite (Ben)]

hello people,
 
My yellow pages ad goes out in Jan and final amendment date is 1st DEC (no proof as yet!!), I signed up for a quarter page plus a small ad for my wifes ironing service, total cost £3530.  I am scared sh*%less about whether to continue with this or reduce the size and concentrate on increasing my leaflet output from a current £2,500 per week (.0031 response) to 10,000 per week.
Any advice and previous yellow pages experience would be gratefully received,

thanks,  Ben

[Steve Weatherley]

Ben

Are you spending £2500 per week on leaflet delivery? Surely you mean 2500 leaflets delivered each week?
Also how many responses from 1000 leaflets do you average? Your .0031 figure confused me!

[Bill Robinson]

hi put my first add in yellow pages for the first time this year
 the yellow pages wont be out till the middle of next year wots the rush i think you have till april or may
it cost me £300

[john smith]

hi ben

i understand what you are going through, i think from your comment, that you can't afford it, if so reduce the size to a more comftable spend. Whatever size of ad , the work you get from it will be down to advert content and of course your prices, many Y.page customers shop on price, therfore if you quote inhouse only, then this will be down to your presentation as to you getting the work.  if you quote over the phone and your cheap as chips you'l win........but cheap as chips aint no good if you want to prosper

to help you, here is a rough breakdown of my experience of Y.pages only
year 1 a small £400 ad and it generated good business, (i sold on price over phone)
year 2 i opted for £1000 ad, and i got a £3 back for every £1, (prices were roughly £2 sqm over phone)
year3 i decided to go for £400 ad again, different content...........(it's died, rarely a call)
year 3 thompson, half page ad, fantastic response so far.............(quote over phone down to design & content, £2 sqm)

so, year 4 i will know what i am doing, and will know what works.

sometimes you have to take the gamble, but dont stretch yourself too far. , big is not always better. and as i have found out, you have to wait a year to see what works, can you afford to do this, with a leaflet in my experience, i will know in a day if a new leaflet works, so you may be better off downsizing the y.pages and having a compromise with the leaflets, this way you wont be throwing money away. my favorite is leaflets. best return on money invested for me,

did you design the ad yourself ben?

[Ian Gourlay]

Ben,

Can you afford it?

Obviously you will pay by Direct Debit. But Yellow Pages will still want money if it does not work


Do you convert your enquiries,


If you spend £400 a month on Yellow Pages will you still have initial Cash Flow for leaflets.

What turnover are you seeking.

What return do you want from you promotions I in 4  or 1 in 5


Divide that into your Present Turnover and then into you projected Turnover.

This should give you your advertising Budget


Work out costs of all your proposed Marketing activities and allocate accordingly.


Ask yourself what is the worst case senerio from each spend.

Advertising does not come cheap.


But you would have same expenses if you were operating a Shop or Market Stall.

Its all a Risk

[Derek]

Don't forget that the YP sales staff are simply doing their job.. selling advertising space... they have targets to meet!

They don't care that you may not be able to afford it so don't let them pressurise you into spending over budget.

You certainly do get a lot of 'price shoppers' from YP advertising and I have discontinued my YP advertising  (other than that in the NCCA Corporate advert) this year and am concentrating on more productive areas of marketing.

Derek

[John Kelly]

Chem Dry advise their franchisees to spend 25% of turnover to grow their business. 10% is the minimum to stand still.
That is a lot of money. Why not ring them up and ask for an information pack. It comes with some of their leaflets and may give some ideas.

[Elite (Ben)]

steve,

sorry i meant 2,500 leaflets delivered, not spent. .0031 is just a percentage expressed as a fraction. In percentage terms its between a quarter and half percent, which equates to 3 calls per thousand. This is an average, calculated over a number of different types of areas.

Bill,

In the south east ,YP goes out in jan and final amendment date is DEC 1st, i have not had a proof yet, so time is a bit limited.


If i am honest,  i will probably struggle to afford the payments if the response rate is low, at least with leaflets i am not committed. I think i may reduce the ad size and increase the leaflets accordingly, unless the response is good from YP.

Thnaks,  ben