I have aired my thoughts on Thompsons in past posts,and I will do it again!
Ispent about £1000 one year on a Thompsons add,we always ask anyone that contacts us about carpet cleaning 'where did they get our number ' in that year we had about 2 enquiries from Thompsons, the following year when the rep called I told him that I was not interested and why , he said that it was because the advert was too small and talked me into a half page,well would you believe it ,The response was even worse.
End of Thompsons for me.
yellow pages
With yellow pages I have come to the conclusion that it is a total waste of money advertising big.
I have had 1/4 page adverts in the past but now get just as much response from a much smaller advert
I think that people tend to go for the nearest when scouring through the yellow pages and as long as the ad shows what you can do you will get the calls.
Normal phone book
Now this does work for me the adverts are 1/3 of the price of yellow pages and the phone book now has a yellow pages section in the front of it which is also very cheap to advertist in.
Of course just because this works for me in Devon it does not mean that it would work for CC elseware.
Mark