[Paul Coleman]

Yellow pages makes me laugh.

In there advertising they say for every pound someone spends on a yellow pages ad they get £25 worth of business.

So last year when i had my ad i should have got £11,250 of work.

they were only £11,000 out

Paul

Their figures are wildly out with me as well Paul.  I gained one job @ £288 p.a.  Another at about £100 p.a.  A few one offs of around £150.  That's a total of around £530.  There is also possible work through YP (very recent enquiries) of about £1,200 p.a.
However, I can only assess it on the work that I definitely have.
So I spent about £150 on the ad.  This means that my return on that ad should be about £3,750 p.a.  but I got about £530.  So they were closer in their calculations with me.  Even if I assume that I get all the work from the recent enquiries it would still be around £1,730 just under half their prediction.

In fairness to them, if I had followed up all the jobs with poor access (i.e. only able to clean when they are in), their figure of £3,750 probably would have been about right.

If I take the profit on that £530 (whatever that might be) then I suppose that I have made extra money from YP.  However, I probably could have got the equivalent work anyway by other methods if I had pot myself out.

The only reason I have kept YP going for another year is because of some recent enquiries for work of a reasonable quality.
I consider my paid ad in YP to be going through a "stay of execution".  It may be jettisoned next year in favour of a freebie.

[carl stanton]

If you are lets say happy to lose the cash for an add do it, thats is the only way you will know, i have found for me it has always paid for its self! £1 for £1 and more,
 ie one job i got was only £10 but i got another £70 from neigbours! i put in a very crude advert with my logo in

but a warning once your name is in there [free listing or add] yp will chase you up to do an add! and with that other firms will will chase you to advertise.
you can: ignore the call [ but is it that big job?? ££ ]
say spent budget
say do a add for 37.75!!
spent addvertismnet costings
can you call my add people on 09.....
pass the phone on to a young child!!
put the phone in your pocket and get back to work

im sure otheres will add to this...........

[Paul Coleman]

If you are lets say happy to lose the cash for an add do it, thats is the only way you will know, i have found for me it has always paid for its self! £1 for £1 and more,
 ie one job i got was only £10 but i got another £70 from neigbours! i put in a very crude advert with my logo in

but a warning once your name is in there [free listing or add] yp will chase you up to do an add! and with that other firms will will chase you to advertise.
you can: ignore the call [ but is it that big job?? ££ ]
say spent budget
say do a add for 37.75!!
spent addvertismnet costings
can you call my add people on 09.....
pass the phone on to a young child!!
put the phone in your pocket and get back to work

im sure otheres will add to this...........

Yes I found that receiving calls from other advertisers was a pain at times.  A quick no thank you ad a polite request to be removed from their call list is what I do.  It is a nuisance though when the call is diverted to a mobile.  Not only am I paying for most of the call but I have to stop work to answer it.  Sometimes I've had to pull my van over to do so.
If these companies checked properly, they would find my number registered with the Telephone Preference Service as a "do not call for telesales" number.  Maybe I should list my 0845 number there too before the directories come out.

[jeff1]

I took the plunge and stuck in a three liner for £130 so if I loose out its no big deal, but £130 isn't a lot to recoupe through out the year, if I just break even over the twelve months, I'll be happy. If it fails then next year its just the free liner for me.
Thanks for all you input it made some interesting reading, to know how yp effects different parts of the country. just like the prices for wc how they differ up and down the country.
Thanks Guy's

[C.F.P]

I say run and hide from the yellow pages

[DaveWilkinson]

It works better for some trades than others, and also we are mostly talking about linage ads here, the real test in when you get up into the display ads and then design can also play its part, tailoring your ad to your potential customers.

I would treat it like stocks and shares, if you carnt aford to lose it dont spend it. If you have a tried and tested method to get results stay with that. If you have some spare cash give it a go.

Dave

[WavieDavie]

I have alse decided on a three liner in Business Pages - which deals with business to business services.

I was told by the yp rep that I should be in Business Pages, so I asked for a copy and found out that my directory coverage was the WHOLE OF SCOTLAND, and that businesses in each classification are sorted alphabetically by name, not town! So if I was a punter looking through the BPs I'd have to go down all the phone numbers till I found my local code, write down the details, scan down till I found another . . .

Sorry, not me - as a user or a subscriber.

But, back on topic . . .
For me, yp are great. The first ever reply was a commercial which I still have and their job more than pays the advert, so anything that's come in since hasn't cost me anything in advertising.