[dmlservices]

when i first started i spent £900.00 advertising in yellow pages ( a lot of money in 1991). it was money down the drain. these days i have a free line in yellow pages and thompson, it gets me listed on the web,yell.com 118 ect. did a conserv. roof clean,as a direct result of this  , custy saw my van drive pass here office, saw my van sign writing, but did not have time to get number, she went online and got my number through yell.com, so well pleased, and did not cost me a penny. would i pay for a listing again?
not likely, my advise would be cancel, and stick to free listings.



daz

[Busby]

Free listings may well work

Sponsored listings may also work





I decided the top slot was for me, im not bothered about getting my money back in first 12 months.


I want any decent commercial jobs,

the more you have, the more you get seen, the more you can be recommended.


I want people to see me everywhere

My adverts are on display, my van is signwritten, £600 spent on best quality flyers,


BRING IT ON, i ready................................. 


If you want to phone me ste, please do

[ronnie paton]

i believe it is not a thing that gets instant results you need to be patient and do it for 3 or 4 years to reap the benifits, which is 20k if you can afford that then im sure you will win but some years may be slow others better and the longer your there the longer companys keep seeing the same company the more likely they are to ring you!

Steve/Archer hope it works it takes balls to spend that kind of money without any guarentees of results but you have to be in it two win it and when my company is at the position were i dont have to be hands on im sure ill be going down this route.

[Steve CM]

anyone else gone for a large advert as opposed to a smaller one? has anyone had both? did you notice any difference in jobs gained?

thanks

[STEVE-UK]

cheers ronnie  :

mine goes live in gatwick area on wednesday so fingers crossed,

i just need 1 office block cleaned monthly for it to pay for its self

[Paul Coleman]

cheers ronnie  :

mine goes live in gatwick area on wednesday so fingers crossed,

i just need 1 office block cleaned monthly for it to pay for its self

Hands off.
That's MY patch 

[STEVE-UK]

shiner- i would have had the brighton area but theyve gone already

[niceandclean]

Just thrashing out a deal with yell at the moment, as it seems they are desperate to sell space at the moment. Steve CM did you run with an ad? If so any response? Steve UK have you had any calls yet from your ad?

[Steve CM]

mine all kicks off in february/march next year. i still have till february to decide what i want to do

[niceandclean]

mine all kicks off in february/march next year. i still have till february to decide what i want to do

Oh right, cool. If you haven't paid for it yet, may be worth calling them to say its too much ect ect, may get a better deal.

[Steve CM]

you have mail nice and clean

[Ian Lancaster]

Purely from the domestic cleaning point of view, I have tried various combinations over the years.

At one time I had the Fed corporate ad all to myself - the space would have cost me over £1,000 if I'd had it as a display.

I've also tried a similar size display.

For some years now I've had a 3cm box in two directories, costing about £400 for both.  This seems to be the best arrangement, bringing in a steady trickle of enquiries which usually pay for the ads within 2-3 months.

Now we have several liveried vans on the road, our logo is being recognised, so this year I've gone for a 3cm box with the logo, phone numbers and web address.  It stands out, and it looks just like the van signwriting.

The ad only came out in November, and we've had several enquiries so far - we always monitor sources to see where our money has the most effect.

It says on the vans: 'Look in Yellow Pages' under the logo, so when they look, there we are

I paid a fortune for an enhanced Yell.com ad. Never again - useless

[Ian Lancaster]

Purely from the domestic cleaning point of view, I have tried various combinations over the years.

At one time I had the Fed corporate ad all to myself - the space would have cost me over £1,000 if I'd had it as a display.

I've also tried a similar size display.

For some years now I've had a 3cm box in two directories, costing about £400 for both.  This seems to be the best arrangement, bringing in a steady trickle of enquiries which usually pay for the ads within 2-3 months.

Now we have several liveried vans on the road, our logo is being recognised, so this year I've gone for a 3cm box with the logo, phone numbers and web address.  It stands out, and it looks just like the van signwriting.

The ad only came out in November, and we've had several enquiries so far - we always monitor sources to see where our money has the most effect.

It says on the vans: 'Look in Yellow Pages' under the logo, so when they look, there we are

I paid a fortune for an enhanced Yell.com ad. Never again - useless

My Ad

[Ian Rochester]

Our Yell/Yellow Pages bill is around £2,500 pa, I would say it has paid for itself at least ten times over, probably more, we always ask where people got our name from.

Just done a job this week for an interior designer who got our name from yell, she lives local to us but wanted a full house clean done for a client who lives 38 miles away, job was £650, done yesterday.  She's got another one for us to do on the Monday before Christmas and we are now also doing the windows at her house and her neighbours £30 & £25 each, 4 weekly.

So if my calculations are correct, this client alone has given us work totally around £1960 and will possibly result in more.

I have found that in general professional people and businesses contact us from Yell, whereas the more local domestic work comes from local advertising, van livery, word of mouth, etc.  This interior designer had a budget of £170,000 from her client to refurbish this property we did yesterday........credit crunch, what credit crunch!!

[tompoole]

it only works if you are running an avertising campaign at the same time. people wil only look in the yellow pages if they already know the name. Eg people in my opinion only use it as a phone book to look up the numbers of companies they already know, i don't know of anyone who would just pick up the yellow pages to look for a random trader, most people ask for recomends from friends then look the number up, so unless its a part of a 6/ 12 month marketing campain. Cancel it!

take it from me i used to sell print and marketing packages
tom

[Steve CM]

it only works if you are running an avertising campaign at the same time. people wil only look in the yellow pages if they already know the name. Eg people in my opinion only use it as a phone book to look up the numbers of companies they already know, i don't know of anyone who would just pick up the yellow pages to look for a random trader, most people ask for recomends from friends then look the number up, so unless its a part of a 6/ 12 month marketing campain. Cancel it!

take it from me i used to sell print and marketing packages
tom

so if they know who they are looking for anyway why would you need any kind of advertising? you wouldn't as a single line would give them a phone number.

I think i'm gonna give it a whirl. in for a penny and all that. but my thinking is if your gonna do it then you have to be the biggest in there to gain as much exposure as possible  otherwise you will just get lost in the sea of ads

[Ian Rochester]

Tom,

Don't agree, we get a lot of work from Yellow pages from people who have never heard of us and only found us because of it.

That's probably why you're not selling print and marketing packages anymore  

Remember everyone is different.

Target your audience, our yellow pages covers a vast area with several different dialing codes, we highlight our dialing code so that people know what area we work in.

[Ian Lancaster]

it only works if you are running an avertising campaign at the same time. people wil only look in the yellow pages if they already know the name. Eg people in my opinion only use it as a phone book to look up the numbers of companies they already know, i don't know of anyone who would just pick up the yellow pages to look for a random trader, most people ask for recomends from friends then look the number up, so unless its a part of a 6/ 12 month marketing campain. Cancel it!

take it from me i used to sell print and marketing packages
tom

Hence my ad is the same as my van signwriting - they see the vans, they look in YP and there we are!!

Having said that I know that many of our enquiries via YP are from people who one day think to themselves "about time I got a window cleaner" and they turn to the window cleaning pages in YP.

Of course it works like that.  Housewife looks through window - sees dirt hanging off it.  She's not going to hang around until she meets up with her mates so she can ask them who they use, YP is sitting on the table so she picks it up.....

[simonwonder]

been there done that wouldn't go there again
pull out as soon as you can
nearly went bang and gone because of them and all other directories i advertised in never going there again
only advertise with the likes of yp pb tl if you can afford to loose the money i couldn't and nearly lost everything

[Steve CM]

been there done that wouldn't go there again
pull out as soon as you can
nearly went bang and gone because of them and all other directories i advertised in never going there again
only advertise with the likes of yp pb tl if you can afford to loose the money i couldn't and nearly lost everything

how much did you spend annually on each publication??