[Alan McTernan]

Evening all,

Have just had a sales rep from Yell round, very pleasent young lady

Have checked all the previous posts on this subject and read mixed reviews, i have never advertised with them but as i want to expand i am looking outside the box!!

So come on guys give me your honest opinions about Yellow Pages & Yell.com 

Cheers
Alan

[derek west]

honest opinion eh


what a load of beeeeeep and beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep its gotta be beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep in beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. i wouldnt wipe my beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep with that beeep in load of beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

but i could be wrong

[drive surgeon]

6 years of wasted money.     

flyers and word of mouth best or website.

[BDCS]

We had our rep round today and he said it was all changing as around 10% of their customers left last year. The book is getting smaller, free lines are going to a free line section in the back with paying advertisers if front of the free ones, the yell.com will incorparated into your pages advert, in short they have decieded to give some value for your money ! We get a fair %age of our drain work from this but if the act goes through this will decay but for our bouncy castles a £150 bold line generated a good few £k. Our total spend in the pages was about £2k and last year was thoroughly worth it but it all depends on your target market ie the driveway cleaning has no real home in terms of classification and because of this I withdrew my advert because the rep at the time told me the advert could go under drive cleaning but bosses said that was just a signpost ands could'nt go there.
 Negotiate a deal, bold lines really work but are not routinely offered and don't trust the numptys because some reps lie to close a deal

[cleanandshine]

yell.com was the best thing i did i have my window cleaning and  gutter cleaning on there

[shine services]

Im on yell.com and not had much luck with it to be honest

[BDCS]

They put us on Yell.com a couple of years back by mistake and we got about 2 click throughs but things have changed a bit as they now come up on google but there's lots on there. It will soon all be part of the package

[stalwart]

The book i wouldn't bother with,i remember them giving me a great deal once in 2007 was just about to pay for it then got told it wont be in until 2009 : anyway who picks up the book these days with internet

As for the yell dot com its worth doing for free online but watch out for the 1000's of phone calls from them trying to sell you space in the book

[Adam P]

i think it can work for some, and not for others.

from what i have heard people think you're less likely to find a cowboy company on yell.com then most other places as yell.com is expensive to advertise on.

i have noticed many companies on yell have terrible websites which means there is a chance to have the most professional looking website

[drive surgeon]

google is the way forward now 

[Adam P]

Google certainly is but both is better, i am first result for certain terms in my areas, always on google maps as well, but i still pay for adwords as i want to be on the first page as much as possible. someone who checks yell is likely to only check yell, not yell and google, so it's worth going there if it can work

[Alan McTernan]

Cheers for the feed back guys!!! I have an appointment tomorrow with a high end regional magazine so will probally go with that as it is targeted advertising!!!

Cheers again

Alan

[Paul Heath]

We tried Yell pages when we first started..the first problem was that we were on the edge of 2 areas, so had to go into 2 books    All we got were more phone calls from other advertising agency..got no work from it all.
Ask yourself how do you find a service if you need one.......google it???.
Yell whatever has had its day, very expensive for no returns.. we just have the free entry

[deborah waters]

yell = pish
lotofdoshfornocalls

[BDCS]

I took an advert in country life - now that really was a waste of money

[angleside]

I had a yell.com ad a few years back when I used to do drain jetting so one day \i thought i would give it a try so i phoned yell and said I had a blocked drain in sidmouth which is my home town I was given a phone number of a company in bridgewater about 40 miles away and when I said hang on why wasn't i given a more local company like me and i was told that the listing is done on a rota basis so regarding yell i think it is like a lottery unless they have made changes to improve the way companies are listed.  As for yellow pages never worked for me and the costs were high although the rep was rather fit, thompson now that was better and a fraction of the cost....

[BDCS]

Last years Thompson was £400 and only got 4 calls - did'nt pay for the ad and never got a book delivered here. The rep suggested I went for a bigger ad - she went away empty handed

[derek west]

that old chestnut, "you need a bigger add to get noticed" then when you say no they say "well what about a small box add for your old customers" 

unbelievable

[Anna 140]

I  have to say, I decided to give Yell a go. the only interest I received was directly from Yells Marketing consultants pestering to sell to me 5 times within a week.

so I decided to call them and tell them to remove my listing, remove me from the mailing register  and not to contact me further. what look that did I still am receiving calls from them. what a pain. could press the patience of a saint, wonder if I can block the phone number??

[dollycharwf]

After working out our ROI, I let our Account Manager know this morning that we would not be rerunning ANY of our ads this year.  It has made a very small profit, or will given our average Customer Lifetime Value, but the rate of return is nowhere as good as leafleting or local mags.

Then what happened this afternoon - 2 appointments booked - one from Yellow Pages, and one from Yell.com.  Signed up one of them this evening.  Expected Profit = £338!  Now having a re-think!