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Hi again all.
May be a daft question to some.
I have placed 1 color, 1/4 column Advert in the Yellow pages in 2 Different areas. (Bham nth & Wolverh’tn).
They both come out on the 15th of this month.
I know it depends on where you live, ect but, how many calls a day/week would this bring do you reckon? And how long before they go out shoud calls start coming in.
I spoke to an ex colleague of mine last week who put his 1st ad in last year and he reckons he is getting 8 calls a week off his black and white, simple no picture advert, which is on the last page of the washer repair section. He also commented that he got calls more or less straight away as the first books were put out. Is he making this up? Sounds far fetched, a tad.
Sorry if this seems to be a daft question!
Cheers. 😳 😳 😳
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
No, it’s not a daft question at all. For the massive fees involved you want to make sure of your investment.
You will almost certainly get a few phone calls a week from the ads, the only way to tell though is to ask the punters who phone you where they got your number, then from that make a decision on next years ad.
We have, for the 1st time not bothered with the yellow pages this year and just opted for the Yell link instead, that way we only pay for the link and then use our own website for the customer information.
BTW, you haven’t got free estimate/no call out charge all over the ad have you ?
Dave.
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
Cheers for the reply Dave 😀
Nah i haven’t got free estimates. But I have put free call out charge (reluctantly) because EVERY single advert in there has it. I advertise in the local paper and when the phone rings i explain that there is no charge for simply knocking the door but any labour will be chargeable. They are usually OK with this.
This is a massive problem in Wolves where everyone wants to advertise free callout charge and free estimates. Whats next? “Free Labour?”
💡
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
technics1200 wrote:Sorry if this seems to be a daft question!
Not at all!
Generally speaking a well placed Yellow Pages ad should yield at least 30{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of new business. That is my finding at least, based on being in Yellow Pages for 30 plus years.
A 1/4 column is a good size and if you have it as a ‘White knock-out’ it has better impact. Also ‘placement’ is everything with these guys, if your trade name is at the top alphabetically your OK. If not you need a few ‘dots’ in front of your company name in order to get ‘up front’. You will notice however that the ‘cowboys’ usually have at least a 1/2 page ad and a business name listing that starts something like “…….0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.Electrics” in order for them to come up front.
This year I added three dots in front of my company name (i.e …Enterprise etc) and I ended right up front of the cowboys with my 3/8 column white knock-out. 😉Must dash now and saddle my horse 8)
Martin
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
My Ad starts with DU… 😥
Its Purple with a pic of a washer. but what ive done is put “all areas covered” and “same day service”
Damn its true what you say about the cowbouys though, they have milllions of ……’s and 0000’s.
Do you know how long it takes before the 1st lot of calls come in roughly? Or is is a case of how long is the string?
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
I have to admit I don’t advertise at all, mainly because the vast majority of the work we do is contract or installations and, TBH, I can do without the hassles of the “free estimate” brigade calling me up and telling me they’ll get back to us when they find out that we do charge them. We used to have a big ad in the Glasgow YP but found it produced more cr@p calls than anything else but a few genuine ones as well but that could well be down to the wording of it.
For sales as well I found YP pretty much a bust and Thomson Local I found to be a waste of money totally. The local rags produced some results and worked out substantially cheaper than YP or TL over the course of a year, especially if you did a deal with the publisher for it. But, like many things, it’s horses for courses and what worked or didn’t for one person may do either for another, it’s a funny thing advertising.
K.
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
technics1200 wrote:
Do you know how long it takes before the 1st lot of calls come in roughly?Certainly by the end of the month I should think most copies will be distributed and possibly delivered.
Incidentally it is a known fact that the percentage return for direct ‘thru the letterbox’ advertising(which includes YPages’s) is less than 1{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}. Which when you consider their circulation potential, ain’t bad 😉
Best of luck!
Martin
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
Up until this year, Y.P. has been my best ad and brought in about 50{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of all calls. But I am spending roughly £6000 a year on two ads( washing machine and electrical appliance repair sections) on two quarter page ads. also as saidthey work out the ads alphanumerically so that my ad has… in front.
that is until this year, i was ‘helped’ 😡 by increasing the size of the ad. Good in principle but it put me two pages back with another larger ad next to it and nothing else on the page 😈 .
Now all I get hardly any calls and most of the ones I get are timewasters.
It’s like I’ve gone back six years to when I advertised in the local paper and got ar****les by the score. 😥Re: Yellow Pages Ad
We were spending about £6K a year on Yellow pages, and thought despite the cost, we must have this.
One day when it was quiet we carried out a liitle research. Our yellow pages cover the centre of our area. If we want full coverage re. the area we cover, we need to be in 4 more editions of Y.P. Right, too expensise so scrub that. On the strength of the above I looked at the ratio of chargeable work and spares sales in the areas we are not in Y.P. Guess what no difference at all.
We asked chargeable customers over a 3 month period as to how they found us, the majority came via the manufacturers listings. Of course that is a luxury that isn’t available to many of you. There was a few who saw us in Y.P. and mainly from the Service Force ads which are in all editions with a national number.
I can only speak from having the benefit of Service Force and the image they provide as to where the customer can have service. Without that, then it is up to us, and I do beleive Y.P. is the most likely source especially when it comes to browsers who are looking for anybody. I feel if the advert is too big, it puts people off.
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
technics1200 wrote:
I have placed 1 color, 1/4 column Advert in the Yellow pages in 2 Different areas.As purely an example you understand 😉 this is my ‘Thomson Local’ ad, my Yellow Pages is the same but for the obvious alteration……………….
No ‘Free Estimates/No Call Out Fee’ for me either 😉Martin
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
Martin: good, humorous advert 😆
I wish i could get away with not putting no call out charge though.
I am very curious as to what will happen as from next week, its just a matter of sitting and waiting.
martin check your pm’s.
You know, looking at this thread again it strikes me that all this “…” and “AAA” stuff is just an absolute sham. The fact that YP even allows this to go on makes me think that they have no scruples at all so long as you sign up to the advertising. I also have found YP to have gotten very pushy with their marketing of late and that only serves to heighten my distaste for them as well as the suspicion that they’ll do anything to get you to sign on.
Hacks me off that sort of thing does.
K.
kwatt wrote:to heighten my distaste for them as well as the suspicion that they’ll do anything to get you to sign on.Hacks me off that sort of thing does.
Bang on right it does Ken!
As I have mentioned before in my postings about them way back, their reps all drive flash cars too!
Every year a different one turns up, same spiel, laptop ad demo all that cr@@p. I always say, “Cut the cr@@p mate, how much has my advert gone up this year then?”….They always reply that it hasn’t gone up by much but for just another £15 a month I could have a bigger one!!
I think mines big enough and my missus agrees 😆 😆 Especially now I have got ‘dots’ in front of it 😆 😆 😆
Martin
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
technics1200 wrote:Martin: good, humorous advert 😆
That picture was taken after Martin had left 😆
Dave.
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