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Martin wrote:
I think mines big enough and my missus agrees 😆 😆 Especially now I have got ‘dots’ in front of it 😆 😆 😆Martin
Really.
Less said about that the better I think. 😉
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
Thanis for replies and advice all.
Ive seen My Ad – I’m the 1st from last page of 5 😥 😥 😥 😥 😥
Time to start looking for employment then it seems. 😥 😥 😥
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
technics1200 wrote:Time to start looking for employment then it seems.
Don’t despair !
It’ll only take one call, good job done = 1 happy person tells 3 more people, 3 people tell 3 more etc etc.
It’ll soon build up 😀
Dave.
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
technics1200 wrote:Time to start looking for employment then it seems. 😥 😥 😥
No worries technics, the phone will ring I am sure. Is it in Wolverhampton or in Jamaica that this edition of Yellow Pages has been published I wonder 😉
If its in Jamaica, you could knock on everyones door, ask for their Yellow Pages and tear out the first 4 pages 😆
If its Wolverhampton then I would just sit tight and wait for the phone to ring 😉
(Do they have phones in Wolverhampton 😯 )
Martin
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
Thanks for that dave 🙂
It’s true. word of mouth is the best form…
Martin:
rotflmbao!!! that cheered me up big time.BUT….
Whats a Phones? Describe. Is it something you Clean the car with? or a cooking utensil?8) 8)
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
Well it certently not Jack daniels..your tipple if i remember right. 😉
enough was drunk last saturday night by yourself. 🙄
but i’m not saying a word..mentioning no names ect 😈
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
I’m due my visit soon from the Yellow Pages rep, and I’m tempted not to bother this year.
I spent over £5k on the last 12 months on Y/P advertising, and I’m beginning to question is it justified?
The way I look at it is to recoup that investment I need to include in my profit on a successful 1st time fix of a chargeable call, at least £5 toward that cost. Therefore take that £5, divide it into the sum I spend & I need to clear 105 chargeable calls in that 12 month period, just to clear the investment. Factor out of that a 65{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} 1st time fix rate, and it gets worse.
Without boring you all with sums, I think I need to clear around 3 to 4 chargeable calls where the whole/total labour income will be absorbed by this spend every week. Then I need to wonder, does Yellow Pages give me those 3 to 4 calls every week. You could say yes, but out of the general traffic we get a lot of enquiries regards makes we do not repair. These makes (Hoover/Hotpoint) we pass on to a local competitor. So I’ve spent a wad of money, and then gave the enquiry to someone else.
The last 6 months I’ve set a tab on the computer with drop downs: Being Yell/Pages Recommendation, Exist Cust, Insurance co, Retailer & Manufacturer. Surprisingly very few Y/Pages enquiries turn into a successful visit.
I’ve found that due to the nature of our business, we don’t attract the “browsers” but we get the brand loyal and image customers. We can tell a Yellow pages customer as they are usually the ones who are shopping around, and even if we quoted a £20 call out, put the phone down.
Apart from Yell.com, I’m looking to take a big plunge, and save on the advertising budget.
Alex
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
Alex wrote:I spent over £5k on the last 12 months on Y/P advertising, and I’m beginning to question is it justified?.
It most certainly isn’t Alex, that is a shedload of money from your drawings and in my opinion will not bring you profit from it? Yellow Pages has been a necessary back-up for new business for everyone in the past but not nowadays – no sir!
I have scaled down the size of my 2008 adverts in YP as a drastic cost cutting exercise, so that initially may be your best interim option too? In my case I’m giving them one more opportunity to prove YP brings in custom and ultimately more profit. This year, last year and previous years my block advert has been relegated to the back in favour of the big boys and their half page spreads. Well for them ‘cos those ‘big boys’ need to generate a lot of work for their staff if for no other reason. But today it’s more speculation than accumalation for sure. 🙁
Now I find the Internet brings in the new business and far exceeds any new business from YP. You may be interested to know that I have just googled your firm (“washing machine repair in somerset”) and your site comes up on page 1. Therefore I suspect many folks find you thru that route and that costs you pennies in comparison to YP I’m darn sure of that?
You may also not know but as from 2008 Yellow Pages have had their advertising restrictions lifted by the MMC. Been de-regulated even 🙁 That in effect means their charges are going to rise no doubt.
Another and final point, many householders don’t have landlines theses days. All these new houses and flats going up have phonelines plumbed in but no-one uses them because they all have mobile phones. What that means is that they don’t get a copy of Yellow Pages delivered to their doorstep. 😉
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At last years YP renewal time I was well and truly stuffed by them, I was talked into subscribing to a new scheme they were running where they advertised your business on a 0845 ******** number and at the end of the year they could prove exactly how may calls I received through YP. Like a t**t I also agreed that I would not put my mobile number in the add, So come this years renewal I was sent a statement showing that I had received 185 call via YP, I probably did, but as my mobile was not listed I doubt that I received more than 50 calls. I feel that I was well and truly taken by The Yellow Robbers, So when I received 3 calls from them trying to talk me out of cancelling, I took great delight in telling them what a bunch of merchant bankers thay were. On the last call I received from them on my mobile I kept the Di** H**d talking for so long that he admited that the call to my mobile cost more that the commision he would make. Cheered me up that did 😉 .
GooseRe: Yellow Pages Ad
Its Funny you know we had our Yell rep arrive today. Yep he too is a new face from last year, the year before and the previous years have all brought forth New Faces ! I reckon that it is a deliberate ploy of Yell that you neve see the Rep who dealt with your business the year before.
That said the Yell rep was trying to get us to spend an extra £1500 a year on top of our £ 4,500 already earmarked as budget. We have in previous years had a whole page, a half page, 3/8 column as well as advertsing with the BT book and some local stuff. We have used full colour process in these adverts to varying degrees of success.
It seems that I am not alone in thinking that advertising is a intagable product in that its always difficult to ascertain if a ad will work for you. Generally speaking a lot of peolpe do look in YP for services and we have tried Yell.Com as well.
I would say that when you have water Pixxxxx all over your floor that logging on and surfing Yell is the last thing on your mind, you reach for that big Yellow book and try to find someone who can come now !
This all said I am also wondering about how much one should spend on adverstising in this directory ? Big ad ? Small Ad ? what’s best ? what will bring the most revenue in ? There’s no doubt about it its a subject that we all have a common interest in and we all have experience of this business and should be able to quantify with our experience what YP has done for our business.
Personally I would have to say that YP does bring in work, especailly in areas like ours where there is loads of building going on and new people moving in who would not know of you. We have been trading for forty years and have a loyal customer base, word of mouth, family and Neigbour recomendations, customers moving out of the area, customers dying. Its all ebb and flow, New compeditors starting up !
How will the new influx of people find you ? will they call on on of your compeditors ?
Yeap its a difficult balancing act and some here have bravely given YP the bug heave hoe !
We all want to retain more of our earnings in this difficult trade and its just as difficult to know how far or how far not to go when taking advertsing space especailly and YP rates. Yep our rep has a big flashy motor as well !
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This is the way I look at it. From a consumers point of view, even a “silver surfer”
I’m in the plus 55 age bracket, I never use the telephone book, nor do I use yellow pages. I Google everything. Like many I have wireless B/Band and apart from accessibility on all p.c.s in the office, the home machine is on-line all day. A few years ago we all had 1 phone and that would have been on the hall table with the books underneath, now we all enjoy cordless handsets, and consequently the books could be anywhere, (In my case so could the phone). So much easier to press a button, and see instant up to date information on the screen.
Therefore I have no need for books or directories which end up at the back of the cupboard or wherever. So being a typical consumer, despite a lack of youth, my first port of call is the web. If I’m doing it that way, you can be sure so does most of a younger generation. Bear in mind as well, broadband is rising rapidly, I’ve heard of 50{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of households. When I started over 50{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} didn’t even have the phone. Managed then without Yellow Pages.
Now looking at it from the business point of view:-
I cannot justify an excess of £5k p.a. for what I think is a diminishing return. I believe the type of person who feels inclined to shop around these days for a repair is on the brink of a replacement machine, and only lightly considering the options. A lot of our customers don’t even ask or care what we charge.
We used to have saturation in 2 categories, now there are 6, and my Y/Pages only covers the centre of my area. We cover 4 counties and all I get for my money is a part of rural Somerset. The only bit that works well for me on Y.P. is Yell.com. The rest is dying on the vine. Next year I am looking at Yell.com only.
Alex
Re: Yellow Pages Ad
I agree with Alex on this one the only calls I was sure was from any advertising was from Yell.com. In my patch there has been a huge amount of new housing developments mainly occupied by young first time buyers and I am sure that when they have a problem with a machine the first thing thy will look at is the PC and Google not the dinosaurs phone book. I am seriously considering having some professional web pages designed and get higher up in the Goggle listings.
Goose
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