How many of you have a phone number or ad in the Yellow Pages?

[tankman1989]

I would like to find out how many of you have an ad or at least a phone number in the yellow pages. I am asking because I have a good idea how we may all work together to get better rates on advertising.

If you could please tell me what you have and it would also be awesome if you said how much you pay, yearly or monthly.

Also, did your sales rep tell you anything about referral fees? My sales rep (Idearc Media) has informed me that they offer a 20% referral fee. Has anyone else been informed of any referral incentives? Also I am wondering if these referrals can be used with current clients, meaning businesses who are already advertising with them, can they "re-sign" and give out a referral?

I'm thinking that our industry spends a considerable amount of money on advertising and I would think that if we "played together" we could either get the benefits or work on something that benefits all in the group.

[NickCat11]

I spend $55 a month for an ad in the yellow pages. That also includes their online directory.

[AtYourService]

i spend 17$/month for a 1" ad and another test listing under a different category and 1 listing in the white pages

[Iconic]

I pay approximatly $350 a month for 2 yellowpage directories. Each ad is a 1/3 column multicolour ad which can be seen here (http://www.yellowpages.ca/bus/Alberta/Edmonton/Iconic-Computers-Corp/6130486.html?adid=14635521ad&what=iconic+computers&where=Edmonton%2C+AB&le=4c8e9bbe3e|4c8e9bbbb4|14d34).

I paid extra to have the colour print ad instead of just the single line text ad. It was either get hidden in the single line listings or pay for the 1/3 column ad and have a chance in hell of being seen mixed in with all the other companies in my city.

[pcoverhaul]

I have a free ad here: http://listings.yellowpages.com.

I get a decent amount of business from it.

[ell]

nope, no yellowpages, just top listings in google maps and google search, craigslist, merchant-circle, yelp, yahoo, superpages, and more. Everyone I know only uses the book to find a number or address of a business they already know, like I do. Majority of my biz comes from people at work that find me online or through word of mouth.

[bagellad]

I spend 100 a month in the canadian yellow pages. and about $50 a month in the local "easier to read" phone book. But they require full payment up front. Both have been good. and I have got most of my good business from them.

But..

My competitors.. do not have the best ads. They are hard to eat and generally confusing. I think it would be less effective in a more competitive market place.

[the rescue tech]

Just starting up, and unfortunately at the wrong point in yellow Page cycle to place print ads for this year.

[Crash]

I am just getting started in this business and have taken advantage of the "Free" yellow pages listing.
After I registered my business for the listing, started to get calls from reps telling me how much I need to pay for a better positioned listing and all the blah blah blah...
Simply replied, "Thanks for taking the time to call me but for now I think we can be adequately served by the FREE Listing" and now the calls are few and far between, but they still call.

[NickCat11]

I pay approximatly $350 a month for 2 yellowpage directories. Each ad is a 1/3 column multicolour ad which can be seen here (http://www.yellowpages.ca/bus/Alberta/Edmonton/Iconic-Computers-Corp/6130486.html?adid=14635521ad&what=iconic+computers&where=Edmonton%2C+AB&le=4c8e9bbe3e|4c8e9bbbb4|14d34).

I paid extra to have the colour print ad instead of just the single line text ad. It was either get hidden in the single line listings or pay for the 1/3 column ad and have a chance in hell of being seen mixed in with all the other companies in my city.

Out of curiosity... dollar wise is this your main form of advertising?

[PCSupportGlasgow]

We have ads and phone number.

things that really annoy me about likes of yellow pages is how they split the books up eg to cover just locall the yellow pages = 2 books atleast (full coverage area is atleast 9), thomsons is bloody 4 for just the city i put down phone before even asked about our full coverage area.

Also peeves me off why every walmart tech gets allowed in without even having a landline and only mobile number.

Also i dont think they even check from one year to the next if a company still operating when compiling new book free listings as half the listings (in books we're in anyway) are long gone but still cluttering up the listings. and dont even start me about online directory versions.

Also why those in surrounding towns get into the listings wheras we dont get listed into their town listings unless we pay extra.


ps our covage area not exactly massive its only approx 40 miles radius.


i know these directories see profit as bottom line but are they that shortsighted to notice that these fly by night free listings effectively hinder the legit listings.

[callthatgirl]

I did it for a year in the yellowbook, online and in the white pages.

I barely squeeked by making my money back, I decided to not renew and don't miss it.

[TayConsInc]

YP is expensive in my area, something like $200-400.... per month.

[usacvlr]

I have an ad in all three phone books for our area.

[Tweak]

Vote for phone number only, walkin and word of mouth keeps benches slammed so why waste the $ when volume now already feels overwhelming often times ya know.

[Cambridge PC Support]

I used to have just the one ad in the UK Yellow Pages and now I'm going for a second one in there as well

costs me about £200/month

[ITTech]

Yellow Pages has been a waste for us. I used it for the first 4 years I was in business. The first 3 years we spent about $600/mo and last year we decided to go all out and we were spending almost 2k/mo in 3 books and had ads on two pages in each book. It was a waste of money! It hurt cutting out a check each month and knowing I am wasting my money and could have done alot more with it somewhere else.

The calls we generated were people shopping around and they would call around and find the cheapest guy and get services done there. Yellow pages lets techs who do not have a shop also advertise and obviously their overhead is lower and they would charge less so for us as a store front it was no good.

The sales guy keeps coming by and he offered to do th same 2k ads for $450! this year.

in chicago we have a lot of competition so its tougher to get business from it.

[Appleby]

My Yellow Pages story...

I've owned a real estate business selling land and farms for over 10 years and for us, in that particular business, the yellow pages were worthless and nothing but a pain because of me constantly telling all the salespeople NO.

However, my story for my computer business is different. Let me also preface this with some facts. My business is in a town of 30,000 people, including many of the 10,000 college students here. The whole county has about 50,000 people. There is one other "main" computer shop in town and several smaller ones that I don't hear much about.

4 years ago when I started my business the bigger shop had a half page ad in the offical Yellow Pages and decent sized ads in the off-brand books. The 2-3 other businesses had everything from quarter page ads to nothing but a phone number. The bigger shop was the only one with a professionally done, nice looking color ad. I didn't get in the book that first 1.5 years because I had missed the first deadline when I opened my business.

I tried everything! Very high quality, professionally designed, full color post cards bulk mailed out to 1,500 households in the middle to upper class neighborhoods near my office. I got 2 phone calls and they were two good long term customers. Next, radio ads! I did alot of them during prime time talk radio since alot of business owners in my community listen to conservative talk radio. I also did ads on the country and rock stations. 1 phone call over 3 months. Every job I was getting was word of mouth and I was NOT busy. Next was advertising on those big calendars that they hang up in places...probably places like auto mechanic shops.lol Dumb idea and I never got a phone call from the supposed "thousands" that were going out. Next was ads on "menu boards". These are dry erase boards in restaurants near the waiting area that list the specials of the day. Around the dry erase board are about 10 full color ads. 1 phone call. Those boards were supposed to be up one year. 3 years later they are still up and I still get 0 phone calls and they are in two of THE busiest restaurants in town. Next was door hangers....1,500 were delivered. 0 phone calls. Newspaper classified "business directory" listing ad. I got about 3-5 phone calls a month. It paid for itself, barely, but it was by far the cheapest ad and by far the most successful up to that point.

Then came the yellow pages. Long story short, I splurged the $3,000/yr and went with a half page full color pro designed ad in the offical AT&T Yellow Pages. It came out in January-February and I started getting a few phone calls. By April the phone was ringing. I wasn't slammed but the business was picking up. The next year I ran the same 1/2 page ad plus I ran other smaller, but professionally done ads in the two other phone books. The call volume ratcheted up. I've continued to do the same thing for the last 2 years and I am advertising NO where else and my phone is ringing off the hook many days. Granted I have a ton of repeat business now, but the Yellow Pages still gets the credit for those customers.

I give the YP 100% of the credit for making my business successful. Without them, I would have closed the doors 2 years ago. Granted I'm in a small town with only a little competition but for my area, it works.

[lassenpc]

Close to Appleby's story, I missed the 'main' (out of the four) local pages to advertise in the first year 1/2. Luckily had some solid other marketing things going, but when we finally did get in the main yellow pages, did see a 20-25% boost almost immediately.

[DanF]

I have a small graphical ad in yellow pages. It's been there for a year now and I had like 4 phone calls in a whole year from YP... only one turned in a job. The others thought that the rates are high or something. And I know that they are not! I will never use YP again, at least in the near future, the result is so disappointing.

[RegEdit]

Being listed in the yellow pages is a MUST. If your company name puts you at the top (name starts with a number or A, B, C, etc) then that is probably the best free advertising you will ever need.

[C.Quill]

I just recently realized I had a phone number listed, one of my clients told me about it. Prior to that I had no clue. I'm not willing to spend the large amount of money it takes to get an ad in the yellow pages. It's very difficult to justify the cost.