Yellow Page Advertising - Is it worth it?
 

I am wondering if anyone has any thoughts about advertising in the yellow pages. Is it worth it? Has anyone advertised in the yellow pages and had it not work out? Also, for those of you that are doing yellow page advertising, do you just advertise in one local directory or all of them?

i did it, it worked sort of, i got many calls that i did not want, with enough business i stopped it, to reduce the SPAM calls.
getting in there gave every tom dink and harry who wanted to sell something my number :-( got a secratary to feild calls?

here is some stuff that happend while i was paying:
the yeller books try to beat eachother to the punch, and things like the "Fingers" logo were not trademarked, so the competition with no respect for doing thier own thing, and needing Laws to actually control thier plagerism, looks just like the other one(s).
The people didnt care and tossed out the old book , from the OTHER company, when the new one came in. then i pay $75-125 monthly to be in a book that is in someones trash can.
Then one book "extended" it was in the contract, so the book is 13months to 18 months old, in the trash, and i have to keep paying monthly, the full time of the extention.
a 1 year commitment became 18 months like it or not. that means the Payment for that book , which is monthly went to 1.5X, not that i got 6 months for free.

they did the "extend" because now that book wants to come out AFTER the other one, so the other one gets tossed. and on to battle they go. the worst thing being that the Off-Brand one, was not cheaper at all, even though they said they were.

if you get in ONE book, make sure it is used, and discover who got the jump on the competition that year, by putting thier book out AFTER the other one :-)

watch how they distribute the books, specifically in the area you want to serve.
one book was being dump & run. They delivered uncovered like a newspaper, and it was raining (which is rare here) they dumped books by mailboxes in stacks and they got wet, peed on by dogs , etc etc. one run that year went to complete waste. and As usual i kept paying monthly.

Often they will give you big discounts for upgrading your monthly payments , err Add size, so starting smaller and punching it up for a discount, is cheaper than starting big and downgrading, they dont give discounts for giving them less money :-)

i dont know how effective they are now , with the WEB being used lots. in this place the use of the actual book itself is 2times a year. getting a Hold of customers with anything is a good thing, keeping them and getting word of mouth is the best thing.

For the price of a decently workable Yellow Pages advert you can get a really good web site. And you don't automatically lose it at the end of the year.

Andrew

NETWORKING NETWORKING NETWORKING !
Don't waste your money on Yellow Pages. You may just want to put a small bold entry with your business name and number, but leave it at that. Over 95% of my work comes from " Word of Mouth" and Networking. Join your local Business Chamber etc, this will have more benefits than Yellow Pages. People prefer to do business with people they already know, so network your backside off.

Just my opinion.

Steve.

Honestly, I always throw them away. They take up space and I can find the same info online. You would do better with a website and a small vehicle wrap. Also, as Steve said, make sure you do a lot of networking.

I've often thought that targeted advertising might be effective if you specialize in something. A key is not to advertise where all your competitors are advertising. Yellow Pages, even online editions, may well have you packed in with the competition and you'd better have and ad that differentiates yourself.

On the other hand, if you specialize in medical videos you might consider advertising in medical supply trade publications for example. If you specialize in real estate video such trade publications might also be a target. If you do local cable spots you can target community business associations.

Yellow page advertisements, IMHO, are way overpriced and a waste of money.

Not many people use phone books anymore and for you to even get noticed, you have to have a large ad which will generally run you thousands of dollars a year.

Advertised in YellowBook in NW Ohio, business card size display ads, one under Videographer heading, another under Weddings. $1200 for the ads produced 5 calls and 2 bookings, and those 2 were last minute calls (within two weeks of service date).

I guess it's worth it for some, but not for me. I'd hang flyers on tombstones at the cemetary before I'd advertise with YellowBook again.

Jeff

A friend of mine runs a hardwood flooring company. He spent a couple hundred on an ad & I don't think he got 1 phone call. The sales rep called the next year asking him to re-up. He declined. Andrew made a good point, invest it in your website.

I once looked into. Very expensive and gets thrown out quick. I think its good for traditional brick and mortar business such as car repair, florists, pizza, etc. If your heat stops working in the middle of winter or a pipe breaks and water is gushing everywhere, you reach for the yellow pages but for Video? You also have to be pulling in a good deal of business to pay for it. Let's say $800/month = almost $10,000 year net to break even.

It's been years since I've opened a yellow book. I just toss them in the trash now when they arrive on my porch.

When was the last time you saw someone letting their fingers doing the walking?

We used to be in the yellow pages. I could always tell when I'd get a yellow pages call, because their first question was always "How much does a video cost?"

I can't say I got one single job because of my presence in the yellow pages.

Same thing here in the UK - the only calls seemed to be from elderly people who don't have computers, who wanted a VHS tape repaired or copied to these new DVD things - but thought that an hour of my time doing it should be the price of a blank DVD. Add to this the increase in SPAM calls from people trying to sell me even more advertising, I wish I'd never done it!

It's a constant problem ... people thinking that their video will or should be done for the cost of a DVD copy from the shops.

Andrew

Yellow pages = added monthly overhead = taking crappy jobs you wouldn't normally take to support yellowpages contract= hiring additional employees to do crappy unrewarding job=additional overhead= bigger yellow page add needed= taking crappier jobs= etc, etc, etc...