I think when you are advertising you need to make sure you are reaching your target audience. I think there's a different scenario for each different type of business. I think the best option is trial and error and find out what works for your business best.
Stick to the free listing, if that works, then no need to pay for anything else!
Bigger is not better, if your like my mum, you look for the smaller/more local/one man band businesses in order to help them, rather than the full page supersized uk wide businesses. (local press is good for this though!)
Yellow Pages have got thinner and thinner over the years - i only have free lines!
Flyers, Word of Mouth but best of all networking - 4N, local chambers, Best Of networking, Local Business Forum - it's the best way for me as people get to know me as a person. 4N Passport is great as i travel a lot!
Had a phone call today from a fellow Labber (Thats an official word in some language, I am sure!)telling me that the yell.com is in trouble aswell as the book is not supporting it and too many people complaining as they have too much competition, looks like I started at the right time!!!!
Also I am completely redesigning the site (same foundations etc) but had the countries shooting of to sub-domains, going to keep them all under one banner to help with SEO, and also make the lists more user friendly by catergorising them, ie Creative, Tradesmen, Professional etc. Had some great feed back from guys & gals on here, thanks all!
I used to work for Yell and the Yellow Pages is a lot less effective than it used to be... don't get me wrong, many businesses swear by it and generate a fantastic response, however an awful lot of companies don't get a return.
The problem is that aswell as other ways to find what you are looking for, in my opinion the Yellow Pages is dated and with many people living in contemporary flats these days withou a lot of storage, people just don't keep hold of it.
The Yell.com bubble has seemed to burst as well - too many advertisers now, so everyone is getting less response. They are charging more to go on there now and with sponsored listings etc (to try and make up for the Yellow Pages revenue loss), I think it's diluting it's use as you can search for a plumber in your area and the top 2 listings are not in the area - they have just bought the top spots!
Please don't assume that all printed publications don't work though, I launched my business on the feedback from my Yell advertisers, who wanted a publication that would target their local market only.
We publish The Little Black Book (a very high quality A5 annual directory with 15,000 local circulation's) in 11 areas across S.E London, Surrey and Kent, and have been generating a fantastic response for many advertisers!
Advert design has a lot to do with response also... you need to put the right message across to the right people at the right time to get a good response!
I for one can vouch for Lloyds black book, it fits in a laptop case, a drawer, a handbag, and looks damn good on a coffee table, the cover is decadent and sexy and you want to leave it out on the side, this is not a book you put under the stairs.
The Yell.com bubble has seemed to burst as well - too many advertisers now, so everyone is getting less response. They are charging more to go on there now and with sponsored listings etc (to try and make up for the Yellow Pages revenue loss), I think it's diluting it's use as you can search for a plumber in your area and the top 2 listings are not in the area - they have just bought the top spots!
Lloyd,
I agree with the fact that local searching is very important.
This is why our searches are location based. We do have paid adverts but we only push the closest 2 gold listings to the first page and not directly at the top.
We think it is important for people to be able to find what they are searching for easily.
Don't get me wrong, I think Yell.com is a good site, but I think with the chase to recoup lost revenue from the Yellow Pages, they've diluted what people use it for... I just did a search for Builders in SE22 and 88% of the advertisers on the 1st page were not in SE22.
I know the businesses still cover SE22 and you can click on a button for SE22 only, but many people want a local based co, so if user wants a co based in SE22, it's taking them longer to find them.... quicker to use google!
We found that when advertising my wife's fitness company, small ads in local print works best. I think it depends on your target market for us, putting an ad in local village newsletters worked really well, as did some flyer drops, advertising in local shops and things like that.
Have not tried Yellow pages, but tried Yell.com and it was a waste of time and money, we didn't get a single enquiry from it. For some reason they closed our account and sent back our cheque that we'd sent for payment only for them then try chasing for the money saying we hadn't paid our bill!!
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Always happy to help, just give me a shout Galena Web Design
Personally, I have never spent a penny with Yellow Pages. But I have spent lots of money with them from my customers marketing budgets. I can also tell you that the sales people who work at Yell are considered to have jobs which are "cream of the crop". They have fully paid professional salaries with commissions on top. They don't pay people like this for nothing.
When advertising there are a few traps, don't advertise somewhere just because everyone else is. This is often a sales tac tic of reasurance. You will not become a household name overnight by being in there.
Free Listing. Why? Acquisition of your contact details. First part of the sales process. Good for them good for you. Assuming people can understand what you do from your business name. I have their Agency Pack on my desk. It makes an interesting read for people like me.
What I will say is some business rely on directory advertising. It really works. While with others it really doesn't. Whatever you do, when you spend, measure the return. If it is directory advertising, do something where you can count the response rate. An old and simple trick is use a seperate phone line that produces a management report. Simple and easy.
If you are on the web, it should be easier to measure. Forget Goog Analytics, just ask a programmer to knock up a landing page that counts for you, then track enquiries that come from it.
Always ask where people find you. Measure the level of response. Measure the level of sales. Measure the amount of profit from sales. Compare advertising costs with profit. Was it worth it? Can we do something different to improve the response rate?
Whether its Yell or anyone else. Make a judgement, dip you toe in. If you don't you will always wonder. If you haven't got the funds don't gamble.
Personally, I have never spent a penny with Yellow Pages. But I have spent lots of money with them from my customers marketing budgets. I can also tell you that the sales people who work at Yell are considered to have jobs which are \\"cream of the crop\\". They have fully paid professional salaries with commissions on top. They don't pay people like this for nothing.
When advertising there are a few traps, don't advertise somewhere just because everyone else is. This is often a sales tac tic of reasurance. You will not become a household name overnight by being in there.
Free Listing. Why? Acquisition of your contact details. First part of the sales process. Good for them good for you. Assuming people can understand what you do from your business name. I have their Agency Pack on my desk. It makes an interesting read for people like me. Typically it is a pack for partner companies who represent a collective spend of others.
What I will say is some businesses rely on directory advertising. It really works. While with others it really doesn't. Whatever you do, when you spend, measure the return. If it is directory advertising, do something where you can count the response rate. An old and simple trick is use a seperate phone line that produces a management report. Simple and easy.
If you are on the web, it should be easier to measure. Forget Goog Analytics, just ask a programmer to knock up a landing page that counts for you, then track enquiries that come from it.
Always ask where people find you. Measure the level of response. Measure the level of sales. Measure the amount of profit from sales. Compare advertising costs with profit. Was it worth it? Can we do something different to improve the response rate?
Whether its Yell or anyone else. Make a judgement, dip you toe in. If you don't you will always wonder. If you haven't got the funds don't gamble.
Oh one more very important point. It bloody well works for some people. I have clients of specific business types (of which again you must do your own analysis) that do very well from it.
I refer to both the printed "Yellow Book" and the "The Website".
Some good points.... Yell is one of the highest paid sales jobs around and only a very small % of applicants get a job there.
It always amazes me as to how many companies spend thousands on advertising without monitoring the response.
Another tip is to not buy advertising on price. Again it suprises me how many small businesses I speak to advertise in certain places because it's cheaper (by the £) than my publication.
£70 for a 5,000 circulation is actually more expensive that £145 for a 15,000 circulation!
A free entry is essential - many customers will reference you in Yell - while I have seen few business say that Yell.com was a great spend.
Had a call a few weeks ago re a new online only service, where by you got two lines and click through to your website, ie: a backlink! (bet its no-follow). Intro price was £99pa, may be its the service Caroline mentioned - they tend to rollout services as they replace regional paper directories
Yeah I think my backlink thing is good, people get live adverts not text adverts (unless required) and "ukbn" now hitting 2nd on yahoo, still hammering google, but amazing how many are coming through from yahoo, guess its when they check their mail.
Oh its time to brag and belittle yell once more, firstly yell is pants, it has a huge site and has god knows how many people working on the back end, but yet lil old UKBN is spanking them on natural searches!
I was talking to a potential client 2 days ago (who is now signed up I am glad to say!) and gave him an example of how we could benefit him, told him to search for "site steel services leicestershire" as I know Jon advertises on Yell and with us, but its our advert that comes up, Yell shows a completely different company, if you targetted his town of earl shilton, we are above Yell, in fact we are number one, I thought I should boast, as beating a site of there size is one hell of a chest expander for me, and this is a domain we bought only 5 weeks ago! Bring it on!
As KevJaques said, it's about getting a response for advertisers, so hopefully being high in search engines like google will get your advertisers a great return!!
We are taking The Little Black Book online - www.chooselocal.co.uk (will be live by 1st October)... unfortunately we don't have Yells millions to advertise the site, like they did with yell.com, however we'll be heavilly promoting it in all of our local directories, which should = over 330,000 people across S.E London, Surrey & Kent!
Some good points.... Yell is one of the highest paid sales jobs around and only a very small % of applicants get a job there.
It always amazes me as to how many companies spend thousands on advertising without monitoring the response.
Another tip is to not buy advertising on price. Again it suprises me how many small businesses I speak to advertise in certain places because it's cheaper (by the £) than my publication.
£70 for a 5,000 circulation is actually more expensive that £145 for a 15,000 circulation!
Hi there, just read all these points.
Yell is "pants" for many business cases. But I have clients that live off Yell. If it disappeared so would they.
Always monitor. Absolutely. If it doesn't work, perhaps the pitch is wrong. There is a big difference between somebody doing an advert for the first time and somebody doing one that been doing them for years. I advertise, specific things it works.
Ciculation. Hmm, random door drops. Take your chance. Very low return. I prefer highly targetted campaigns. But having said that, a door drop is good too. We ran competition for a new pet shop. It was a ciculation through the paper. Also backed it up with a further leaflet circulation and a free gift. Did very well. Horses for courses.
PS. They want to go online at some point. God help them.
At the end of the day, you've got to do 'the maths'. I have my own models I use. But the analysis, trial and error, contiuous improvement, is the way to get what you want.
However, with a qualty publication, delivered to affluent areas - the returns can be awesome!
We've got over 100 testimonials with many people saying The Little Black Book is the best form of advertising they have ever tried!!!
I would like to see your little black book. It sounds really good. a good name. Is it the usual A5 format or have you done something original and different?
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