Advertising in Yellow Pages

[Lloyd_TLBB]

Nice one Chris - Great Work!!

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!

Will keep everyone posted when it's live!

[Lloyd_TLBB]

Originally Posted by skeeter

Hi there, just read all these points.

Ciculation. Hmm, random door drops. Take your chance. Very low return. I prefer highly targetted campaigns. .

In terms of leaflets, yes - a very low return.

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!!!

[Lloyd_TLBB]

Haha - no just the usual A5 format!!

Our difference is in terms of the design and quality of paper used...

I'd be happy to end you one of our issues if you PM me your address.

[KevJaques]

Heheh Chris, hmm the only Nick I know is Nasty Nick from that god-awful (I'm not religious ) depressing soap that should have been axed years ago
Or there was that bobby Nick? in some rural village soap a while back

Although I do converse daily with Matt We worked together for years and carried this on when we left our last employer.
I'm his mentor heheh, we share similar views on lots of topics and already have that working relationship and respect each others work.
We are kinda like a Tag Team though, gotta wrestle with the concious first before wrestling with the public and wrestling with our laurels

[matt.chatterley]

Originally Posted by KevJaques

Although I do converse daily with Matt We worked together for years and carried this on when we left our last employer.
I'm his mentor heheh, we share similar views on lots of topics and already have that working relationship and respect each others work.

I think Kev might just be "mental" - not sure about "mentor"

It's true though - we've worked together for years now and still do - certainly when I need someone to bounce ideas off, Kev is one of the people on a very short list and he's also my top choice for design.

That said - we don't actually coordinate our forum posts - we just both spend far too much time here!!

[UK Business Network]

I appreciate what your saying Skeeter, but when a site that has been up for 6 weeks (or there-abouts) is beating Yell on a natural search, I think slating them is par for the course, obviously it works for some people, but some people have been on the moon too, its the masses I want, not the few.

And the fact that sitting here, designing the site myself, having no SEO expereince or company doing this for us, and we are beating Yell, that in itself tells me they are really letting themselves go to pot.

And the service I offer is a finer tuned one, some people like Fords, I am aiming at people like myself that want more, much more, I want my Aston Martin and only have 6.5 years to get it (by I am 40), obviously people that do not have the money for listings use the free ones, i have done this myself in the past, but directories need to generate revenue, the money from each client i get goes into his/her adverts ranking, not the websites, and the site will follow anyway.

Either way its working out great for me, 2 recent clients want our contact cards to send to their clients and friends, so we must be doing something right, I think we have a Gallilaio scenario here, the 98 Percentile will always think somethings are not to be, but thats why they work in button factories for 50 years as they do not see the bigger picture.

Yell is dead, Long Live UKBN! hehe

[NikkiPilkington]

I'm not getting into the arguments here, but would be interested to see how UKBN fairs on more competitive searches against Yell, and also longer term; instant results are nice but don't always stay.

Regarding skeeter's comment a lot of our clients get business from offline directories - I think it depends a lot on the type of business you're in and who your clients are. Room for all sorts I reckon (although I personally would never pay for a Yellow Pages ad and haven't since about 1996 - and what a waste of money THAT was!)

[KevJaques]

I like to give some things in this arena the benefit of the doubt until tested, when it comes to renewals I will have my stats in front of me! So armed and ready with ammo to tell them where to go unless they have been of use.
An example, say if Yell only got you 1 main call in the last month of the year you were singed up, but that call ended up being a huge piece of business and long term too. Would it still be worth it?
Of course that's just hypothetical lol but you catch my drift

[UK Business Network]

Its all about ROI in my book Kev, so if that advert cost me a grand a year but i netted over that (working out hours and costings also of course) then its good in my book, obviously a lot if that comes down to how good your key words are or how saturated the industry is, ie 1303 results for financial advisers in London on Yell, but I have read about architects who have had a phonecall from Yell and covers their advert costs, but then if an advert costs £2500 a year and one job is worth £5k like with an architect then it is worth every penny.

That why we have our costings at the rates we do, it needs to be affordable enough that most industries will get that fee back from their first business coming through, I know the accountant we have just listed starts at around £600 a year, plus he laughed and said he would write it off as an expense anyway

But 1 new client would bring him that back (against his time and work obviously) as the ad only cost him £160 (+VAT) and yet I think the ad has given him a very good stamp and also around 6-7 different links to pages on his site, the design is in keeping with his own current website, all in with the cost. And on top of that he is the only one listed in his region, no vying for top spot, if someone finds his ad via us he will get contacted, even if they look elsewhere for quotes (unless his discription and content are completely pants!)

But rest assured you will all be kept updated to how well it is going.

[KevJaques]

Some good points raised there skeeter!

[UK Business Network]

Agree 100%, as I said against time and work, giving the numbers as an example, was not speculating as I see you all as intelligent people, I didn't think i would need to explain how much your work costs against profits

Also agree whole heartedly skeeter with content, thats room 101 in getting your ads to work, you can place an ad in the most obscure of places and get noticed, or create a useless one on national media, the results are dictated by the content and wording (or imagery) as i said and I qoute "(unless his discription and content are completely pants!)" (with typo!).

An advert is only as good as the call to action it creates, again room 101 there, what my goal is with UKBN.info is to give people what they are searching for, and to give advertisers the best possible ROI, you get from business by giving first as Sun Tzu teaches, but when looking for something I find that 100's of results are confusing, so the first few tends to get picked and called, so along that line of thought if somebody finds a business on UKBN.info chances are that they will be contacted, I appreciate also that Yell will be receiving higher volumes so the 1303 financial advisers in London advertising on there may get a call, but this was and is intended as a billboard advert not a multi spread.

The people I have spoke with have all got excited and come onboard at a cost to them selves, will it work, will it fail? It certainly wont fail, as I have been successful in everything I have ever done, I have had Prescott posing on mobility scooters instead of jags, turned a service department at £140,000 a year loss into a profit, one thing i know very well is sales and promotion, and been paid handsomely for it, hence partying in SE Asia for 18 months, now I am broke again, and thats when I turn out my best work, and as for Yell being huge, so was Salad Cream a few years ago, but now Mayo is on top.

And now I feel I am getting a tad too defensive, so shall back off as I tend to tut myself when I see others doing it.

The harder I work, the luckier I get

[UK Business Network]

Skeeter, you are a gentleman and a scholar, glad you didnt take my defensiveness as an attack, it was late, and I apologise for getting a tad defensive, you just went up a whole lot of levels in my book!

Mayo it is then!

[KevJaques]

Mayo it is then on a sesame seeded bun, filled with succulent chicken wrapped in a blanket of the good ol colonels secret recipe coating, layered on a bed of fresh lettuce, just the way you like it

[UK Business Network]

Actually I went extremely chav today, but it was to die for! Chicken super noodles with chopped up chorizo and mexicana cheese! Loved it, sadly no cheese left else would have had another bowl!

[sjr4x4]

I just love big debates about directories, everyones got an opinion! You love us or you hate us.

Yell bashing gets a bit predictable, so 10/10 for some of the points raised by Skeeter.

I personally love Yell, its pretty much excepted that the old fashioned print directory has had its day, from econominc, ethical and green perspectives, and the online model will and has superseded it.

To have the brand awareness and the online reach that yell has is something I can only dream about.. for now

The problem I see for Yell is its run as an old fashioned company, in a brave new world. Its struggling to find a working business model and is saddled with old infrastructure and debt. So this will inevitably be passed on in costs.

There is no doubt Yell works for a lot of business, and with any advertising, it's down to perceived value. Regardless of its going to cost you a £1, £10k or its free. As said previously, track your results. If it works, stick with it, if not move on.

Remember, even signing up with 50 free directories has an associated cost, your time. If they are back bedroom script kiddie operations, then your time has been poorly spent. Do some research.

The advantage the new generation of online directories have is they can start off with a more modern business model, have minimal overheads, so in return pass this off to any customers.

I honestly believe that as the online marketing world matures, in the near future, businesses won't need to pay for directory advertising, or at best fee's will be minimal.

A successful directory is one that generates a lot of traffic. It needs this traffic to give the advertisers on its site a chance to receive leads/refferals. High levels of traffic give almost limitless opportunuties to generate revenue, and a by product of this, is a smaller reliance on paid listings.

Aggressive sales tactics, high annual or monthly resubscriptions should now be consigned to history.

Todays directory challenges are traffic growth, finding the balance of monetizing traffic versus listing sales and my personal pet topic, customer service!

How or if Yell follows this course will be interesting to watch.

[JC Peters Design]

We are a web design and graphic design agency. We used to do allot of print advertising, both locally & nationally.

In the past twelve months we've stopped all of our offline advertising, the return was just getting smaller and smaller. In the end it just wasn't viable, we'd been in the Yellow Pages for years, at one point we were in 5 or 6 editions.

Now we mainly do various PPC & targeted campaigns, lots of SEO work. The return on the online stuff just gets better and better. It really is a no-brainer for us

I must admit that Year 2 in the YP hasn't returned nearly the same about of business that it did in Year 1 ... will stay on yell.com and now explore other forms of online advertising, with the only offline advertising being through the form of sponsorship for charity events, etc.

Andy

[dirtmaster]

The YP have gone down year on year for me. I have everything crossed that this new "compact" book! :S
Think its important to have a placement in the yp as alot of older customers who loose your business card will look you up, and chances are they will use a phone directory....

[Lockyer]

We've gone from £30k a year with Yell, to binning them in 5 years. All our budget is pretty much based round seo, and direct mail.

[Smith's Cleaning]

I used Yell and Yellow Pages last year to advertise my plastering business. It cost almost £500 for a box ad in the book and a top 10 priority listing on yell.
The only calls i received were those of jobseekers.

As far as online directories go i would recommend TouchLocal. They seem to be getting bigger and bigger, but its more expensive as a result.