yellow pages - is yours working - what is it?

I wanted to start a thread that might share some experiences with yellow pages ads. does anyone want to share how many calls they get each month on average from the yellow pages? And if you share the average calls, how big is your ad, what features does it contain and how do you compare to your competitors ads?
I am currently running 1/2" in column ads and have been satisfied with the results they have produced. However, I don't compare very well with some of the other companies ads that are business card size and even 1/8 page. No one is using color.
I met with the yellow pages guy today and we are working on what to use for the next issue which comes out in August.

Just got me thinking and interested in what type of results others are seeing. Has anyone tried their guaranteed response program?

John

rule #1 dont beleive anything the sales rep tells you except what your monthly fees will be.

rule #2 when in doubt refferr to rule #1



i have 2 yellow page(yellow book) ads for 2 different companies
some months i get 3 calls some months i get 0.

last year i catered to homeowners,this year i am catering to commercial with white knock out backgrounds.

your results could vary,you have to try it,to see what happens.

i can tell you it is hard making the payments when your not getting it back.

the best yellow page ads are the ones that begin with AAA,or the big eyecatchers up front,these get called by everyone who opens the book,then they call us to price check,they get the "come do it nows" and i get the "can you give me an estimate?" people.

I don't know yet what to make of the yellow pages. I do very well with local papers. Of course I only get Residential from these papers, never commercial. Last year I did one and two line adds in the yellow pages in SIX different sections. This cost me $2400 for the year......and I got killed. The sales rep sold me CRAP. I think I made a couple of Hundred off those stupid lines. Of course I was pissed because you are locked in for one year.

This year I just finished my NEW add for the Yellow pages which is 1/8 of a page and only in the POWERWASHING section in my phone book. This cost me aprox the same ($2600/year) I also get one free line in the Building cleaning section. Hopefully I do much much much better. If not back to the drawing board next year.

$2600 may not seem like alot to some but I also pay around $500/month in local papers from April to October....and I have my "Other fulltime nite job".

If I can have my wife show me how to use the Scanner I will post my yellow page add.

Yellow Page Ads

Rule of thumb is this: If someone is going to go down the columns then that is what they do. There is an advantage , if it is a popular heading, to be alphabetically favorable. If you are talking about other ads this is it. Most people are going to look at three ads and call or make a decision. You need to be one of those three. With that in mind you don't need to take out a full page color ad. You only need to be ahead or equal to your competition. You can either go one size up , color ad , or now what is very popular "white knockout" , etc. Listen to above and don't always listen to the reps. They will sell you something you don't need. These reps have alot of pressure on them to perform and make money in most cases ONLY when you upgrade an ad. There are also alot of unethical practices going on when you sign something and then the rep ads something else to it after the fact. I recommend NOT using faxes to do business and save all documentation. If anyone wants to e-mail direct feel free eabrams@deckrestorationplus.com. I would be happy to offer an opinion. I hope this helps.

Hello John,

In my area (Rural) yellow pages have been the best bang for the buck! We have bold listings under several headings and we have this ad in one heading (Cleaning Systems Pressure, Chemical).

This ad is called a 2-1/2" in column. It costs us $50 to $150 per month depending on the book.

Dave Olson

I run ads in 3 books , in the biggest book , I run 3 bold listing in red under diffrent listing , and like someone else said 3 to 0 calles per week , but you must stay in business for the long haul, All the time i have people that havent called me in 1 , 2 or 3 years .
but use me some were down the road again.

tomarrow i have a job , the guy hasent called me in a year or more its at a $5M dollar house , he dosent build that many houses , but he found my name in the yellow pages!

It takes time , last week i did a job at Lockheed Martin, my biggest job of the year and 10 years ago they layed me off!\

The 3rd book i got in is a new book in our area , it was like $175 for the year , two 1" ads plus a few free listings and my ad will not go up 15% each year, like the others , we'll see ? only about 75,000 books .

try the inter net , I'll will e mail you a few pitchers that you can have , even though i took them , you can start your own web site for around $350 , Beth can do it for you and many other People.

Mel

hoping for more yellow pages success

Last year and still currently running, I have listings in 5 different sections in the y.p. We have 3 that are 1/2" in column ads and one bold and one plain and simple listing. The rep threw in the bold and the plain listing for us at no extra charge (supposedly). It costs roughly $150 a month. The book came out last August and for us it has been a success. About a month after the book came out we landed an apartment cleaning job from it and in January we landed a large parking lot cleaning. Those two jobs more than covered the yearly costs for the ads and we have had quite a few residential jobs as well and the phone is just starting to ring in the past two weeks with the spring rush.
So......
I had my meeting with the y.p. rep earlier this week to make plans for the next publishing and decided to increase my ads and my spending since the y.p. is the only "paid for" advertising which has shown success for us. I've tried 1/8 page ads in small local newspapers, listings in the business section of the classifieds in the major local paper (85,000 daily distr., 135,000 weekends), a coupon mailer, and paying a realty company for referrals from all their customers (a major mistake) and none of these have produced more than 1 job each.
I decided to put the money back into what is working and increased the in column ad under "pressure cleaning service" to a 1/8 page ad and trying the white knockouts for the other in column ads. All in all, the new monthly cost will be just shy of $500. Also, I'm trying a program where the 1/8 page ad gets a special phone number so the total calls it produces can be counted and the y.p.'s are going to guarantee 10 calls a month from this ad and prorate my bill for any month that produces less than 10. It will be a while before I'll know how this works, but I'll pull this thread back up if I have to and give reports on how the new ads are working.

John

Dave,whats the percentage of residential and commercial calls you receive from this ad?

Hello Tim,

When I ask callers where they got our phone number. If they say phone book thats about the only response you will get. Asking what book or listing is generally more information than they remember!

The quality of the call is more important than who it came from or how many you receive.

Most of the calls are residential that may expect to spend $100 or less. I got a call from a local plant several years ago from the Yellow Pages. That one call started us down a revenue stream of around $200,000 over the next few years!

Dave Olson

thank you.

I do very well with the yellow pages. I dont have exact figures, but I'm happy with the results.

The ad is all black in the book..........no color as shown below.....

I have the biggest ad with a red/white/blue background-I get a lot of calls. Well worth the money.

I get a lot of estimate calls - and I go and make the sale.

so tim, never sent that contract. do you really have one?? one has to wonder.

One has to wonder, couldnt you have come up with a more polite way to phrase that? If it were me, I'd make a point not to send it to you now.....

Mike, thanks for adding my logo. As for not getting it, I don't expect it nor do I think he really has one. He offered to let us see it, asked me to remind him to send it, I reminded him twice and still no response. I was just making a point, didn't mean for it to sound mean, just meant for it to sound like I didn't beleive him anymore.

He has done it in the past with me too in reguards to a marketing plan.


Charlie

I too have asked for a copy of the contract and something else, can't recall. But hey, you ever think the guy might just be BUSY?? Why would he offer to send something he doesn't have? That makes no sense.

If he sends it to me fine, if not, fine. No harm done, and I certainly am not going to think less of him for it. I can definitely understand being busy and sometimes making people wait for things too long. Hell, I have a card on my desk with a guy's email address I promised to send some info to weeks ago...still haven't gotten to it. With four boards to keep up with, email, working on marketing plans, and a regular 40+ hour/week job, things sometimes get put on the back burner longer than I'd like them to.

My rule if you can't keep the promise don't make one all this happen in the slow time of the year.


Charlie

Personally, I despise bickering on the boards. So much is taken out of context because the internet is a different social dynamic that does not allow us to fully portray or perceive what is written and expressed.
In this case though, no one is out anything. There is no skin off of anyone's back, no payment sent, time invested. Tim OFFERED something for no return as I understand it. Don't get on a person for offering something. Get on a person that you have paid for a service or made a fair bargain with if they don't keep their end of the deal. Who knows why things weren't sent, which of us is capapble, qualified or in a position to judge the rest on these boards.
Now, if you feel that you have a complaint with another member, please express it via email or a phone call, but please lets not get into public bickering where everything can be taken out of context. So, lets all just enjoy the information and the laughs that are available here.

john
johnisimpson@hotmail.com

SO..................How 'bout those Yellow Page ads???