My Yellowbook guy just pulled up unannounced. He’s gonna want to renew. I am thinking about opting out this year. Anyone else done it lately and how did it go for you? Got a salesguy on the ground and trucks everywhere. Thinking of putting the money elsewhere. Any thoughts?
I meet w/ my Yellow Book rep in July. I’m going to demand a reduced rate this year or I’m out. The Dex YP has been giving me a reduced rate for the last 2 years and my ROI on both books isn’t enough to spend my money there when I could use it in direct mail or other marketing. If they drop the price it will keep me in it for another year.
Ask them if they would be willing to offer a money-back guarantee.
If it doesn’t perform, you don’t pay.
See what they say.
I did that they told me NO! So I just googled who do i call for window cleaning in kansas city. And there it was Show Me Cleaning. I said now make your phone book do that.
Paul
Show Me Cleaning Window Cleaning Kansas City, Missouri, Mo. Kansas City, Kansas, Ks
I don’t like the coverage area cost. It cost to much to cover our areas.
Ah yes, the question asked that already has an answer…
Would you ask this question if the ads were working?
Not likely because it would be making you money.
Most are afraid to drop the “normal” methods followed
by most other businesses losing their shirt on YP.
I dumped the YP because I was next to 200 other services
and I would go six months without one lead.
I also blame it for making me lazy in marketing
You know the answer to the question. If it is making money
you keep it on, if not- good bye. We can’t advise you better
than your results have.
hope that helps
You can do alot of mailers with the money you save every month. They seem to work good for most wcers
Yellowbook isnt a big here as it is in some other areas of the country. AT&T is the power hitter here. As i have mentioned in another post, It works well in my market. I believe that yellowbook has flopped in my area because they deliver the books in DEC. every year and AT&T delivers their books at the end of FEB. Instead of having two big books, some folks will pitch the older one (yellowbook) for the new updated book (ahh just in time for Spring cleaning!). If you are focused on getting storefront business, i would say that it will be a waste of money. Storefronts are always getting hit by window cleaners looking to land an account. Residential is the big bang for the buck for me. I do get calls for office quotes and things like that but residential is what mostly calls me for pricing.
Steve
I already dropped mine. I do like kevin’s suggestion though. Last year I had an add on the yellow book internet directory, I was the first on on the page, the only one with a direct link to a web site, and I got a total of 3 hits on my site from the yelloybook link, and 2 of those were me making sure the link was active and working.
When the rep called me she gave me this line that there was 37 hits on that page every month, customer looking to purchase my service. So I told her 1 actual hit all year, and possibly 1 customer from that add. I had one customer that I couldn’t completly track, so maybe that one came from yellowbook, all the rest I know where they came from, and none of them were from yellowbook.
[FONT=“Impact”][COLOR=“black”] One good thing is that the Yellowpages Book info transfers to the web and will give you good high value backlinks on the web. Other than that, I can’t think of any reason to advertise in it. [/COLOR][/FONT]
I dropped mine last year. Didn’t help that after sending me the proof with correct information they printed one number incorrectly. Tracked 2 calls in 12 months (from two different ads) to YP. Maybe some of the calls I couldn’t answer were from it, but I’ll never know.
I’m going back to flyers and mailing.
I got my yellow page rep down on price from $440.00 per month to $250.00. It was a waiting game and it worked for me. I let her know that I was going to try direct mail more and see what happens. I told her that If I could get my ad for $250.00, I would go for it. A month went by and she called me 2 days before the final submission deadline. They will take less. You have to let them know that you are interested and then you name your price. If its reasonable, I have a good feeling they will take it.
Steve
Good advice Steve. I’m doing this w/ my rep this year.
Tony,
I hope this advice works out for you. Some companies are cutting back on advertising and the YP reps are feeling the crunch. Going back to my previous post about the “waiting game”. I was sweating too because I wanted to stay in the book because it was definately a good ROI.
It all depends on the ROI. Do you track how much revenue you’ve made from the ad? Up to two years ago I was in 6 different books. Now I’m down to 2. One of them I negotiated a reduced rate because of the results. The other I actually paid more for the same ad this year because it was still worth it from the revenue I made from it. Remember to source your customers!
We track it. Every call that comes in for a quote request is asked how they found us. I have heard alot of people say that they saw my ad in the YP’s (with the website address on it) and looked me up on the web. the two go hand in hand.
I wish I would’ve done that before forking over $900 to those greedy sales reps.
I only made half of what I spent. I hate yellow pages. never again will I put anything in there.
