Yellow Page Extortion

I agree and you don't have to buy big advertisements to make an impact in this section. It puts the big spenders on par with the guy who is smart enough to say the right stuff in the right way. That is exactly what I intend on doing. Their extortion just caused them to lose 75% of what I was going to spend and that was a lot of money. Now I will spend it other ways and problably spend less of it.

I think there will be a big backlash to this policy. I only use the YP to look at my competitors ads. I use the internet to look up services on Canada 411 or a localized Google search.

Screw YP even if it works I will go another way.    
    

Edited by pilediver - 14/September/2006 at 11:19pm

pilediver wrote: I have asked many of my customers if they use the internet to source local services and many do. I will be putting a lot of effort into my website and into seach optimization.

Optimization is a real project. Even if you throw a lot of money at it, it will take awhile to score high on a Google search. But it's worth it.

advertize on the internet. Use the yellow pages to wrap fish

I sat down with my local Yellow Page (now owned by Verizon) representative today and discussed my intentions for their next publications.

He informed me that, as of this year, any new accounts with Yellow Pages have to pay the first THREE MONTHS billings at the time of booking their advertising. He said this applies to all new advertisers.

If a company was planning on being aggressive with their YP advertising that would be a lot of money out without receiving any benefit for six or seven months. The book closes in October and the publication comes out end of February or early March.

I know there are lots of opinions about YP both pro and con but these guys are making my expenditure decisions way easier.

Any thoughts?