Yellow Page Extortion

bryan wrote: Maybe you should stick it out.  If the smaller business get out the fastest, the ones most likely with the cheapest prices.  This will just generate more business for the bigger adds.  I have quarter page and seems to work ok for me.  Don't get much return in the slower months, but summers are great.  There are still a lot of people that don't like to use the internet, and door hangers you have to compete with lower prices.  So for me yellow pages has given me the most amount of work out of all the other avenues.

    




I AGREE

Kelvin Magee wrote:     What a waist of money. My ad has been in the phonebook YP (business card size) for a month & has netted me zilch. Word of month is the best advertising. Lastly I joined a fishing forum here locally & posted a discussion about carpet cleaning. (Offered the local fishermen a discount) 90 percent of my business comes from these guys on the fishing forum, because they refer me to someone else!!!!!

I think after this Yellow Pages experience, I'll just stick to specialized directories. But hey, that's great you found a good forum to get yourself business! Being a part of local groups and events is a great way to network without being at "networking events." I try to do the same thing--I got involved with a community theater company and met a guy who happened to run the local puppet theater. 67 year-old wool carpet. 800.00 for the cleaning and 250.00 maintenance cleanings every 3 months.

It is extortion.

The Flip Side

your right. To make you laugh I did a small $80 permonth ad in the yp and to my surprise i landed 1 $250 job. She then refered me to a $275 job. I know that will be the only work I get from that yp ad though, but I landed two new cuties.

There is no doubt that YP can offer a return on investment. However given the opportunities with the internet and the "tuned marketing" that we have available to us from proven commodities like Howard Partridge and others I can choose to not rely on the YP like I was intending. The YP policy of new businesses paying 3 months up front is discriminatory and doesn't make good business sense to me. In my YP marketplace you have to pass 5 double page advertisements before you get to several full page advertisements. To get visibility in this crowd costs lots of money. For my market that amounts to spending approximately $40,000 per year of which $10,000 must be paid up front six months ahead of the books being delivered.

I think I can spend it more effectively by using a mix of direct marketing, customer base referral marketing and a well done website that is search optimized. I will still do a small amount of YP advertising because I have to.

YP books are becoming less preferred by many prospective customers in favor of YP web and phone directory internet and Google searches. Smaller advertisers that understand the importance of effective copy in advertisements and content on their websites can in today’s paradigm be on an even footing or ahead of the big dogs in their markets in the quest for new customers.   

    

Edited by pilediver - 17/September/2006 at 2:26am

is 350 customers a lot????