Yellow Page Extortion

The Flip Side

It is extortion.

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.

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

I got the call from the yellow pages today.  "I don't suppose you could use more business yada yada yada".  I told him I would not be interested. 

Sending a customer to the Yellow Pages is like going to a Speed Dating event.  Your customer gets to find out about all your competition.  Unless your ad is doing something that makes it jump off the page you are one of many.  I would prefer the customer is focused on only me.  That is not going to happen when I am grouped with all the me-toos out there.

Face it.  The only company guaranteed to make money off your ad in the yellow pages is the publisher of the yellow pages directory.

Try this.  Ask the salesman if he/she would sell  the advertising space to you for a percentage of the business you GET from the ad?  Whatever the answer is, that is your answer too. 

Doorhangers do well because - your ad has the exclusive attention of the prospect and I get at least 2 sales per hundred.  If the phone book did that good .... yeah, right.

Hey wait just a minute here, I am a carpet & Duct cleaner but I also am a sales rep for Verizon Yellow Pages.  I agree that the price has been steep in the past but with the influx of other books coming into the market, Verizon has made alot of adjustments with the rate structure.  Make sure that your ad answers some basic questions such as, Who you are, what you offer, your number, obviously, what makes you better than the others at what you do.  Come up with a headline at the top of the ad for example, "Atlanta's Best Carpet & Duct Cleaning"  Some businesses make the mistake of having the business name really big at the top.  Catch the customers attention with good ad copy and they will read the ad.  Nightrider mentioned adding the prices to the ad and this is something that I'm considering. 

YP is and always has been a rip off. Mostly price shoppers