How much do you spend with Yellow Pages?

[MK Printing]

Hello peeps

I have been doing some work with DJs and entertainers recently and I was astonished at how much they spend with Yellow Pages and the amount of work it generates.

One company I worked with recently (carpet cleaning) said that when they worked out how much it actually cost them to place a large adverts (on the advice of the sales agent) they it would have worked out cheaper to go to each person who booked a job, done the work for free and given them £250!

I know that advertising is expensive especially things like Yellow Pages, but I had no idea how much it actually cost to place adverts there. One guy who is running his own mobile disco, well setting it up, was quoted about £250 a month and the advert is only credit card size.

The other afternoon I looked through my own phone book at the local DJ adverts and thought I would call a couple to see how they answered etc. I called 10 people, 7 didn't answer or went to answer machine, 2 were answered with "hello" and had to go and get someone to take the call, and 1 answered the phone in the company name. When you are paying hundreds of pounds for advertising you think people would answer the phone! If not they simply keep on dialing numbers until someone does answer.

So how much are you paying for Yellow Pages and is it worth it? How many calls does it generate, how many convert, how much does it cost you per lead and how much per sale?

Matt

[Danno13]

One guy who is running his own mobile disco, well setting it up, was quoted about £250 a month and the advert is only credit card size.

That must have been a full colour ad with design etc. Its not usually anywhere near that expensive. At 45mm add is around £200 inc.VAT for the year.. but varies between books.

At the moment i just have a free line in my local book, but looking at going in other books close by. They do deals on going in books next to each other.. i.e. Gloucester and Swindon - £134 (inc.VAT) a year for a 15mm add that has company name, address, phone numbers and an extra line for whatever you like.

So that only has to bring in a couple of gigs to be in profit, based on £200 a gig and 50% profit.

[Vectis]

Big fat zilch.

Free listing? Of course.

YP started losing out to the internet about 3 or 4 years ago. Used to get loads of calls from YP, but when that dropped to hardly any I did away with the paid ads.

[GrahamH]

I took out a yellow pages ad this year and it cost me about £340. Saying that i have had quite a lot of enquiries from the ad with about 75% convertion rate to confirmed bookings. So for me its paid for itself, but have to admit i was a little sceptical to start with.

[soundtracker]

I've gone back to a basic listing after 12 months of "how much "calls!

[A1DL]

for years we spend circa £20k per annum with YP, however as the paper directories have become less and less effective at generating new business, reduced this to under half that figure in 2006

I would love to know what businesses YP base their own advertising campaign on, claiming that every £1 spent on YP advertising generates £25 of new business. Within the "Discos-Mobile" classification, we have found that statement to be very wide of the mark.

[CRAZY K]

Big fat zilch.

Free listing? Of course.

YP started losing out to the internet about 3 or 4 years ago. Used to get loads of calls from YP, but when that dropped to hardly any I did away with the paid ads.

I go with that--the net is the way forwards for me--cancelled my YP recently.

Even the time wasters dont ring anymore

At least my genuine customers wont have their calls blocked by YP time wasters in future

Re the comment below--the reason is simple--majority of Discos are not full time---unless you know differently?

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The other afternoon I looked through my own phone book at the local DJ adverts and thought I would call a couple to see how they answered etc. I called 10 people, 7 didn't answer or went to answer machine, 2 were answered with "hello" and had to go and get someone to take the call, and 1 answered the phone in the company name. When you are paying hundreds of pounds for advertising you think people would answer the phone! If not they simply keep on dialing numbers until someone does answer.
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Is there a sales idea coming from the original post to get more business then? AH JUST SPOTTED IT---Flyers dont work for my business

CRAZY K

[pulsemobiledisco]

After being on 118 247, www.yell.com and in yellow pages last year, it was a very very expensive mistake to make. I only had a few bookings convert and they did not cover the cost of the ads. Most the enquires were 'How much for yer disco mate' followed by 'HOW MUCH' or 'I can get one much cheaper than that'.

The cheeky gits at yell sent me an invoice for my renewal last week, soon found them up to cancel it, it was nearly £600!

Get all my work through my website, now it is SEO'd properly it gets decent placement in the search engines and seems to attract a better class of client than yellow pages did, and who are willing to pay proper money.

Sam

[Shaun]

I only have a free listing with YP. I can't see me ever paying more than that

[CRAZY K]

I go with that--the net is the way forwards for me--cancelled my YP recently.

Even the time wasters dont ring anymore

At least my genuine customers wont have their calls blocked by YP time wasters in future

Re the comment below--the reason is simple--majority of Discos are not full time---unless you know differently?

-----------
The other afternoon I looked through my own phone book at the local DJ adverts and thought I would call a couple to see how they answered etc. I called 10 people, 7 didn't answer or went to answer machine, 2 were answered with "hello" and had to go and get someone to take the call, and 1 answered the phone in the company name. When you are paying hundreds of pounds for advertising you think people would answer the phone! If not they simply keep on dialing numbers until someone does answer.
-----------

Is there a sales idea coming from the original post to get more business then? AH JUST SPOTTED IT---Flyers dont work for my business

CRAZY K

IT JUST HAPPENED AGAIN

YP customer books a Live band through me and my contacts --then cancels
due to unforseen circumstances---yeah right--cheaper quote

Thank goodness I cancelled the ad--this is such a waste of valuable time.

CRAZY K