Yellow pages ?
Discussion
Just had a copy pushed through the letterbox.
Now, aside from the fact it is about as thick as the 5 Curry menus that accompanied it, who on earth these days would :
A: Pay to advertise in it
B: Actually think, I know I'll look in the yellow pages instead if using the net.
Surely a now outdated concept ?
Now, aside from the fact it is about as thick as the 5 Curry menus that accompanied it, who on earth these days would :
A: Pay to advertise in it
B: Actually think, I know I'll look in the yellow pages instead if using the net.
Surely a now outdated concept ?
Turn7 said:
Just had a copy pushed through the letterbox.
Now, aside from the fact it is about as thick as the 5 Curry menus that accompanied it, who on earth these days would :
A: Pay to advertise in it
B: Actually think, I know I'll look in the yellow pages instead if using the net.
Surely a now outdated concept ?
Plenty of the older generations use it.Now, aside from the fact it is about as thick as the 5 Curry menus that accompanied it, who on earth these days would :
A: Pay to advertise in it
B: Actually think, I know I'll look in the yellow pages instead if using the net.
Surely a now outdated concept ?
I joined Yell in 2005 in sales. Problem is that I stopped hearing customers saying it worked after about 3 years by which time I'd moved to the Yell.com team. Which also didn't really work after a few years either. I lost my belief in the products and won't sell something I don't believe in. I left about 5 years ago and went into IT account management which is going great.
Yell missed the signs of print directory decline and their 'new media' offering (yell.com/web design/AdWords) when I bailed was a load of crap. Surprised they're still in business, can't be long for them now.
That said, I did well there, learned a lot. I'd do it again but would leave sooner knowing what I know now.
Yell missed the signs of print directory decline and their 'new media' offering (yell.com/web design/AdWords) when I bailed was a load of crap. Surprised they're still in business, can't be long for them now.
That said, I did well there, learned a lot. I'd do it again but would leave sooner knowing what I know now.
I've been in Yellow Pages for about 15 years. Just a line entry, which used to be free, but now costs about £37. As my business is only part time, and I'm only earning wages (rather than selling), it's hard to know where else to advertise cost-effectively.
Most of my potential customers are aged 50+ - not many younger people seem to appreciate mechanical clocks, unless they are "family heirlooms" - so a printed directory still works for quite a few of them.
I guess there will come a time when I'll need a website, but for now I have enough work to keep me busy.
I reckon I get about 20% of my business through Yellow Pages or yell.com. The rest is split equally between word of mouth recommendation, and trade work for a local jeweller and an antique shop.
Most of my potential customers are aged 50+ - not many younger people seem to appreciate mechanical clocks, unless they are "family heirlooms" - so a printed directory still works for quite a few of them.
I guess there will come a time when I'll need a website, but for now I have enough work to keep me busy.
I reckon I get about 20% of my business through Yellow Pages or yell.com. The rest is split equally between word of mouth recommendation, and trade work for a local jeweller and an antique shop.
clockworks said:
I've been in Yellow Pages for about 15 years. Just a line entry, which used to be free, but now costs about £37. As my business is only part time, and I'm only earning wages (rather than selling), it's hard to know where else to advertise cost-effectively.
Most of my potential customers are aged 50+ - not many younger people seem to appreciate mechanical clocks, unless they are "family heirlooms" - so a printed directory still works for quite a few of them.
I guess there will come a time when I'll need a website, but for now I have enough work to keep me busy.
I reckon I get about 20% of my business through Yellow Pages or yell.com. The rest is split equally between word of mouth recommendation, and trade work for a local jeweller and an antique shop.
They changed the FLE (free line entry) a while back; it used to be in-classification which was potentially useful as people looking for 'antique clocks' would see paid ads and the FLE. They then moved all FLEs to an alphabetical listing at the back of the book, meaning FLEs no longer generated new business but only 'known referrals', ie. people who knew your name and wanted your number. To appear within the classification, you had to cough up (which it seems you've done). Good to hear you get at least something from it, I suppose 20% of your business for £37+VAT isn't a bad return in a niche market.Most of my potential customers are aged 50+ - not many younger people seem to appreciate mechanical clocks, unless they are "family heirlooms" - so a printed directory still works for quite a few of them.
I guess there will come a time when I'll need a website, but for now I have enough work to keep me busy.
I reckon I get about 20% of my business through Yellow Pages or yell.com. The rest is split equally between word of mouth recommendation, and trade work for a local jeweller and an antique shop.
That said, if every advertiser only spent £50 on the directory Yell would fold tomorrow!
There were two things which stood out for me which reinforced my concerns during my time there.
1) They introduced 'call tracking' numbers. On the face of it, a good idea to prove that the ad gets eyeballs on it and they result in calls. The problem was that the system revealed the location of the caller and significant volumes of calls showed as being out-of-area and clustered in certain regions. I suspected strongly that they were telemarketing companies using the ads for free cold-calling data and weren't genuine enquiries from prospective customers. Many customers mentioned they'd noticed cold-calls rocket following the publication of that number. Needless to say, this didn't help Yell's cause.
The other major issue I had with these 'tracking numbers' is that Yell wanted to cycle them annually in order to prove that the new ad was 'working'. Again, this kind of made sense however the reality was potentially more serious; people would use the book to get the number and then either write it down or, more lately, put it in a phone for use later. This is all well and good except for two things - firstly the recurring use of that number skewed the figures (albeit positively, in Yell's favour) and secondly when the number was retired, it simply 'turned off'. This meant that anyone calling the old number might think that business had ceased trading as the number was dead. For a company looking for repeat custom, this could be very bad.
2) Yell.com should have offered almost infinite insight into what users were searching for and where they were searching for it. However, we as sales people were given only 'aggregated' data which was, broadly, useless. Let me give an example..
Let's say I'm a plumber in Brighton. I want boiler installs, specifically for Worcester and Vaillant. I only cover a small area, mainly from Worthing to Peacehaven - Eastbourne is too far and I don't really head north of the A27. I would want to know how many people searched for Worcester and Vaillant in postcodes covering Worthing -> Peacehaven, excluding Hailsham, Eastbourne, Heathfield, Haywards Heath etc.
The data I was given to use would a) cover only the 'directory area' eg. in the case of Brighton all of West Sussex and East Sussex, excluding RH postcodes and b) would also only show me how many searches were done by 'classification'. I couldn't drill down to key words or areas. The areas I could 'sell' for advertising were 'home town' based on the location of the business (never mind if that business' head office was located in a rural area but their customers were in towns or cities! Tough tits!) and the only other option was to appear on the right-hand side of the page for 'out of area'. So let's say the plumber has a small office in Henfield but wants enquiries in Brighton which is where most of their work comes from; they couldn't appear in the main listings for Brighton! They could only appear on the left in Henfield. In Brighton, the best they could hope for would be the right-hand side but this was shared with every other plumber in the directory area! The chances of appearing there were slim, the chances of being chosen from being there even slimmer.
Basically it was a clusterf
k.As my time there came to an end there were plans afoot to overhaul it but from what I heard later it was still convoluted and overly-complex. For reasons I can never fathom, Yell.com stayed rooted far too long in the whole 'directory/classification' model for coverage and listings when as a website it should have offered infinite flexibility and customisation. Trying to explain to a builder why he couldn't appear in the search results in towns he wanted enquiries from was almost impossible - not because of him, but because Yell's systems couldn't offer it. That was just Yell.com; don't get me started on their websites or terrible AdWords 'products' at the time!
It may well have changed now - it certainly needed to. When I joined there, my first manager gave me some great advice. I asked how, as a consultant, I would know what to recommend to a customer regarding classifications, ad sizes/designs/colour, directory areas etc. He said, "Imagine it's your best mate's business and he wants enquiries. Whatever you'd recommend to him to get the best out of that ad programme, you recommend to your customer." It was good advice - there were classifications where I would think, "That won't really work for him or her.." or "..they don't need to go that big on the ad.." Often businesses weren't doing enough to compete and be seen in the book and my recommendation was they needed to go bigger or in more classifications.
I got to the point where I realised that if my best mate asked me if he should advertise in Yell's products, I'd tell him to put his money elsewhere. That was the point I realised I wouldn't be staying.
Edited by Funk on Saturday 2nd April 18:59
The truely amazing thing about yellow pages is they're still as expensive as they were when they had a product you'd suffer their infuriating incompetence to buy. Now you wonder how they still exist, they're one of those throwbacks waiting to go bust, someone take a punt and pop them in the dead pool thread.
Turn7 said:
Just had a copy pushed through the letterbox.
Now, aside from the fact it is about as thick as the 5 Curry menus that accompanied it, who on earth these days would :
A: Pay to advertise in it
B: Actually think, I know I'll look in the yellow pages instead if using the net.
Surely a now outdated concept ?
When we got ours it did make me laugh as I put it in the bin,its a joke.The only people that keep it are little old ladies who are not online.Surely its days are numbered?Now, aside from the fact it is about as thick as the 5 Curry menus that accompanied it, who on earth these days would :
A: Pay to advertise in it
B: Actually think, I know I'll look in the yellow pages instead if using the net.
Surely a now outdated concept ?
When I started my car repair business in the early 80`s yellow pages was huge and an add in it was a must.I had a big colored 1/4 page and it was very successful.We often said in those days if you weren't in yellow pages you were a nobody. How times change.
Funnily enough there are a lot of old people who like ringing firms up from the Yellow Pages and such like to get quotes.
Had an old boy in one of my clubs a week or so ago telling me how he'd been ringing round to get a house insurance quote. I asked why he didn't go on the meerkat and he said he didn't know about it or the Internet!!!
I promptly put his details in and got his quote down from £240 to £90!!
Had an old boy in one of my clubs a week or so ago telling me how he'd been ringing round to get a house insurance quote. I asked why he didn't go on the meerkat and he said he didn't know about it or the Internet!!!
I promptly put his details in and got his quote down from £240 to £90!!
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