Yellow Pages Advertising

[GUNNING]

I just got my new phone book and yellow page directory. The directory is a little yellow pages and costs about $15/mo
My new and improved add costs me a lot more.

The new phone book does not have the white pages of residential numbers in it.

Just a business section which is a duplicate of the yellow pages and the Blue pages.

If anyone hears of a class action suite over this please let me know.

Thank you AT&T... If you cant get the local phone numbers to my house and still charge me for it, Im going off your grid and over to the internet.

 

[Sparky555]

I don't understand your post, but I'm interested.

Do you mean you advertised in the AT&T phone book for $_______?? per month, which is $______?? more than last year. When the book arrived, there were no white page listings as there have been in the past years. You're upset and want to join a class action suit. ????

 

[GUNNING]

I hate change... and being conned by AT&T

I hate change... and being conned by AT&T

I advertised in the yellow pages. They forgot to tell me the book was changing,by a third. No personal listings. Just business listings. The "Directory", a physically smaller edition of the yellow pages and the "Phone Book", a larger version of the yellow pages, are basically the same book. One add costs me $15 the other costs me .... more.

They forgot to tell me they were eliminating all the residential numbers from the directory. They forgot to tell me they were changing the format of the book. They remembered to increase my advertising rate and reduce my exposure. I cant wait for the big city lawyers to come crawling out of the wood work to address this. I did notice all the lawyer adds in the new book. I am going to send a letter to AT&T customer service. Maybe to the Utilities commision. Grrrrrr.

How does this effect electrical contracting?
Not all my customers are computer literate. Those little old ladies with there tripped breakers and broken switches are not sitting down in front of there lap tops updating facebook all day long. Are there so many numbers and addresses that they can't be published as a community service? This is a tool in my van I use to look up addresses & phone numbers. It might be selfish but I've been inconvenienced. I now have to buy a service that got delivered to my door step once, or three times, a year.

It doesn't have anything to do with wires or voltage or cables. It is a sign that advertising is changing. They way we manage to communicate to our customers has fundamentally changed. Where is the sense that this is our community here in this book. What is going to replace it? How do we advertise effectively?

 

[satcom]

We use the yellow pages and web placement over the years we invested plenty on all ad's we found the only yellow that produced was the phone company directory with the white pages, all the other yellow copy cats produced poor results, another interesting thing we learned was if we spent less then $200 a month on an ad it would not get the phone to ring

 

[GUNNING]

google click...

google click...

I advertise three places. Yellow pages for voracity, Newspaper service directory for exposure to those reading and drinking coffee and in specific need of an electrician, and a web listing which starts with a "C".

The most calls I get are from the web, they say I saw your add online and ...
The next best add is from the service directory, they tell me they found me there when I hit the door.
I never hear, I was perusing the yellow pages and...

I was going to substitute the yaller pages with google advertising. Pay per click. anyone have any experience with that?

 

[shepelec]

I gave up the Yellow Pages a few years ago. My wife would spend hours doing the ad, the proof would show up correctly, but when the book came out it was wrong.

The last ad I ran ended up on the left page in the crease and I was the only electrician on that page. Phone calls dropped and their solution was free ads in the bigger cities that I didn't work in.

Now I advertise in the home town paper and by word of mouth. Works for me but I'm a one man show.

 

[bullheimer]

i would get out of that deal if i were you. total bs. dont pay for what you did not WANT.

i got 1/3 of my biz out of the yellowpages from the company that owns the land lines Verizon. since my wife blew that avenue (which cost me $450/month btw), the phone almost never rings. almost all my calls are from the interweb. nobody requests anything from my website, they just find my number there and call me. so i think money well spent for those morons that say they can put your website up near the top, or your name or what ever. but just use people like superpages. i get calls from all kinds of clowns telling me they can do that but i dont use them.

my newpaper ad used to get one call a week. now i only get one call a month it seems. at $100 a month, still not bad. i get NO CALLS from the huge sign on my car. no calls from my yard signs, (one in two years). i get a call a week from a different yellow pages, the second string guys. in each case they are yellow and white pages tho. i dont think anybody uses only yp either.

good luck. us clowns that need to advertise have to pay up the yingyang to those yp guys. like said above, small ads got me no calls in one year. they are invisible, save your money or spend on something else. like a bigger ad in the number one book. also, stuff like maps real estate agents give people are a waste of money, as are one time printings of stuff for home shows. i kinda think that the paper place mats might be good, but never tried any. make your ad different tho. dont write a book in them trying to list stuff like commercial, residential, industrial, i do this i do that. just eye catching something, red color, 24hr service, something the others aint got. how bout a babe in a string bikini??? yeah man! my wife would LOVE THAT ONE


AND STAY AWAY FROM NEW books. i had a one full page ad in a new-to-town phone book and i got ONE CALL IN A WHOLE YEAR FOR $2200!!!!! Made me a whole $100 on that call, too!

 

[G._S._Ohm]

Cost of an ad, lump sum or monthly = C
Minimum or average number of responses over time = R
Minimum or average income generated per response = I

So C better be less than R x I.

You can figure what I is from your historical records.
The Journal of Management Science or similar publications research the likely values for R, depending on the service offered and ad medium used. I know for direct mail you get one or two responses per 10,000 flyers.

You can ask the individual ad company what their numbers look like but don't forget that deception is their business. Mixing some lies with some truths works; that's why they do it.
If you ask for their numbers in "a sworn statement by a company principal" the least they will do is hang up.

 

[ptonsparky]

At least I had two sales persons come to my shop for advertising in the area books. Established books with white pages. Still looking at 3k+ for their recommended adds and website. Unless I have done face to face business in the past I am highly unlikely to accept anything via phonecall.

 

[G._S._Ohm]

Try this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance-based_advertising

 

[jmellc]

I keep an ad in local yellow pages. We have enough old school folks here that reach for the yellow pages before Google. Every community has a standard phone book issued by their traditional service provider. Talking phone book, real yellow pages, etc. are all supplemental. No one uses them because their listings are incomplete, as you mentioned. I got burned that way too.

I have gotten some luck with newspaper ads, but not as much lately. I am checking out getting a website. A plumber friend has a very simple website for $30 some a month. One has to set it up himself, so I will need a full day to do it. I am a dinosaur building something online. The web is mostly where the younger generations are looking & that will continue. We were at the state fair last fall & watched 4 guys from a major NC newspaper handing out free papers to solicit. In 20 minutes, they only gave out 1 paper. No one even wanted a free one. Writing on the wall.

I get people calling every week or 2 that start off asking if I do commercial work, sounding like they need work done. Then they mention getting my name from Blue Book & that they have zillions of commercial clients looking for my services. I just have to buy a listing in their book. I then play with their heads & ask for a free listing & promise to pay them a finder's fee on each customer I get from the ad. They blather on that they can't do that. I then say "if you found me in Blue Book, your clients can too". That ends that. I also get calls from everyone printing school yearbooks, community newsletters, coupons on backs of grocery receipts, etc. I started telling people if they buy some work from me, I'll buy an ad from them. 1 GUARANTEED result of ads is that they reach more advertisers who call to sell more advertising.

 

[jmellc]

I advertise three places. Yellow pages for voracity, Newspaper service directory for exposure to those reading and drinking coffee and in specific need of an electrician, and a web listing which starts with a "C".

The most calls I get are from the web, they say I saw your add online and ...
The next best add is from the service directory, they tell me they found me there when I hit the door.
I never hear, I was perusing the yellow pages and...

I was going to substitute the yaller pages with google advertising. Pay per click. anyone have any experience with that?

Why web listing starting with a C? Am I missing something? Possible; it takes me an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.

 

[ptonsparky]

...

GUARANTEED result of ads is that they reach more advertisers who call to sell more advertising.

Exactly how the last salespersons found me...I had advertised in a paper that hit their area.

 

[G._S._Ohm]

The advertising lottery

The advertising lottery

The lottery prize is $20,000 and the ticket to this lottery is $2600. Should you buy a ticket to this lottery?
Yes, if the chance of winning is at least 100 x 2600/20,000 = 13%.

If you advertise you will increase your income by $20,000 per year. The cost of advertising is $2600 per year. Should you advertise? See "13%" above.

Getting your particular numbers might be difficult, depending on how much precision you want and your recordkeeping.

 

[jmellc]

Thing is, you have to keep watching and tracking results. Some advertising brings little or no results. Some does much better. Of course, the person selling it thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread & indoor plumbing. But the public has gotten used to sliced bread & indoor plumbing for a few centuries now. I think you have to keep tracking as much as possible.

 

[GUNNING]

thx!

thx!

Tracking sounds like the right thing. It will give me a chance to find out were people are looking. These were all great ideas.
Thanks for all the replies!

 

[GUNNING]

Available upon request !?!?!?!

Available upon request !?!?!?!

NEW UPDATE ON MISSING WHITE PAGES!!!

I was told if I want them they are available upon request.

DANG RIGHT I WANT THEM! THEY BE FREE RIGHT?


As much as they charge me for my phone line I want everything free from them I can get!

 

[hotblueelectric]

YP ads

YP ads

I also had bad luck with At&t. They screwed up with my logo and put my fax number on the ad instead of my cell number. Still charged me $700 per month. I wrote the attorney general of that state and the BBB. Their advertising president finally contacted me and dropped the contract. They also screwed me over with u verse and I also cancelled that.
Good Luck.