Yellow Pages Please Work

Im taking a chance with the Yellow Pages because all of my competitors are in them I always thought that the phone books were not that effective because of the internet but they must generate work cause people still advertise in them. If any of you have had experiance neg. or pos. please let me know ?

What size add did you get and how many other tinters have ads in there ?

Im getting the buisness card size ad and there is about 4 or 5 other big ads in the baltimore and surrounding countys

It helps to be in there but with the internet I am down sizeing my yellow page ads most people will get at least 3 prices before making a decision you don't want to spend the money on to big of ad if there a just a few other shops if you live in an area were there are alot sometimes a bigger ad will get you better placement

well luckly my com. name is baltimoretint so that should keep me up near the top alphabeticly

A buisness card size add is just right. God knows what a quarter column costs.

yellow pages works great in ny ...you should have good luck with it the bigger the add the more calls

Amen brother... I know I'm paying over 1.5k per year for a color credit card sized ad in just one book. I think I'm in about 15 or more different yellow pages and considering two more. All together I think I spend about 6-7k on yellow pages annually. All of these independents are killing me! There's the utility book, yellow book, and all of these local independents, which are typically stronger than the utility books in that area.

In one area that I advertise in, there are literally five different phone books. What the heck!?

I get some return on them, some more than others obviously. This year I will be tracking them all VERY closely b/c I am also going to upgrade the website and downsize the yellow page listings as many others are doing.

My yellowpages.com ad doesn't work.

I'm meeting with my new rep on Wednesday about it. Either he finds a way to make it better or I'm canceling (which I could have SWORN I did a few months back, but I keep getting billed).

I'm sure by "making it work better" he means "pay us more."

my ads are a complete waste of money

What's sad is since I'm the cheap hack I should be scoring all the price shoppers!

But I really don't get a lot of calls. My online ad shows about 6 people a month "click" me (which means looks at my phone numbers). I have converted ZERO sales from it over the past year.

maybe you shoud take a few pimp pills everyday.hahahaha

I dont like the yellow pages at all

My yellowpages.com rep stopped by the other day.

First, he tried to talk me into the pay per click thing. He's all like, "Yeah, so when people search for something like, 'window tinting st paul' we can get you right at the top of the list."

So he types it into his laptop and hits enter. BAM! My website is #4 return.

LOL. Kind of ruined that sales pitch.

Then he says, "Well, you've got the silver ad, we should upgrade you to the larger ad so you'll be at the top of the list. This way you stand out."

So he opens up yellowpages.com and searches for me.....I'm basically the only one listed. The other two companies aren't window tinting companies.

LOL. There went that sales pitch. Now he's 0/2

Then he tries talking me into the several hundred dollar a month ad in the twin cities. Well, true, the cities are where most of business comes from, and that is where most of the money happens to be. However, I want LOCAL business. I'm tired of driving up there. I'm sure I lose several customers because they don't want to drive down here. I try explaining this and he keeps pushing and finally I say, "Well, doesn't the top of the yellowpages.com website say Yellow Pages LOCAL Directory?"

Now he's 0/3.

We did end up playing around with my ad a bit, added a little more LOCAL territory. Now they finally have a "window tint" category on there instead of just "Glass Coatings and Tint".

When I was asking for opionions I guess I should have specified that I was trying to target more of the residential and commmercial end of the buisness I would have to say there may be a differance in response from auto to res. or comm.

dollar bill in one book...cost 6K for the year

column ad in another book $325 for the year


4 yellow page books in my county

Do they work? Beats me...but to chicken to dump 'em. Still around after 15 years and not a single other shop is left from the first book. I wish I had kept all the phone books so I could list the 25-50 shops or whatever it's been that have come and gone in that 15 year span.

Well my ad says "Auto/Res/Commercial" and PPF and still doesn't do well. And I'm the only one listed!

There is 3 major books in my area and they keep jacking the prices up every year more and more telling us that the ad price is the sale price and unless we spend 10% more every year we don't qualify for the sale price. So to downsize it cost more than the ad you had the year before.
Screw it I pulled out of two and the third one I put a like 2" by 2" ad and do well off that and previous customers. I get alot of calls from the local autodeals ad (new and used car ad weekly $200). But I don't see a drop in business since deciding to pull out and save 10k a year.

My advice (for what it's worth) is to keep your ad smaller and spread the ad into counties nearest to your home base. Yellow Pages are fading away yet the Real Yellow Pages (ATT) and Idearc (Verizon) continue to behave as though evrything was the same as it was in the pre-internet days. Remind these bone heads that their business is tanking and you WANT A DEAL!! Play hardball.

Check this page and take the time to get yourself listed FREE (no gimmick this is the real deal)

http://www.localseoguide.com/how-to-update...tings-for-free/

Check into web page development and get yourself a home page or at minimum a myspace page!!

Consider Google pay per click but be cautious about setting limits and a budget.

But most importantly let these YP folks know you know their business revenue is way down. Just like we have to adjust our margins when things are slower (or when someone else with the same stuff is in the same home against us!) these Yellow Page dummies need to do the same thing (and they will if you stand strong!) Tell them to make an offer you can't refuse. .

print ads mainly attract [happy days] older folks shopping around, if thats your target market then pages are for you..... , Invest in search local online advertiseing. . I see a steady flow of custy's with more flexible spending habits..they are looking to make things happen fast.

I would have to agree with V4V on YP ad's being not what they used to be. The cost is high & if there is not considerable return YP, ad's are a wormhole for your advertising dollars.
You may also find that even with their business being down, they will not budge any if at all. They need to make up for all the business they've lost or going to lose.

I also would agree with lorenzo regarding older folks. My wife's business has a verizon YP ad & has since 1988. She gets a good amount of calls & business, but her business appeals to the 50+ crowd.

I myself with the film biz have no YP ad! Here in Florida, there are to many auto tinter's ad's in the YP. I feel res/comm would get lost in the YP's & the money spent would like flushing it! I run advertising in home improvement mags & a few other select prints. Those contribute to about 25% of my business. The other 75% comes from my "other"marketing. It's much more work then waiting for the phone to ring from an ad, but works for me. Its the slowest time of the year for the biz, yet this week I did 6 bids for work to commence next week, & have 3 bids scheduled for next week as of today.

One thing I will add, is that one of my tactics gets me large project work that would be impossible to get from a YP ad.

yellow pages never worked for us, being in san diego when you pay for you ad you only get one county out of like six. i just went online and did their free online listing and just told their reps i was not interested in upgrading when they called. i get more calls from craigslist than yellow pages.

This will be the conclusion of my 1st year in business and I opened about a month after the phone book deadline. Business was good. I got the biggest ad for my area in the phone book just 1 out of 4 of them. I have seen my business about double. I'm almost as busy as I am in the summer right now. So I have to say it works great. Nothing can beat word of mouth. I've always thought that the ppl who know they are going to buy tint find you in the phone book. The ppl who get it for the first time see it on a buddy's car and ask. Not a 100% of the time but most of the time. I haven't found a form of advertising thats worth the money yet. I had the coupon on the back of grocerie store recipts, news papter ads, and door hangers. Nothing has worked consistently. I think I made my money back but thats not the point.

Seems that with this business, that's how it is. I've done a number of things.... gotten jobs from just about all of them, but nothing consistently.

Well, actually - word of mouth seems to be pretty consistent. Those jobs usually book. And when I was working for a shop I asked every customer I tinted windows how they heard about us... and 95% was word of mouth. I asked for about 6 months before going on my own trying to do market research to see what worked the best.


-R

Hi FilmBlazer - you should check out www.tintbuyer.com (pretend you are a window tint buyer, not a window tinter). If you are interested, go to www.tintbuyer.com/dealer to join.

I also am talking to a yellow page rep. this evening...

I try to allways ask where they here about me.. most get hit off of Yahoo...

Any questions I should ask.. I am doing a advertisment at a local golf course... Most people look on line....I don't know if it is worth it or not...

i dunno buddy i think we still got ya aphabetically!

Thats what I am thinking too... May be a waste of time and $$..

its almost 2010...stop sending me the phone book...i have internet access.

waste of paper.

Well will see if it pays off.. At <20$ a month I will see what happens... I can afford that.. It is Mobile phone, internet and the phone book..Won't be till next Feb though...

If I get one customer per month from it it will pay..