This is a company that's been around for over 100 years, so they seem like a solid company to do business with, right?
Well ultimately I'll leave the decision up to you because they can be good for certain businesses and do absolutely nothing for others. I'll lay out the pros and cons and let you decide at the end.
The Yellowpages, big yellow, grandma's booster seat... and now YP online. Advertising your business used to be as simple as buying the biggest ad in the book, then came the internet, multiple competitors in the phone book arena, coupon books, door to door sales people, community boards... the list goes on.
So where do you spend your money and how much should you spend?
That's a different topic that we'll be writing on in the future, but for now let's stick to the Yellowpages and YP online.
A YELLOWPAGES REP CALLED ME, NOW WHAT?
They're out there in the thousands, scavenging the community boards, competitor websites like Yellowbook online and Craigslist... if your phone number is out there and it's attached to a business you're likely to get a call (or multiple calls) from a YP rep. The best thing to do, even if you're not interested, is to use their resources to learn more about your competition and the marketplace as a whole. They have access to lots of information that normal folks don't and it doesn't cost you anything (monetarily at least) to get it from them.
If you want the goods, you have to play their game (at least little bit)
What this means is that they're not going to give you information if you tell them right away that you're not interested. So you'll have to play along, don't make any commitments and try to stay on the phone with them without making an appointment to see them if you can stand your ground long enough. Beware, they're going to be pushy because that's how they make their living (selling you something), and who can blame them; most of them are good people that are just backed by a not-so-good company (or so I would assume).
USEFUL INFORMATION THAT YOU CAN MILK FROM THEM
Want to know what some of your competition is doing? Ask them and they'll be able to tell you how many calls a lot of your competitors are getting from certain ads. That alone would be a great question to get out of the way early so that you can always combat their sales tactics with this (the call counts are usually low). When they tell you the call count you can also ask them what their program looks like. See if it contains print, internet, direct mail...
They do a lot more than just the book now-a-days, however you'll pay a premium to do business with them. Often times you can do things like direct mail from a local company for cheaper and with MUCH better fulfillment (since they often times outsource their work to other companies for things like web design (for great website design, see the bottom of the article), direct mail, SEO... pretty much everything but YP online and the phone book -as of this writing at least).
Want a free logo?
If you string them along long enough they'll make an ad copy for your advertisement (usually only works for the phone book or direct mail) and you can ask them to send you an e-copy (Their graphic designers aren't the best, but they're alright if you're looking to get something for free) of the ad and use that for your own advertising that you don't end up doing with them (I'm not too sure about how the copyright rules work with this, but if you're a small business you probably won't have an issue *note* We're not saying to do this because it MIGHT be illegal, however if you choose to do it, it's there for you).
SOME OF THE THINGS THEY TELL YOU, YOU CAN FIND FOR YOURSELF
If you're looking to see how some of your competition is doing (or what they're doing) as far as Google AdWords or other Pay Per Click advertising methods you can always check out SpyFu. This is a free way to see how much your competition is spending on a daily basis and what kind of traffic their getting for doing so.
Another way to spy on them is to simply check out their Facebook or Twitter pages to see if they're running any kind of sales to spark traffic.
The old school version of this is to just give them a call and act like a customer.
WHAT THEY'LL TELL YOU AND HOW TO INTERPRET IT
One thing that the Yellowpages has is a lot of information (they've been around forever). There are also companies out there that they hire to do research and make them look good (even though it's considered third party, unbiased information we're pretty sure that they leave out information that doesn't make them look so hot).
So what does this mean for you? You'll be hearing a lot of statistics (unless the rep can't remember them) about things that might not necessarily mean anything to you.
They'll tell you how many people in whatever area you service area searching monthly for the things that you do and it'll usually sound very impressive! But then when it comes down to how many calls are being placed (they have this information for each ad on YP online and some for the phone books) there aren't too many. They'll say that people on average look at 4 to 5 ads before making a call, and the higher you are to the top of the list the more likely you are to get a call... bla bla bla. Sure, that makes sense, if you're first on the list then you'll get the most attention; what they don't tell you is that the majority of the calls will be from solicitors and that the call tracking number they're giving you could have been (and most likely has) used by a different company and that you'll probably get calls for their stuff too and that accounts for some of the calls you should've gotten.
Have they mentioned a "free ad" or a "pay per call" ad to you? They're the same product and it sounds wonderful until you realize that less than 30% of the businesses that sign up renew it (meaning it doesn't work very well). Prepare to now have to pay for the solicitors that call you on that number as well as, as mentioned above, people calling for a business that used to have that phone number.
SO SHOULD YOU GET A YELLOWPAGES AD?
You're probably thinking that we hate the Yellowpages by now, and you'd be wrong (sorry if the first part of this came across that way). We don't hate anyone for trying to make a buck, but we don't like their fulfillment practices.
Think about this, the main guys running this company came from another company that nobody really hears about too much anymore (AOL; think of the 10 free hours you never used). Since many of their products are outsourced, and therefore more expensive, you're never really getting a good deal on anything except for things that are proprietary to them (phonebook and YP online).
Should you get a phonebook or YP online ad? This question can only be answered after answering a few other questions (sorry).
Ask yourself some of these questions before you decide to make the plunge.
What's the age of your target demographic? Older people are more likely to use the phone book (in some instances)
Is your business mostly based on the distance from the consumer? Consider restaurants and how you look for them. We LOVE to find new restaurants to go to no matter where we travel to, but when I do a search on my phone (YP or Yelp app) I always set it to a distance search. So regardless of their advertising efforts the business cannot become closer to my current location. Better reviews can skew our decision, however it doesn't really bother us too much as long as there aren't many negative reviews.
Where is your target demographic looking for your services? This one's really obvious but we figured that we'd put it in there because sometimes people forget the importance of the basics. If you're a restaurant people most likely aren't looking for you in the phone book, at least in our personal experience. We are more likely to first search for coupons in the mail or online (for restaurants) and then if we aren't successful we go to the distance search that we mentioned before. Think about where and how people search for the things that you do. Don't know where to start, ask your friends and family how they searched for a business that resembles what you offer.
If you find that all signs are pointing to the Yellowpages phonebook or YP online then you should do that. Just remember that you're going to be signed to a contract (they're going to try and get you for a whole year but they can do a 3 month contract and usually won't tell you about it until you ask).
For some industries the Yellowpages and YP online is a great place to be.
KEY TIPS!
They have a program called MC2 (don't think Einstein, think last ditch effort) where they'll "guarantee" (but not actually guarantee) a certain amount of leads for your advertising campaign. What's great about this is that they can give you a "cost per lead" and this is a great way to really figure out if your advertising campaign will bring in money for you! If they don't bring you the amount of leads they're supposed to, they'll (they're supposed to at least) do some advertising for you at no extra cost.
Since they obviously don't want to spend money on their own part to cover for what their advertising campaign lacked, they'll usually give you a lower number on this so that they look like they're going to over deliver (can't say whether they usually do or not).
What we're getting at is, compare this number to the amount of calls that they say that you should get before you get into the MC2 information. The numbers will be dramatically different and you'll be able to tell whether or not it's actually worth it for you to move forward with the advertising.
Let's say that each lead costs you $100 and you're a widget seller that makes an average sale of $25 per widget sold. So you'd have to sell 4 widgets to every lead (not all of them are actually leads, solicitors are counted as leads as well) to break even, and at least 5 to make a profit. Would you go for this advertising campaign? We recommend that you run for the hills.
Now let's say that each lead costs you $15 and you close 3 out of 10 phone calls (including solicitors) and your average sale per customer is $100. Let's do the math:
10 phone calls will cost you $150
You make 3 sales out of those 10 phone calls (3x$100 = $300)
$300-$150= $150 left over after paying for the calls
If there's still profit after the $150 then you're doing alright because, if you work referrals like you should, it'll pay off with happy customers getting your name out there. If there isn't, the answer is simple.
*note, this article is in no way affiliated with YP Holdings LLC or any of its affiliates and is meant for entertainment purposes only
If you're looking for Simply Great Websites from a Wholesome company, check out The Cheap Website
Websites are $49/mth and a portion of the monthly dues are donated to help wounded veterans.
No Contracts, No Setup Fees, No Nonsense... Just Simply Great Websites
Thanks for reading
This is a company that's been around for over 100 years, so they seem like a solid company to do business with, right?
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Should-I-Advertise-With-the-Yellowpages-or-YP-Online?&id=8170953
Well ultimately I'll leave the decision up to you because they can be good for certain businesses and do absolutely nothing for others. I'll lay out the pros and cons and let you decide at the end.
The Yellowpages, big yellow, grandma's booster seat... and now YP online. Advertising your business used to be as simple as buying the biggest ad in the book, then came the internet, multiple competitors in the phone book arena, coupon books, door to door sales people, community boards... the list goes on.
So where do you spend your money and how much should you spend?
That's a different topic that we'll be writing on in the future, but for now let's stick to the Yellowpages and YP online.
A YELLOWPAGES REP CALLED ME, NOW WHAT?
They're out there in the thousands, scavenging the community boards, competitor websites like Yellowbook online and Craigslist... if your phone number is out there and it's attached to a business you're likely to get a call (or multiple calls) from a YP rep. The best thing to do, even if you're not interested, is to use their resources to learn more about your competition and the marketplace as a whole. They have access to lots of information that normal folks don't and it doesn't cost you anything (monetarily at least) to get it from them.
If you want the goods, you have to play their game (at least little bit)
What this means is that they're not going to give you information if you tell them right away that you're not interested. So you'll have to play along, don't make any commitments and try to stay on the phone with them without making an appointment to see them if you can stand your ground long enough. Beware, they're going to be pushy because that's how they make their living (selling you something), and who can blame them; most of them are good people that are just backed by a not-so-good company (or so I would assume).
USEFUL INFORMATION THAT YOU CAN MILK FROM THEM
Want to know what some of your competition is doing? Ask them and they'll be able to tell you how many calls a lot of your competitors are getting from certain ads. That alone would be a great question to get out of the way early so that you can always combat their sales tactics with this (the call counts are usually low). When they tell you the call count you can also ask them what their program looks like. See if it contains print, internet, direct mail...
They do a lot more than just the book now-a-days, however you'll pay a premium to do business with them. Often times you can do things like direct mail from a local company for cheaper and with MUCH better fulfillment (since they often times outsource their work to other companies for things like web design (for great website design, see the bottom of the article), direct mail, SEO... pretty much everything but YP online and the phone book -as of this writing at least).
Want a free logo?
If you string them along long enough they'll make an ad copy for your advertisement (usually only works for the phone book or direct mail) and you can ask them to send you an e-copy (Their graphic designers aren't the best, but they're alright if you're looking to get something for free) of the ad and use that for your own advertising that you don't end up doing with them (I'm not too sure about how the copyright rules work with this, but if you're a small business you probably won't have an issue *note* We're not saying to do this because it MIGHT be illegal, however if you choose to do it, it's there for you).
SOME OF THE THINGS THEY TELL YOU, YOU CAN FIND FOR YOURSELF
If you're looking to see how some of your competition is doing (or what they're doing) as far as Google AdWords or other Pay Per Click advertising methods you can always check out SpyFu. This is a free way to see how much your competition is spending on a daily basis and what kind of traffic their getting for doing so.
Another way to spy on them is to simply check out their Facebook or Twitter pages to see if they're running any kind of sales to spark traffic.
The old school version of this is to just give them a call and act like a customer.
WHAT THEY'LL TELL YOU AND HOW TO INTERPRET IT
One thing that the Yellowpages has is a lot of information (they've been around forever). There are also companies out there that they hire to do research and make them look good (even though it's considered third party, unbiased information we're pretty sure that they leave out information that doesn't make them look so hot).
So what does this mean for you? You'll be hearing a lot of statistics (unless the rep can't remember them) about things that might not necessarily mean anything to you.
They'll tell you how many people in whatever area you service area searching monthly for the things that you do and it'll usually sound very impressive! But then when it comes down to how many calls are being placed (they have this information for each ad on YP online and some for the phone books) there aren't too many. They'll say that people on average look at 4 to 5 ads before making a call, and the higher you are to the top of the list the more likely you are to get a call... bla bla bla. Sure, that makes sense, if you're first on the list then you'll get the most attention; what they don't tell you is that the majority of the calls will be from solicitors and that the call tracking number they're giving you could have been (and most likely has) used by a different company and that you'll probably get calls for their stuff too and that accounts for some of the calls you should've gotten.
Have they mentioned a "free ad" or a "pay per call" ad to you? They're the same product and it sounds wonderful until you realize that less than 30% of the businesses that sign up renew it (meaning it doesn't work very well). Prepare to now have to pay for the solicitors that call you on that number as well as, as mentioned above, people calling for a business that used to have that phone number.
SO SHOULD YOU GET A YELLOWPAGES AD?
You're probably thinking that we hate the Yellowpages by now, and you'd be wrong (sorry if the first part of this came across that way). We don't hate anyone for trying to make a buck, but we don't like their fulfillment practices.
Think about this, the main guys running this company came from another company that nobody really hears about too much anymore (AOL; think of the 10 free hours you never used). Since many of their products are outsourced, and therefore more expensive, you're never really getting a good deal on anything except for things that are proprietary to them (phonebook and YP online).
Should you get a phonebook or YP online ad? This question can only be answered after answering a few other questions (sorry).
Ask yourself some of these questions before you decide to make the plunge.
What's the age of your target demographic? Older people are more likely to use the phone book (in some instances)
Is your business mostly based on the distance from the consumer? Consider restaurants and how you look for them. We LOVE to find new restaurants to go to no matter where we travel to, but when I do a search on my phone (YP or Yelp app) I always set it to a distance search. So regardless of their advertising efforts the business cannot become closer to my current location. Better reviews can skew our decision, however it doesn't really bother us too much as long as there aren't many negative reviews.
Where is your target demographic looking for your services? This one's really obvious but we figured that we'd put it in there because sometimes people forget the importance of the basics. If you're a restaurant people most likely aren't looking for you in the phone book, at least in our personal experience. We are more likely to first search for coupons in the mail or online (for restaurants) and then if we aren't successful we go to the distance search that we mentioned before. Think about where and how people search for the things that you do. Don't know where to start, ask your friends and family how they searched for a business that resembles what you offer.
If you find that all signs are pointing to the Yellowpages phonebook or YP online then you should do that. Just remember that you're going to be signed to a contract (they're going to try and get you for a whole year but they can do a 3 month contract and usually won't tell you about it until you ask).
For some industries the Yellowpages and YP online is a great place to be.
KEY TIPS!
They have a program called MC2 (don't think Einstein, think last ditch effort) where they'll "guarantee" (but not actually guarantee) a certain amount of leads for your advertising campaign. What's great about this is that they can give you a "cost per lead" and this is a great way to really figure out if your advertising campaign will bring in money for you! If they don't bring you the amount of leads they're supposed to, they'll (they're supposed to at least) do some advertising for you at no extra cost.
Since they obviously don't want to spend money on their own part to cover for what their advertising campaign lacked, they'll usually give you a lower number on this so that they look like they're going to over deliver (can't say whether they usually do or not).
What we're getting at is, compare this number to the amount of calls that they say that you should get before you get into the MC2 information. The numbers will be dramatically different and you'll be able to tell whether or not it's actually worth it for you to move forward with the advertising.
Let's say that each lead costs you $100 and you're a widget seller that makes an average sale of $25 per widget sold. So you'd have to sell 4 widgets to every lead (not all of them are actually leads, solicitors are counted as leads as well) to break even, and at least 5 to make a profit. Would you go for this advertising campaign? We recommend that you run for the hills.
Now let's say that each lead costs you $15 and you close 3 out of 10 phone calls (including solicitors) and your average sale per customer is $100. Let's do the math:
10 phone calls will cost you $150
You make 3 sales out of those 10 phone calls (3x$100 = $300)
$300-$150= $150 left over after paying for the calls
If there's still profit after the $150 then you're doing alright because, if you work referrals like you should, it'll pay off with happy customers getting your name out there. If there isn't, the answer is simple.
*note, this article is in no way affiliated with YP Holdings LLC or any of its affiliates and is meant for entertainment purposes only
If you're looking for Simply Great Websites from a Wholesome company, check out The Cheap Website
Websites are $49/mth and a portion of the monthly dues are donated to help wounded veterans.
No Contracts, No Setup Fees, No Nonsense... Just Simply Great Websites
Thanks for reading
This is a company that's been around for over 100 years, so they seem like a solid company to do business with, right?
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Should-I-Advertise-With-the-Yellowpages-or-YP-Online?&id=8170953
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