Opinions Wanted Bellsouth/ATT Yellowpages Advertising

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framesetc

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Just curious how many of you rely on "Bellsouth/Att" yellowpages for advertising. I have used it the last few years, but feel like I am getting more and more jacked in prices each year....this year they are trying to increase my advertising costs by 15%. 2 years ago, when they drastically increased my price, I was told it was going up, BUT they were implementing a new price structure that would increase no more than 5-7% per year after that. Now I see them trying to get 15% increase. I have been doing a tripe quarter column + internet for the last few years (roughly a black on yellow - Dollar Bill size ad)

Would love to hear others experiences / comments.
 
Yellow pages are a WASTE -O- MONEY..........IMO, do you have a web page???
 
Yes I have a Webpage...
On my POS I enter how someone found me only when it is their first paid order with me....after that they are entered as "repeat customer" Last year the yellowpages print book brought 42 new customers to me. I paid 460/month in 2008 for my ad, for $8k worth of new sales. This 8k does not include sales to those same customers if they were to come back a 2nd time to my store.
 
This past year I had my yellow pages ad reduced in size because of my web site. I still found I had a nice amount of people mentioning the print, but in trying to justify the cost for both I told my ATT rep that I was considering dropping the ad. Not only did they put back in the larger credit card sized ad but they didn't raise the price either. It pays to take the time to nicely negotiate. It definately is not a waste of ad dollars for me.

Lori
 
Just rechecked my numbers and realized they are trying to up my fees by 20% from last year for the exact same advertising....how does this compare to other peoples year to year % of increase costs for Bellsouth/ATT ads???
 
framesetc said:
Yes I have a Webpage...
On my POS I enter how someone found me only when it is their first paid order with me....after that they are entered as "repeat customer" Last year the yellowpages print book brought 42 new customers to me. I paid 460/month in 2008 for my ad, for $8k worth of new sales. This 8k does not include sales to those same customers if they were to come back a 2nd time to my store.
Click to expand...

If you got 8K in sales, you only made about 4K, probably less. To me, that means you paid more in yellow page advertising than you took in.

I've been cutting back on ads in both yellow page books each year for the last 3 years.
I now have the bare minimum to get a link to my website.

More and more people are looking up businesses on the web and not using yellow pages.
This is especially true of young people.
 
We cut our YP ads to a bold listing with extra line stating our web address......YP customers usually look to see where you are located AFTER they have already heard of you in other media...people looking for a shop will be more inclined to see a listing and will then look at you web site if it is there for them to see....IMHO
 
We have had the same experience here. The # of leads from the paper printed books (and newspapers) have steadily declined for us in the past 5 years. We cut our ad for the upcoming 2009 book, as a result. We pulled out of the "Yellowbook" alternate book completely for 2009, other than the free listing.

Web leads, however, have been steadily increasing. Approx 70-80% of first timers claim they found us on the web, according to the statistics compiled by our POS. (we ask every new customer) The rest, for the most part, saw the outdoor signage or were referred by another customer.

I have always referred to the paper books as "a necessary evil", because it seems to have the highest expense and lowest return. It's probably hard to get an accurate measurement of their value. ex: Some people may see it and then go to our website, or they may remember seeing it branded in their head when looking on the web in the future.

Verizon sold the 'official book' a couple years ago. Idearc now owns it. That alone says something to me :)

That's my personal opinion, but I also think that results will vary greatly depending on the avg consumer age and market.

Mike
 
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