Thread: Yellow Pages

Does anyone still spend the ridiculous price of advertising in the yellow pages?

Depends on where you are. If I didn't do it here, I'd lose about 25% of my incoming customers! However, at my last facility, we didn't advertise at all.

Originally Posted by MamaDuke

Depends on where you are. If I didn't do it here, I'd lose about 25% of my incoming customers! ...

Yep, same here.

I am opening a new facility this summer and signed a year contract with DEX which is also doing my website time will tell if it will be worth the $1200 per month but if it does it will be well worth it.

I've been tracking every single move in for the past 3 years, and less than 4% of my tenants come from the YellowPages/phonebook. I'm spending about ~$150 a month for in column ads for each local phone book here. The only form of marketing that is worse is Craigslist, but hey, that's at least free.

My highest form of marketing is the simple driving by the facility and seeing our sign. We have a large sign out from with most of our pricing on it. The second highest is our internet marketing and Google searches (all free except the cost of our website hosting), followed by word of mouth, and then referrals.

thanks for the info

Originally Posted by teesee150

I've been tracking every single move in for the past 3 years, and less than 4% of my tenants come from the YellowPages/phonebook. I'm spending about ~$150 a month for in column ads for each local phone book here. The only form of marketing that is worse is Craigslist, but hey, that's at least free.

My highest form of marketing is the simple driving by the facility and seeing our sign. We have a large sign out from with most of our pricing on it. The second highest is our internet marketing and Google searches (all free except the cost of our website hosting), followed by word of mouth, and then referrals.

I should of mentioned that we used to have several 1/4 page and 1/2 page ads between several books we advertised in. I saw no difference in customers coming from the phone book by downsizing to an in column ad. We use a ad with a white background, colored text, and our logo so it still really stands out and catches the readers attention. Spending a few hundred is a lot easier than spending a few thousand per month with the same returns.

The one and ONLY way to understand your Yellow Pages effectiveness is to have a tracking phone number. Yes, we don't get a lot of call directly but we publish our website in our ad and get 10x as many calls from the web.

The buying process goes a little like this. I need storage. Where the heck should I go? Let me look in YP or on the internet. Then, I call them after I've browsed their sight a bit. So, sometimes NOT being in YP can hurt perception.

And, despite what they say over and over again about YP, Public Storage and Extra Space take out enormous double-truck ads (SF Bay Area). They haven't abandoned the Yellow Pages, so I take every thing they say at conventions with a grain of salt. When they go, I'll go.

we have 6 different yellow page books distributed here, by 6 different companies. In each book there are about 30 pages of ads for storage facilities...a lot of full pages, some 1/2 and 1/4 or smaller. There is no way we would want to spend the $$$ necessary to be in all 6 directories...especially if we were trying to compete against all those full page color ads.

I'll take the internet any day...and by the way, we are 20-50% more occupied then any of those facilities with the full page YP ads, and are starting construction next month on our 4th new building in less then 24 months.

YP may be the way to go in those areas that just have one directory, but it's just not feasible to do it here.

It's not the same industry, but my Uhaul manager said that Uhaul has recently decided to pull 100% of their phonebook advertising across the country.