Thread: How Much Are We Spending in Yellow Page Advertising?

I am growing increasingly frustrated at the “charge whatever we want attitude” that Yellow Page companies continue to use. One client tried to go from two full pages to just a 1/2 page. His YP rep told him the difference would only be $300 a month less. Whatg a joke.

It got me wondering just how much are we spending as on industry in YP books. So I am going to make up a poll that I hope everyone will respond to and give us a range of your annual costs.

Thanks for participating.
MisterJim444

Hi Mister Jim,

We have exactly the same issue in the UK. I'd love to drop Yellow Pages completely, because they are so inflexible and expensive. However at the moment I do get a good return on investment, particularly by following the points made in my original post
Yellow Pages Enquiries Have Doubled

Yellow Pages will have to change or they will not be around for much longer.

Steven.

Storage Dundee

We just dropped a $1,200/mo ad we did not beleive was paying off because of this. I figured I wouldn't have any trouble getting it back maybe on better terms. I think that this may be what it takes to get them to budge, but obviously you have to know that's the case.

I was certainly not pleased with my last go around with our main directory- At&t. I did drop on in column listing that was $106 per month and cut out another $150 on their SES/PPC and Yellowpages.com program. I tried to negotiate price on my 1/2 page print ad- but didn't have any luck. I hope to be in a position to either better negotiate or cut the size next year.

I was really upset when one local facility owner told me they were charging him $400 per month for his storage ad but only $200 for another business he owns. Same size ad. When he asked he was told the ad prices are based on what each individual industry would pay.

I voted in the poll - the total of all three books we advertise in- hope this was correct!

I am also very frustrated with yellow page advertising. We have a double truck and have had one for years, so they hold you over a barrel if you want to downsize. When you change sizes they start treating you like a "new" customer all over again. Also, quite a few of our competitors also have double trucks, so we will lose postiton against them if we change. I very carefully track where our customers find us and YP is steadily going down, but their rates are not.

We are in a small town so big ads aren't really necessary. When we bought the place we kept the number but had it moved to a cell phone with US Cellular and cancelled the land line. I pay $8.50 a month to have the basic listing with the cell number in the SWB yellow pages and the knockoffs all list it for free anyway. Being Anthony and sons we're number 1 or close in all the books. You can get the basic YP free with the land line but this works out $250 a year cheaper including paying for the YP and the cell phone. (by the time you include all the services that come included with the cell and are extra on the landline. Plus no answering machine, free voicemail with cell.

We are a small operator in a 1 million plus market, so yellow page ads are very expensive and often not likely to reach our target customers ( 4 to 8 miles away). Thus in this market we have a very very small ad, and find it is all we need. Instead of YP we concentrate on local promotions.
Scott
Super Storage Group-NC, KY & AL

Originally Posted by pshedrick

We are a small operator in a 1 million plus market, so yellow page ads are very expensive and often not likely to reach our target customers ( 4 to 8 miles away). Thus in this market we have a very very small ad, and find it is all we need. Instead of YP we concentrate on local promotions.
Scott
Super Storage Group-NC, KY & AL

Amen to that...we are also in the small bracket with a one million plus turnover.

I have stated many times that YP is a waste and instead we are using our marketing and advertising budget into the community.

No personal gains either just making sure that we are care about the community and this will benefit every one.

We are in a similar situation.

We are thinking about meeting with all the big players in our area, and making an agreement that everyone move down to HALF of what they have now - setting this up contractually with each other -

anyone have any experience with this?