Time to renew our yellow-pages ad

[Dan Antonelli]

Save it and spend it on a better web site.

 

[TheSnowman]

I dropped it other than just a line listing. We have Vonage and have to pay for whatever we put in there to get a listing, but it's like $15/mo whatever I have now just to be in there. I don't think it did me any good, but we're in a small town, and have been around 30 years...just depends what you are trying to do I guess.

 

[Replicator]

We have used the free line in the big book for the past two years . . . No ad !

 

[signmeup]

try this
https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLoginAuth?service=lbc

 

[DIGITAL360]

Save your money mosh. nobody really uses yellow pages no more. majority peolple google what they are looking for. yellow pages will eventually become extinct ! !

 

[Mosh]

Thanks for all the advise. I was thinking the same thing, I have not even opened a YP for several years. BTW, the web site is a work in progress, I do it myself and really have no idea what I am doing. Mostly done at night on the farm computer with a drink in hand.....

 

[ProWraps]

ive said this before. the last time the guy came by our office with the new yellow page book, i said:
"hey thanks man, but just keep it, i dont use it and i dont want to waste the paper".

he responded:
"i keep hearing that more and more. i cant give these things away".

 

[mark in tx]

The biggest thing I noticed when I dropped the yellow pages ad is that I don't get people calling and price shopping.

"How much is a banner?"

I don't waste 5-20 minutes a call asking size, indoor/outdoor, bitmap/vector art, etc...

 

[Blazingsun]

We just dropped our add also, We got nothing from it, we keeped track of how people where finding us and 50% said they googled us..40% word of mouth. 10% from YB and 100% of that 10% was other company looking to sell us stuff.... go figure im paying for an add for that other people use to try and sell stuff to Me...bye Bye YB..im taken the money and put it tords adwords in google.

An other thing i did was just in general conversaion with friends , I asked if you where looking for an item or service and didn't know of anyone.. how would you find it.. 100% said they would google it..

 

[Edserv]

I owned an SEO company for 4 years before starting Lets Go Banners. I made the mistake of purchasing a $2400/ year phone book ad. We've had THREE call-ins in the last 10 months from that ad. Our organic seo normally generates 3 to 5 qualified call-ins or site conversions per day.

Guess what I'm going to do? Yup, never, ever, again with the phone book stuff. I'm going to stick to the internet. You simply have to ask yourself, "when's the last time you used a phone book?" Sure. Some people still use them. And perhaps there are businesses that have a positive ROI from this advertising. But if you know how to get ranked in Google and Yahoo, etc, then why bother? We rank at number 6 to 7 in Google for vinyl banners, and this is our best marketing keyword phrase. We also normally get visits for about 750 unique keywords per month from all over the U.S.

Good luck,
Chris
Lets Go Banners
ps, I also, just for fun, ranked myself (and my ops manager, Dave T.) for "coolest guys in hawaii" in Google under a site not related to LGB. We're number 1 and 2! You can do it too!

 

[Pat Whatley]

I've got four phone books at the shop and two here at home that are still in the shrink wrap from last May.

 

[kstompaint]

Years ago I was "sold" on a yellow pages ad. Guess what I got? Price checkers. They were all calling every shop with an ad and saying "how much for a magnetic sign?" Since we actually do quality work with quality materials (and charge for it), we didn't get any of 'em. Word of mouth has kept my shop alive for 8 years and my previous employer's for almost 40.

 

[pointjockey]

$1500 is that much...about 250 6packs much.....

For the last 10 years we have had a 1"x2" ad in the phonebook. It now is going to cost me $1,500 to run next year. I am thinking about just going with the free listing only. First off I know ALOT of people do not even have a land-line anymore, so won't get a book. Second we are in a rural area and everyone knows me for 100 mile radius anyway. What do you people do as far as the phonebook ads? $1500 a year is not that much, but just 10 years ago the same ad was $120 a year (our local carrier had changed 6 times since then)

I am struggling with this, I don't want to loose out but, on the other hand, don't think I will. Just not sure.