It really makes me laugh when people slate "the book". What about your f****g advert?! I've heard nobody say "Oh my advert was crap so i ditched it".
Insanity, utter madness.
Of course people still look in yellow pages, but nowhere near as much as before admittedly. If your advert is pants, so will your return on it be. YP will never be the income source it used to be 10 years ago but it is still used by many people, more specifically the 60+ age bracket who are least computer-savvy (many don't even have a computer)
It's dead easy to be a baaaaa baaaaa sheep and copy everyone by saying the YP book is no good. It's really difficult to admit you've wasted money on a bad advert.
Now, yell.com that's a different story, because everyone's advert looks the same. Therefore if you don't pay to keep top position all the time you'll never be anywhere near the top and never get a call from it.
Before they re-vamped yell.com 3 or 4 years ago I used to spend around £400 a year on it and it just about broke even, maybe a slight profit. Then when they changed its layout and the results ranking, price went up and the enquiries went down.... I'M OUT!
Our f**king adverts were fine thanks very much
- we would not spend over £7000 for sh*t ads!
For us the returns simply did not warrant the 'spend'. If you wish to target the ederly then yes there is still a limited place for the book but this is gradually decreasing
, I think it is surprising how many are computer savy! (just looking at emails we recieve from inlaws and all the ccs
)
If we spent £400 a year and it just broke even we would of binned it then
before they modified the ranking sytem
Personally I got fed up dealing with a national company who would send a different rep with different ideas year on year, with no clear plan. Hence each year you spend a pot of money without any progression. We have now moved this pot of money elsewhere to market our company with a defined market plan ...you certainly will not get that from YP.
If your spend is limited the first place i would look is the local parish mags - these produce by far the highest returns .. for us anyway, howvever if these are successful there is usually a long waiting list