[the red carpet]

hi all,
im considering putting a ad in my local yellow pages had a meeting with one of there reps today
just wondered from your experience how much work you think this would bring me in it would be in the harlow,essex directory full colour about a quarter page ad costing around 2k plus vat, this is my first year in trading.

what could i expect to earn?
how regular could i expect enquiries?

[Neil Grainger]

Hi

Forget about the colour advert, go black on yellow and get larger advert and fill it with information. Colour is just a gimick, If you get between 10-15 to 1 you have done well from the yellow pages. remember location is important.

Regards

Neil

[the red carpet]

10-15 to 1
please explain

[Neil Grainger]

If you spend 2000 on a advert and get a return of £20000 or £30000 that is the 10-15 to 1 return.  Dont let them push you into the colour advert as yellow pages know nothing about carpet cleaning, see what the other are doing and get your ideas from that

Regards

Neil

[venom]

i am in yellow and thompson local but thmpson local wins by about 95-5 out of 100

[the red carpet]

thanks for your opinions guys,

neil, are you saying that thats a likely return then? and i think i need a colour ad as my logo is red and blue.

venom, i have looked through a lot of the old posts on this site and you seem to be the only one with that opinion but if it works for you then great.

[Neil Grainger]

Why is the customer interested in your colour logo, all they want is information. If you look at some of the big advertisers they just fill it with information and only have a small link at the bottom saying who they are. Don't fill it with information about the machine but do fill it with the types of different services you offer, the guarantee what sort of training you have and what professional bodies you belong to. Testamonials work well in adverts as well from Happy Customers.

If you go colour this normally means smaller advert less information. If you go black on yellow this means much bigger advert ( Possibly 3/4 page for the money you are looking to pay).

[Mike Halliday]

10/15-1 return is the best return I've ever heard of, I'd like to see that advert.

Given the choice I would go with size over colour,

Mike

[Ian Gourlay]

Not being as good a tracking as I should be, I wonderif anyone has lost money on a Yellow Pages advert.

[Simon H]

Hi Ian

I think it is important to be at or near the front of the listings most people will phone 3 or maybe 4 companies for quotes and never get past the first page. If your company name is suited to this alphabetically then this is ok if not it can be acheived by adding lots of a,s dots etc to your contact details on the advert check out your local directory and look closely and you will find companies at the front of the listings who ,alphabetically speaking, should be there

Also it is important to track where your enquiries are coming from we do this and have stopped advertising in some areas as it was not viable

Hope this helps.

Best regards

Simon

[therapist]

I've had more success from y/p than Thompsons, but the weirdest experience occurred over the past three years, with only the free alphabetical listing.

Over this period I've had far more localish jobs than ever. Totally mystified !

So.......free advert......better response.

cheers

rob m

[Kinver_Clean]

AS said before--

small company name at the bottom

Main selling point big at the top

Leave plenty of 'white space' to catch the eye., if your ad is too full of words the eye slides over it to the next ad that is easy to read in 5 seconds. Good point about bullets above.

I'm not sure about colour- I have had a colour ad for the last 3 yrs and have now gone to black on white knockout at half the price but in two adjacent directories.

Thompsons does not work in this area. I rarely see a blue directory but plenty of yellow in cust houses.

I have had as much from an NCCA ad at £130 in another area--- makes me think.

Trevor

[Amberleyandmick]

hi. we got a advert in yellow pages in january . its only a small one- but we started getting calls from it as soon as new pages started geting delivered. We always ask customers where they got our number from and nearly all said yellow pages ..allthough now we are getting referrals from other customers.. the one point i would make is that if your trading name is 'red carpet' you will be towards the back and chances are they will have found another few ccs to call before they get to your add.. luckily for us we are are at the front  so one of the first adds they see.. we used yellow pages direct debit to pay over 10 months wich was useful to a new company but we have made enough allready from the add to pay up front and go a little bigger. i agree with a preveous post that size is better than colour...  mick

[the red carpet]

hi again and thank you.
the point simon makes about the dots is very true, being called the red carpet i would be one of the last in the directory howerer after speaking about this with the agent he advised me that if i could supply him with a piece of headed paper with just 2 small dots (..the red carpet) before my name then providing nobody else changed there advert i would be the first listing in the new book if you take a look in the insurance section of the books its ridiculus with people having a1....1..1..1..1..1..a1....a....a.......1..2...3...4...5....a.... and more before there name.

with regards to the colour ad,
i think neil is right that the customer wont care about my colour logo,
 the reason i wanted to include this is i really want to try and build my business on repeat work and referalls and seen as people may only use our services once every year or so i dont think if they called somone from the book one year whos ad was full of info and had a small name at the bottom and they then required the same service again in 18months would remember who they called,
what i am trying to do is build up a brand image thats why i have gone for a slightly unuasual name as most seem to have initals like, mk clean or tg cleaning, or top clean, smart clean etc. wich is good as it explains what we do clean.
but do you really think thats gonna stick in your customers head for years if they loose your number and go back to looking in the y/p for a cleaner they could end up going over to your competition and its hard enough to get customers in this business as it is i want to do my best to keep mine.

anyway thats just my opinion mayby im wrong.
let me know what you think

[Neil Grainger]

Hi to build up repeat businees you need to keep intouch with them every few months, say a news letter. How many companies names can you remeber that you have used just once out of the yellow pages after 18 months. Keep intouch with these people and they will remember you, dont keep intouch and they will go through the book again and the process will start again.  Give them a bottle of Stain remover after each job with your contact details on for refills and they will call you when they run out. Just another way of keeping them intouch with you. Its not about the clean it about the service that you offer. If you make them feel that you care all year round they will keep coming back year after year.

[scott.]

My research with customers who found us in yp, is that they steered away from the large ads because they thought their prices would reflect this.
I'm listed in the "a"s....and can tell that the ratio of enquiries is 30% yellow pages, to 70% internet inquiries.

The stain remover stuff is a good idea....I got fridge magnets made up....they dont get lost as easy, and they love em

[the red carpet]

now that neil is a great idea,
and one i was actually gonna post about myself as ime about to pick up lables for my bottles tonight, out of interest what stain remover do you give them?
and how much does it cost you?
did you think this up yourself or did you nick the idea of alltec like me they provide there master stain remover in bottles with lables on with your company details but they charge a fee of £80 for the artwork wich i thought was a bit much so have ordered sticky labels from my printer with my details on for the bottles and the labels can also be given to customers and sent out in sales letters for the customers to stick in there phone book etc.

great idea 

[Neil Grainger]

I am part of the Alltec fast track system so dont think up all of these things myself. Just started using the bottles myself and the customers love them, they think they are getting something for nothing. Send me an e-mail and we can talk more ( its not in your profile).  Some CC's knock Alltec but I can't think highly enough of them, they have gone out of their way to help me get my business going.

[scott.]

chaps
Isn't giving them stain remover..free...doing yourselves out of business?
When I spray carpet & fabric freshner on after a clean, they usually love the smell so much, they buy a 1ltr spray bottle off if of me for £4.99
with my own lable on it, of course.
I print & design the labels on the pc, & use sheets of transparent adhesive fablon to fix it to the bottles..its cheap

[ABLECLEAN]

The Red Carpet

I have increased The size of my YP ad over the last three years. At the moment it is half page full colour at £4500 but I am going back to quarter page full colour at £2500 as It brought me in £18,000  and the new one is not bringing in any more than that. It was always an experiment which has reached its conclusion. Incidently as of April next year YP are going to be purely alphabetical starting with the Northants issue. No more dots and numbers to help you jump the queue!!

P.S. My reccomendations and previous customers accounted for 62% of my business last year!!

I hope this helps you. (YP works)