[matt jones]

Hi everyone, been in contact today with a local advertising agent for my area they produce a small yellow book full of local businesses it's seen by 20,000 in a 10-15 mile radius off my home. Asked them what competition i would be against they replied there isn't really any in there for carpet & upholstery cleaning. The costs are £80 for half business card size, £140 for a credit card, £200 for double that and £250 for a quarter page all prices plus vat. I thought that sounded pretty good wanted to know what other peoples views were on it and if anyone has used similiar advertising and with what results?
Need to come up with something before next wednesday though if i want to be in next years.
regards
matt

[darren_metcalfe]

I use them quite regularly.  I have used parish magazines, and the local doorstep type leaflet and they have worked for me.

[Steve Chapman]

Matt,

I gave up the yp and thomson a few years ago and now only go for all the local stuff and the response has been amazing.

You can't get away from the fact that most people like to use someone local they feel they can trust, and what's more alot of your work ends up being more local rather than further a field which you get from the big directories.

Parish magazines seem to be really well used too and have landed quite a few wealthy country house type folk through them

I guess it depends on where you live, but a good guage is whether you would use the directory yourself or not.

I realized i never used yellow pages so why would my neigbours?

regards
steve

[Nick Johnston]

I use them all the time. Unsurprisingly, the directory which covers my immediate area gets me the most business - perhaps one or two jobs each week, which is not bad for £20 ish per month outlay! I use several other local directories and get a lower response, but it is still very cost effective. A couple of directories already have four carpet cleaners as advertisers, so I have changed my advert to offer specialism in leather. We'll see how it goes.

Just for the record:

leafleting doesn't work for me

the local paper brings in low ticket work

Yellow pages covers a huge area so I don't bother

Yell.com works fine

Thomson works fine as it covers my immediate town only

Happy marketing

Nick

[Fintan_Coll]

We have a similar book here. It is called the Red Book and it just covers County Donegal which is my operating area (there are books for each county as far as I know), however I always get much much more work from it than what I get from Yellow Pages,.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

It's funny how YP is starting to have it's say, I've been saying it for over a year now it just comfirms what I already know.

thanks

Shaun

[Geoff Jewkes]

Have you heard about the new thomson directory campaign? They`ve teamed up with Nectar, so if custy rings you through the special thomson number, they earn nectar points equivalent to a £25 spend at sainsburys. There will be a big tv ad campaign next year.... apparantly yellow pages are really peaved! Should be a good un!    

[Geoff Jewkes]

Oh yes and if you buy in, you have the special number and the Nectar logo at the bottom of your ad

[AquaMagic]

Heres what i do with any Potential form of advertising directory.

Pick five numbers form the directory and ring em, people will tell you if they are crap as people love to moan, but they also like to brag about how good a business decision they made if things are working out.  It takes 10-20 mins and could save you hundreds of pounds and using this method ive always had a return on my advertising that ive paid for.  Another good way touched on earlier is to call 5-10 members of your family or friend and ask them where they look when they need a tradesman, ive none of them say Yellow pages then dont bother, if most of them say "your local parish mag" then go for it.

Ive avoided some bad apples using this method such as, 118 Trades & the satins own UFINDUS.

Dene