Advertising And Competitors Pricing?

bridiej

I'm in Thomson and Yellow Pages this year for the first time, the directory came out end October 2004.

So far I've had several phone calls, all of whch have come via Yellow Pages!

So if you're only going to advertise in one I'd choose that one - dont think I'll bother with Thomson next year, unless things improve of course.

vithya

hi guys and girls..
im starting up my own business. and was thinking about advertisement on yellow pages…

relly good advice here..

any idea how much discount yellow pages give for 1st timer?

camstop

Best of luck with your new venture first of all.


Being a local self employed business for the last 8 year and succesfull to boot i'd say you should run as big an add as you can in the yellow pages and put a small one in the local news paper every week.


Just be careful of everyone offering you loads of business form likes of a website coz that is never gonna work for you as it wont for me.


Stick to local advertising and you wont be wasting your money.

bridiej

Not sure what the percentage discount for Yell was but it should have cost £216 + VAT but cost £152.28 + VAT (saving of £86.40).

I went for a display ad, about credit card size and seems to have worked. STILL have had nothing from my Thomson ad though!

Essu

For me Yellow Pages and Thomsons brought best returns. However I spent nearly £2,000 on special trade directory where all the calls in my business in my area would come exclusively to me. I did not get one enquiry let alone a job. Trouble was that no-one seemed to know of that directory and the provider obviously wasn't active enough in promoting it.

bridiej

I would give any other type of directory a wide berth UNLESS you've heard from friends that they work.

caseya

There are free seminars you can attend which will help with these kinds of questions. There are some called 'Bright Marketing' for those already in business and your local business link should have info on lots of other types of events held locally which are really helpful.

odorus

I have just put an advert in the Yellow pages, as well as on yell.com and their phone service. The phone service has yielded nothing but yell.com has paid for itself, and the yellow pages has only been out a month and I am already getting a number of calls. Size does matter, go for the biggest advert you can affort and get colour if your budget stretches that far. You can also place a free advert in there as well, so if people only look for the small line adverts you can catch them as well.
I haven't heard anything good about Thompson, and when I tried to advertise with them I found they were useless and never returned my calls.
Professional flyers put through doors is also a good way of getting business. You won't get an immediate response, but so far I've found that it does work and only the other day I got a call from someone who had received my flyer 2 months ago.
Over all you have to keep thinking up new ideas, as no one solution is best. The Yellow Pages for instance will bring in work but not always to the levels that you want. As I have found you can't sit on your laurels, you have to keep promoting your business.
Hope that helps and good luck

VixxAnn

Pretty much agree with all comments made so far, especially the last one - ordorus.

We don't bother at all with Thomson now - has never done anything for us. Yellow pages ad has always bought in enquiries, make sure you check with categories you should be in, sometimes certain services overlap and your potential customers may be looking for you in a different category to your personal first choice.

We have just took on a weblink with Yell.com which I think will be great over time, we have already had some enquiries and I haven't finished the website!

what about the classified section of your local newspaper? generally quite reasonable prices and a lot of people look in there for services.

Good vehicle sign writing is important and often over looked.

But the most important and best way of getting new business is definately .. Word of Mouth. You provide a good service (doesn't mean you have to be the cheapest) you will get people talking about you. Good luck :beer:

newsmonkey

If you're in a small-ish local area (rural/small town), an option that's often forgotten about is local radio. A couple of hundred quid in many cases should get you the production of one ad and a month of reasonable exposure (a few plays spread throughout each day) on a small-scale local station. Bit more costly than directories, but if the person selling you the airtime knows what they're doing you should generate a very good degree of awareness. It's not for everyone, mind.

http://www.rab.co.uk