yellow pages online?

[Bruce Stewart]

Hi,
Does anyone have any experiences on what happens to customer visits / sales etc when you stop listing your business in yellow pages online?
For a professional services firm that gets most revenue via word of mouth it doesn't seem worthwhile but I would assume most clients would still equate the yellow pages to credibility and would expect to see an ad in here.
Any thoughts?
Thanks

[Chris Bates]

I think a consumer is going to base your credibility on the presence you give them (your website) rather then whether you're listed in the YP.

If you don't get a ROI on your YP ad's, you cancel them. I could tell you 101 better ways to spend that advertising budget.

If you rely on WOM for business, get on social media. The old adage of "A happy customer will tell 3 of his friends, and angry customer will tell 10 of his friends" is outdated in my eyes.

A happy customer will tell 300 of his friends, and an angry customer will tell 300 of his friends*. Social media IS word of mouth nowadays.


* This of course reflects how many people they're connected to online. They might tell 5000 of their friends

[Aidan]

I'd have to agree with Chris. I honestly can't imagine anyone NOT doing business simply because you are not in the YP. I don't think I personally have ever checked a company exists in YP after getting a recommendation.

A company I did some work with in the past was mulling over whether to renew YP once so I suggested they talk to their staff around their 3 retail stores in Oz to see if any of them

a. wanted YP for their own sales leads
b. actually used YP themselves.

The answer to both questions from almost all staff was no to both. They almost all dumped their YPs in the recycling without opening them and felt their customers largely did the same!

The exception was a staff member who felt that older customers might use YP rather than online research - a valid point if you have an older demographic doing their own research for your service.

[answermyphone]

Hi Bruce,

You should be able to contact your rep or customer service and see how many click thrus to your ad you have received per month.
This report will also show how many times someone has clicked to your website from YP.

Another reporting level is the number of searches in your region/state or nationally for your heading so you can determine the level of usage and your share this way.

You can consider where you are listed on the search return for new business to find you, that is coming in thru a heading search vs a name search. If you are in the top 5 say on this search and the heading is a popular one (with the stats) are you getting any new enquiries from it? I think the usage for YP online, in some headings, is pretty good.

I think this is a better way to evaluate your spend as I agree with the other posts that your presence on YP is no so much a test of your credibility for people that know you.

[Dardee]

I can't remember where I read it but I did see written that YP advertisers have dropped by 50% from what they were 10 years ago (I think it was the last 10 years. Don't shoot me if I have that wrong).

I knew it had dropped a lot, but not by that much.

[Chris Bates]

YP usage has dropped by 55%.

[Dardee]

Well there you go. I knew someone would know the correct figure.

[FletcherTax]

Correct me if I'm wrong - but the YP offers a free basic listing which should be sufficient for most businesses.

I had a YP rep catch me on a good day a couple of months ago and I got an amazing deal within the hard copy YP, car edition of YP for the North and online YP. Just my company name, phone number and website. I think they're really trying to hold on as much as possible.

Had 1 call off it to date. True Local seems to work a lot better at the moment.

[Chris Bates]

Yes - YP have a free online listing. But it's Name + Phone Number only, and you get listed right at the bottom.

I have a premium TL listing and I think that was a waste of money too, never had a call off of it. They seem to spend more money promoting their service seeking website than their directory.

[peppie]

I tried a reasonable listing in the Sydney and local directories for the last year, as much as anything to get into the online directory. I have had maybe 2 or 3 calls that haven't even paid the bill.

This year I have fallen back to just the local book and the cheapest I could get to keep me in the online directory.

I had the impression that a number of other online directories would tend to pick up your listing from YP online, is that the case? It certainly was some years back and I was still getting calls years later for a business that hadn't been operating for at least 10 years.

In fact the first year I was listed in the Sydney book with that business they put me under the wrong category and it was probably 10 years or so before calls from that debacle faded off!!!!