One of my clients is being heavily bombarded by sales rep of the aforementioned Yellow Pages. Sales rep pitches a year-long contract for $2,000 for local ads on YellowPages.com and directly affiliated sites. Alternatively, he's willing to do a 4-month contract, but with a price increase to $2,500. For reasons unknown he will not commit to a month-to-month contract which my client wants (try before buy, pretty obvious). Overall we both have a gut feeling that if it is not a pure scam to lock you in 12 month of worthless spending of 2000 dollars, it has very much similar outcome. On the second thought we roughly estimated total traffic through YellowPages, AOL, Yahoo and Google (for searches). From our estimates YellowPages is getting 80 times less traffic than Google, however the required investment is nowhere near that different. On the other hand, even though Google owns around 80% of search market, YP might just appeal to a different audience, so we might be buying into a different market segment (which just happen to be 80 times more expensive). So my questions are: - have anybody tried YellowPages for actual product/service promotion? - how helpful the relationship was/is? - how negotiable are clauses of contract? - how flexible are the sales people? - how easy it is to get out of the contract early if you are not satisfied? I would appreciate any input. Thanks!
I have worked with a number of offline clients that have used YellowPages (online, offline, and partners) to advertise their businesses. So my verdict? Absolutely not worth it. I have actually forced many clients to ask for refunds from YellowPages. For $2,000, you can (or at least should be able to) do MUCH more for your client than a little YellowPages listing will do. Depending on variables, your client will probably get 10 hits per year from YellowPages. That definitely isn't worth it. The free Google Maps listing is better IMO, and then your client can give you $2k to drive more traffic
I would not do it either. the only time I ever go to yellow pages to look up real business, people, auto, food, etc...I do not use it for any other purpose. once you pay them, I doubt you will get any money back unless you filed some type of dispute...if you have doubts, you surely should not mess with it. if you were a popular mexican joint, then I would say yes, use it...if it is for business opportunity, or online marketing, I would not use them whatsoever...
The yellowpages is no longer as relevant as it was before since fewer and fewer people are using it these days. Better skip the deal.
Ask yourself: Why would anybody use that site, when they have the real Yellow Pages book in their living room? Even if a small fraction of the public used it, an advertiser could not get his $2,000 back. As an advertiser myself, that is painfully obvious.
Everyone, thanks a lot for insightful comments. You have, pretty much, confirmed my suspicions. The only concern I had was that there's a niche of people who actually use YP like they used to use the actual book - and instead of Google (or any other search engine). Say, some retired people in Florida (who, actually, are the target market for the product my client is selling). But overall, you have all said essentially same thing - not worth it. For the money they want ($2K per month) you can run a few niche campaigns on AdWords and get pretty decent traffic and actual sales. Thanks a lot!