Yellow Pages Effectiveness/Questions

Hi I'm wondering if anyone can give me insight on just how effective
the YP are to drum up business. We own a computer training school in a
city that has a population of 2,000,000. There is only 1 YP book. We
have approx 10 competitors in the city. There are 4 competitors that
have been in biz for 10 years or so and they run full page, color ads.
The cost is $4,000/month. There is *no way* we can afford that. I'd
like to think an ad would get us $4,000/month at least in business, but
we need to sign a 6 month contract and we'd be broke if the ad didn't =
the business income. Would doing a smaller ad be in our benefit or
would no one pay attention to us with the full page competitor ads?
Would doing cable TV advertising be most cost effective? Are the YP ads
negotiable signifigantly?

How effective the YP will be for you is related to who your target
market is. Who is it that buys your services? Consumers or Business? If
business, they will probably not buy what you are selling through the
YP. Perhaps a better use of your marketing budget would be a more
direct approach, either direct mail or even direct selling. I would not
risk my business on a yellow pages ad. I have not found them to be
price negotiable.
Jim McCraigh
Free Direct Marketer's Digest at http://www.mccraigh.com

I have asked the same question on effectiveness to other businesses that
advertised in the YP. Most say that when they did stop advertising with the
book they felt it significantly and then signed up again. I don't know
anyone who ran a full page ad but I'm sure a 1/4 page ad would pay for
itself provided you have the proper infrastructure to handle the new
business.

Brian
<johnmolinda@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cqb0710vrg@enews3.newsguy.com...
>
> Hi I'm wondering if anyone can give me insight on just how effective
> the YP are to drum up business. We own a computer training school in a
> city that has a population of 2,000,000. There is only 1 YP book. We
> have approx 10 competitors in the city. There are 4 competitors that
> have been in biz for 10 years or so and they run full page, color ads.
> The cost is $4,000/month. There is *no way* we can afford that. I'd
> like to think an ad would get us $4,000/month at least in business, but
> we need to sign a 6 month contract and we'd be broke if the ad didn't =
> the business income. Would doing a smaller ad be in our benefit or
> would no one pay attention to us with the full page competitor ads?
> Would doing cable TV advertising be most cost effective? Are the YP ads
> negotiable signifigantly?
>
>

<johnmolinda@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cqb0710vrg@enews3.newsguy.com...
>
> Hi I'm wondering if anyone can give me insight on just how effective
> the YP are to drum up business. We own a computer training school in a
> city that has a population of 2,000,000. There is only 1 YP book. We
> have approx 10 competitors in the city. There are 4 competitors that
> have been in biz for 10 years or so and they run full page, color ads.
> The cost is $4,000/month. There is *no way* we can afford that. I'd
> like to think an ad would get us $4,000/month at least in business, but
> we need to sign a 6 month contract and we'd be broke if the ad didn't =
> the business income. Would doing a smaller ad be in our benefit or
> would no one pay attention to us with the full page competitor ads?
> Would doing cable TV advertising be most cost effective? Are the YP ads
> negotiable signifigantly?
>
Two things come to mind. One is to make contact with the company with the
full page ad and offer your services to their overflow of customers close to
your neighborhood. Many of these full page ad outfits thrive on this kind of
relationship. Look at the plumbers in the book; most say rapid response...
well, if you dig a bit you will see they are networked. Another example is
FTD the floral delivery people.

Second; low budget advertising starts with you making a flyer and walking a
mile a day delivering them to homes and businesses, with some kind of a
special deal if they come to your site with the flier. Maybe a quick test to
determine what they will need in training and how much it will cost them and
what benefits you will be offering such as follow-up in home consulting,
etc.

Measure everything. How many phone calls does it take to get one customer.
How many flyers to get one person in. What is the cost for all the other
flyers combined so you have a cost per prospect. Then improve whatever is
giving you a return on investment and continue to improve... forever.

As you get more business you will not want to walk the mile but will want to
run your business. If the flyer idea got you that much business, to make you
stay in the office and take care of customers, then it may be cost effective
to contract the deliveries or move on to a broader advertising strategy,
perhaps starting with one very small ad in the YP.

Since you are focusing on new computer users (I'm guessing) it would not
make much sense to spend a lot of money on Internet sites and advertising.

You must absolutely focus your mind on the kind of person that will be using
your services. And based on this intensive visualization you will create a
marketing plan. With a bit of mind-mapping and deep meditation you should
come up with a great plan. For detailed instructions on this go to my free
and open to all white paper on Sales and Marketing to be found in
http://home.att.net/~impresario/Index.htm -- thee are no come-ons, hidden
fees or gotchas. It is part of the Intensive Entrepreneurial Training
Program I helped create for the Small Business Development Centers at
California Colleges.

Wayne
www.rcsailcars.com
(My son's business)

YellowPages work. You don't need a huge ad. In fact, many people associate a
huge ad with higher prices when it's for services. If someone was looking
for an "affordable" training company, they would tend to look toward half or
quarter page ads. Someone big enough to serve their needs, but probably more
within their budget. Anything smaller will turn them away.

<johnmolinda@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cqb0710vrg@enews3.newsguy.com...
>
> Hi I'm wondering if anyone can give me insight on just how effective
> the YP are to drum up business. We own a computer training school in a
> city that has a population of 2,000,000. There is only 1 YP book. We
> have approx 10 competitors in the city. There are 4 competitors that
> have been in biz for 10 years or so and they run full page, color ads.
> The cost is $4,000/month. There is *no way* we can afford that. I'd
> like to think an ad would get us $4,000/month at least in business, but
> we need to sign a 6 month contract and we'd be broke if the ad didn't =
> the business income. Would doing a smaller ad be in our benefit or
> would no one pay attention to us with the full page competitor ads?
> Would doing cable TV advertising be most cost effective? Are the YP ads
> negotiable signifigantly?
>
>
>

You might want to look at your past cost per lead and cost per
enrollment to see if it is worth using Yellow pages to begin with. I
have found that the days of yellow pages being effective at generating
student leads are long gone. These days, they work well in unison with
television advertising. You have a very slim budget. You don't have
enough to play in the cable tv space. I would buy a small ad in the
Yellow Pages just so you have presence and then use cost per lead
internet advertising. You'll get a predictable flow of leads at a
fixed price monthly.
Andy
Andy@EffectiveStudentMarketing.com or
www.EffectiveStudentMarketing.com



johnmolinda@yahoo.com wrote:
> Hi I'm wondering if anyone can give me insight on just how effective
> the YP are to drum up business. We own a computer training school in
a
> city that has a population of 2,000,000. There is only 1 YP book. We
> have approx 10 competitors in the city. There are 4 competitors that
> have been in biz for 10 years or so and they run full page, color
ads.
> The cost is $4,000/month. There is *no way* we can afford that. I'd
> like to think an ad would get us $4,000/month at least in business,
but
> we need to sign a 6 month contract and we'd be broke if the ad didn't
=
> the business income. Would doing a smaller ad be in our benefit or
> would no one pay attention to us with the full page competitor ads?
> Would doing cable TV advertising be most cost effective? Are the YP
ads
> negotiable signifigantly?

I have some relevant experience, when I owned my LAN sales/support company I
had a 1/4 page color YP ad (top right hand corner location is critical even
if you are a couple pages back). At the time the ad cost us $1500/month, a
tough nut to carry back then. BUT, on average, we got 1 substantial new
customer (>$30k) per month. The point is when you figure how much business
the ad needs to drum up you can't just look at the gross sale, you have to
your margin as anything less is a loss.

And I wholeheartedly agree about evaluating your tarket market, if
individuals and small businesses then YP is probably your best avenue to
gain instant (credible) presence. If larger businesses then probably not.

What I don't know is the relevency of Internet YP: if you factor age,
education, background habits probably the majority of middle age and up
individuals prefer the printed YP, younger folks MAY prefer the Net, I don't
know. Anyone here have any statistics or experience?


<johnmolinda@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cqb0710vrg@enews3.newsguy.com...
>
> Hi I'm wondering if anyone can give me insight on just how effective
> the YP are to drum up business. We own a computer training school in a
> city that has a population of 2,000,000. There is only 1 YP book. We
> have approx 10 competitors in the city. There are 4 competitors that
> have been in biz for 10 years or so and they run full page, color ads.
> The cost is $4,000/month. There is *no way* we can afford that. I'd
> like to think an ad would get us $4,000/month at least in business, but
> we need to sign a 6 month contract and we'd be broke if the ad didn't =
> the business income. Would doing a smaller ad be in our benefit or
> would no one pay attention to us with the full page competitor ads?
> Would doing cable TV advertising be most cost effective? Are the YP ads
> negotiable signifigantly?
>
>

<johnmolinda@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cqb0710vrg@enews3.newsguy.com...
>
> Hi I'm wondering if anyone can give me insight on just how effective
> the YP are to drum up business. We own a computer training school in a
> city that has a population of 2,000,000. There is only 1 YP book. We
> have approx 10 competitors in the city. There are 4 competitors that
> have been in biz for 10 years or so and they run full page, color ads.
> The cost is $4,000/month. There is *no way* we can afford that. I'd
> like to think an ad would get us $4,000/month at least in business, but
> we need to sign a 6 month contract and we'd be broke if the ad didn't =
> the business income. Would doing a smaller ad be in our benefit or
> would no one pay attention to us with the full page competitor ads?
> Would doing cable TV advertising be most cost effective? Are the YP ads
> negotiable signifigantly?

The three rules of advertising are test, test, test. Put in a small ad and
see how it does for you. If it works, make it bigger. If it doesn't work,
change it or drop it.

Don't make the mistake of fighting dollar-for-dollar against a
bigger/established company. You will lose. Instead look for creative
approaches to finding business, and look for ways to dance around your
competitors as opposed to fighting with them head-to-head.

HTH,

Mike

http://miketurco.com

I have studied this topic very carefully. The fact is, Yellow Page
advertising works and it works better than any other advertsing you can
do unless you are selling a highly impulsive item. Dan Kennedy, the
guru of direct marketing, suggest that you spend as much as 100%
percent of your advertising budget on Yellow Pages if your advertsing
budget is smaller. There are several factors why Yellow Pages are so
effective but the main reason is because most people using the Yellow
Pages are intent on buying. The majority of YP users buy within 24
hours so you have to be ready to handle the calls correctly to maximize
your effectiveness. There is value in placement in the Yellow Page
listings however size is not close to being the only factor of
effectiveness. Think about all the advertising that you and your
competitors do to generate a call and then imagine that your ad is good
enough to grab the attention of 50% of the people that are looking for
your good or servie. Most people have poorly written ads becasue the
buy with ego and not with thinking. Ad copy that puts the customer
needs that you most effectively serve should be in the headline and
then focus on how you are going to solve the customers needs and put a
free report, gift, consulting etc., etc., offer in the add. Your name
is the least important part of the ad (if they are looking for you by
name they are not looking in the YP) but your phone number is very
important. Finally, you have to track results of all advertising.
Profit margin and lifetime value of a new customer are the driving
force of effectivenss. Return on investment can be figured by taking
the value of an average customer, the number of call it takes take to
achieve one sale, and then tracking the number of calls you receive.
Once you have this data then you divide the number of calls received by
the number of call required to get a new customer. That is your gross
ROI but your real ROI is only your margin percentage times your gross
revenue. That last calculation is very important to understand the
true value of any advertising. Volume alone is not enough to achieve
success, profitable volume seperates the successful from the failures.
This may be simple to many but I am a CPA and I see people every day
that simply ignore margins. As for internet, it is worth more in large
cities such as your than rural area where I live. Connectivity is
getting so good that electronic media is becoming truly useful. You
are going to reach a different market with IYP than paper YP but in
your business you might find it very effective. Good Luck!
Barry
johnmolinda@yahoo.com wrote:
> Hi I'm wondering if anyone can give me insight on just how effective
> the YP are to drum up business. We own a computer training school in
a
> city that has a population of 2,000,000. There is only 1 YP book. We
> have approx 10 competitors in the city. There are 4 competitors that
> have been in biz for 10 years or so and they run full page, color
ads.
> The cost is $4,000/month. There is *no way* we can afford that. I'd
> like to think an ad would get us $4,000/month at least in business,
but
> we need to sign a 6 month contract and we'd be broke if the ad didn't
=
> the business income. Would doing a smaller ad be in our benefit or
> would no one pay attention to us with the full page competitor ads?
> Would doing cable TV advertising be most cost effective? Are the YP
ads
> negotiable signifigantly?