Guys

As some of you might remember I formed a new roofing company recently. I was wondering how many of you are paying for yellowpage listings in both yellowpage.com and the printed yellowpage phone books that come to your home. I know advertising is hugely important but I have to choose wisely where to spend my advertising dollars. Any input is greatly appreciated.

Do you use the phonebook? I do not, nor do I see myself doing so.

I can send a text with my phone to google and they send me the number right back. If I don't know what I'm looking for I wait untill I get home.

RooferR wrote:

Do you use the phonebook? I do not, nor do I see myself doing so. I can send a text with my phone to google and they send me the number right back. If I don't know what I'm looking for I wait untill I get home.

Then what do you do when you get home?

Guys

2 days and 54 views and nobody has an opinion or experience to share on yellowpage ads? Who reads this forum anyway?

Guys

2 days and 54 views and nobody has an opinion or experience to share on yellowpage ads? Who reads this forum anyway?

Hi nose.


I have learned from experience that there are more than one type of shopper, and they use different mediums.


me - i only use google. the only time i look at the phone book, is when im looking at my own, or competetor's ads.


old people - they rely on the phone book. and they often choose two or three ads to call on. the more professional and trustworthy the ads look, the more likely they are to call.


at my other roofing company, a two page full color ad ran us $5,000 a month. it got us 100-150 phone calls a month.

my new company, we just signed up for a "dollar bill" size color ad for $500 a month, and hope it will get 20-40 calls per month. (likely less tho)


i feel like its a necessary evil. can you survive without it? absolutely.

but if there is a promise of a chance at 30-40 potential customers per month calling you, for a $500 investment? it seems like a no brainer to me. when i hire canvasers, i pay them $8 per hour, plus i pay for the door hangers they put out. i spend WAY more than $500 for a month of canvasing, and the phone book is at pretty much everyones house. even if they dont use it, its still there. and when they need a roof, there is a decent chance they will at least look in it as a directory to find you, or your competitors.


hope that helps.
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-Jason

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http://www.ARCTulsa.com
http://www.myspace.com/arcroofing

Agape wrote:

Hi nose. I have learned from experience that there are more than one type of shopper, and they use different mediums. me - i only use google. the only time i look at the phone book, is when im looking at my own, or competetor's ads. old people - they rely on the phone book. and they often choose two or three ads to call on. the more professional and trustworthy the ads look, the more likely they are to call. at my other roofing company, a two page full color ad ran us $5,000 a month. it got us 100-150 phone calls a month. my new company, we just signed up for a "dollar bill" size color ad for $500 a month, and hope it will get 20-40 calls per month. (likely less tho) i feel like its a necessary evil. can you survive without it? absolutely. but if there is a promise of a chance at 30-40 potential customers per month calling you, for a $500 investment? it seems like a no brainer to me. when i hire canvasers, i pay them $8 per hour, plus i pay for the door hangers they put out. i spend WAY more than $500 for a month of canvasing, and the phone book is at pretty much everyones house. even if they dont use it, its still there. and when they need a roof, there is a decent chance they will at least look in it as a directory to find you, or your competitors. hope that helps.

It helps. I'm new to this but you summed up exactly what I was thinking. Is the AT&T yellowpages the one you advertise in? It seems there are several different books out there.

yea, im in "the real yellow pages" AT&T.


with my old company, i was in about 8 different books, but the AT&T was always the most effective (and most expensive, lol)
_________________
-Jason

______


http://www.ARCTulsa.com
http://www.myspace.com/arcroofing

well i guess we have the same question.. am new with my business and i got a call from a sales rep. for the yellow pages but is hard for me to make a disicion if i want to be listed or not...but am going to talk to that guy tomorrow and see what i can get for less 500 a month probably just my company name and number but at least i will be ther just in case one of my custumers wnats to make sure am local i will be able to tell them am listed in the yellow pages.

The reps are gonna feed you a bunch of crap about how your calls will increase. Ask one if they'll guarantee X amount of calls per month.

Since I placed my first ad years ago I never noticed a difference. Asked callers how they heard about us and very few said yellow pages. However, I never had a full page ad. Knew one local roofer who went out of business and said his yellow page ads were part of the cause. Just not a big enough area to justify the cost. Depends on your local population density.
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Abel,

in OKC for $600 a month u can get a 1/4 page ad.

$500 gets you the "dollar bill" size ad

$350 gets you a "business card" size ad.

Down payments are usually 2x the monthly payment. Call quick if you want in next years book, they go to print next week.
_________________
-Jason

______


http://www.ARCTulsa.com
http://www.myspace.com/arcroofing

thanks JASON... and for the prices too...

The phone book co's are really pushing the online/offline bundles right now.

In some markets, the phone book in print is still important.

Be sure to keep yourself in a manageable budget. Their bundles are not always the best since they always do the most generic type of promotions.

Both print and online can be good -do some leg work first so you have a good plan on what to do with the ad space they are offering.
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I made the mistake several years ago to bid on a roof replacement for a rep for Yellow Book. Looking back I must have thought if I signed up I'd do his roof. More than likely he had 15 roofers come bid on it and tried to sell to all of them.

Each year the leads were poor and almost every home owner was just looking for the very lowest bid.

Last year I came so close to cancelling my last Yellow Book add until the week before the deadline got a good insurance job out of it (only one in 7+ years).

Recently I decided to cancel the last area. I had a home owner build me a web site and I told her to look on Yellow Books website to find me and she couldn't. The other day called Yellow Books internet advertising department and guess what? Been paying $30 a month for a year in a half and have not been on the site, no wonder I got no calls from it!!! Now I have to negotiate with Yellow Book to decide the correct course of action.

Most of the guys I know running adds in phone books have had very bad luck with Yellow. If my memory is correct most say to go with Dex or Verizon.

BTW, I was paying $100 a month for a color add a little bigger than a business card in the South Metro, MN book.