Yell.com ?

[alidee]

Am considering advertising my agency on yell.com.
Has anyone had any experience of doing this and any good/bad/indifferent feedback?
All comments appreciated.
Thanks
Alidee

[Sorrel]

You can get a free listing easy enough, which is always handy.

I think the costs involved with yell.com are quite high for what they actually do. It depends on what your competition is like in your area. If you would benefit from being more recognised and at the top of the list it will probably beneficial

[Poppy35]

I used yell.com and to be honest I thought it was a complete waste of money. We never got any feed throughs from them and I thought our money was better spent elsewhere.

[alidee]

Thankyou both for your comments. I do have a free listing but no enquiries from it - no surprise there really.
Need to think of some good marketing ideas :confused:
Can you hear my brain whirring
Alidee

[Gmick]

Thankyou both for your comments. I do have a free listing but no enquiries from it - no surprise there really.
Need to think of some good marketing ideas :confused:
Can you hear my brain whirring
Alidee

Try a special offer.

I did a find a tenant for a pound offer in my local free paper, cost me about £500 for ad and design, got about 40 properties, then the referrals rolled in constantly after that, but you have to be good at what you do.

Referral business is free but expensive if you piss people off.

Try doing a SWOT analysis on your agency, see where your weaknesses and strengths are.

Before I sold up last year I alarmingly found out I was in bed with a lot of property club landlords and knew it would be a matter of time before my business would start to shrink as the repossessions started, so I sold up before it became a threat.

[MoMoney]

Hiya,

I used to work at Yell.
...and without trying to be biased, it is a fantastic product for buyer and seller ... IF YOU GET IT RIGHT.

You need to look at how much the advertising is costing you, and realistically what you get for it, i.e presence, does it say all it needs to, informative, have all contact info displayed, link to a website, etc

Then work out how many enquiries you need to cover the cost of the ads, when you are realistically likely to get them (Yell provide genuine feedback from some advertisers), and everything on top is profit, hoping of course your ad plan works.

Yell can monitor (obviously for a charge in most cases) how many calls you get, from which ad campaign, net or book or phone etc, as they give you special telephone numbers.

Ads dont work for all, but thats usually because people go for the cheapest option and are sold on the costs and benefits of it. The more informative, professional and eye catching the ad, the more likely a buyer will see it and use it.

I used to sell Yellow Pages, Corporate Advertising Scheme, the BT Phone Book, Talking Pages / 118 247, and of course Yell.com.

You have a free listing that is the start. good.
You can also get multiple listings in other categories, like Letting Agents (with the main free one being in Estate Agents), and other relevant classifications. There maybe a small charge for this, by BT not Yell.

I still use Yell, as well as other sites such as Google to find info, and common sense and general user lazyness means the top few sites are looked at first if they fit what you're looking for. To beat prices and services then you'll start to look at alternatives to get a better deal, looking for more info.

People don't always want to speak to a person, some like browsing for info, do some research before they call a particular co, ... like me.

If you have a website, I'd personally link it to Yell.com, get a priority listing, a few bullet points about the company... you have to be on the net properly to get the benefits. I don't use the books anymore, and they are generally in decline as Generation Y is now in the workforce. Baby Boomers from the 60's probably still use the paper books!

Hope some of this waffle helps anyway, and if you have any further questions or want advice, then let me know.


p.s. I have a free listing on behalf of a mates business on Yell.com and I get loadsa people trying to sell me stuff, as they do use it as a data list!, but some genuine calls too. Also had a link for myself when I worked there selling miscellaneous car parts etc... it does work.

Cheers,
MoMoney


p.p.s Hi Everyone !! :)

[alidee]

Hi MoMoney
Many thanks for all the info you wrote in reply to my question and may I welcome you to the site.
I hope you find the site really useful and I may well get back to you for more advise re my yell advert if thats ok with you.
Thanks
Alidee

[MoMoney]

Hi MoMoney
Many thanks for all the info you wrote in reply to my question and may I welcome you to the site.
I hope you find the site really useful and I may well get back to you for more advise re my yell advert if thats ok with you.
Thanks
Alidee

yeah, no worries mate.
:)

[Sorrel]

All very well having the free listing but for a friend of mines business they wont change the office address from the registered address (my friends home) to the office address. If they can't even acknowledge and change simple issues like that it doenst inspire much confidence!

MoMoney is perfectly right, like in all advertising you get what you pay for, but in my humble opinion you only get something out of the likes of yell.com/rightmove and the other big boys if your a big company and you pay full whack!

[MoMoney]

All very well having the free listing but for a friend of mines business they wont change the office address from the registered address (my friends home) to the office address. If they can't even acknowledge and change simple issues like that it doenst inspire much confidence!

Depends who you call... ;)

My free listings aren't even businesses!!
in fact one is the BTL house I rent out now, just haven't got round to removing the listing.

Yell is moving operations to Reading lock stock and barrell.
When I used to work there the free listings were controlled from Slough; the reception number is 01753 553311.