Hi all, I have just had a badgering phone call from Yell.com. I have a free ad with their online services, which, if I'm honest, has got me bugger all.
I had tried the free offer about 18 months ago (get 30 days free, 2 areas), which got me a grand total of 2 calls.
I have just had another marketing call, and after listening to the usual marketing crap, have gathered that they are changing their search options to be linked to keywords, more like google so that accountants and bookkeepers can specify what services they offer (so if someone is looking for auditing or forensic accounting, it will just bring up the accountants who offer those services, they won't be wasting their or my time ringing me).
Part of the yell marketing spiel is that they are no longer allowed to sell products that they do not know will give returns. They have said that they can cover my immediate local area (3 towns and rural areas inbetween) for £11 per month for 10 months, which is quite good, or a wider coverage for £28 including a city, which is about the same price as before. However, this salesperson has stated that from recent monitoring, yell has really taken off, as have internet searches blah de blah, and he can guarantee that just advertising in my local area for £11 will guarantee approx 100 extra views on my site per month, and about 1/3 of them will follow through to telephone me directly.
It all sounds quite good in theory, even if I secure one client in the first month, the bill is paid, but I am skeptical about his promises considering my last experience, I cannot believe they have come on that far. They do not offer an opt out clause in the case he is talking crap, it's one year or nothing. I know £110 for a year is not a lot of money, but if it is money wasted, I would rather spend it elsewhere.
I have a website that has quite a high listing in if someone searches for an accountant or bookkeeper in my local area anyway, and am not sure if people actually use yell.com anymore as opposed to google. Does anyone use Yell for their advertising at present, and have any feedback?
my own impression is that everyone googles and Yell is dying. But that's just my opinion and others may have different one's.
Personally if I want absolutely anything the first place that I go is google.
I'm pretty sure that yell must be getting desperate by now as where once they were the first port of call they seem to have dropped off many peoples radars completely.
Personally I'm sixth on the list of local bookkeepers on the Yell site where I've been for the past three and a bit years and I've yet to receieve a single call which originated from Yell.... Well, cash generating call anyway. I get lots trying to sell me insurance and software and temporary staff and offsite backups... etc. etc.
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Shaun
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That's probably where they are getting these call-through stats, which makes sense. They maybe can guarantee many calls, but that's not much good if most of them are are companies trying to sell me stuff. I know from last time I tried advertising with them they give you a different telephone number, which I do not really like, but it enabled them to track any telephone calls made to the company via the yell ad.
I would use google myself personally. I have one client who works in fire protection did quite well out of yell, but there are less of his profession in this area, and he paid about £1300 for the full works which included a sponsored listing, so he was top of the list every search. There are lots of accountants and bookkeepers, and from what I can see, sponsored listings in my area are quite well sown up with the big high street firms from all over, not just my local area.
The old phonebook was better, people did tend to look more at all listings and not just the top few. I might give it a miss then, spent my £100 elsewhere.
I advertised with Yell.com last year. Number of phone calls 0.
They also gave away a basic website created by them. Probably did more harm than good, as most of the detail was wrong, and/ or misspelt, plus it never appeared in any position on a search engine.
He certainly was, I couldn't get a word in edgeways. I must have said to him 3 times that if it was paid advertising, I wasn't interested. I do feel a bit sorry for these guys though, a friend of mine got a job with them promising a good wage but then discovered after going through the screening and interviews that it was commission only. Nobody likes a hard sell though, especially when they call and you are in the middle of an something. Yell are maybe getting desperate and are training their staff to use this method.
Wella, their websites are crap. My friend used Yell for hers, they charged her £300 for one page, with a blurry picture on it and a few lines of writing. They also took control of her domain name as well, which I had a lot of hassle getting transferred over. I redesigned it as a favour, I am by no means a website designer, but after gaining control of her domain, I was still able to knock up a basic 3 page site in an hour and a half that was tons better.
Just wondering about Google adwords, does it work out expensive? I was thinking of moving more into the South of Ireland with my payroll. I know it is pay per click, but I don't want to end up with a massive bill with no definite leads. Can you control the amount of budget you have, ie could you stop the ad once it reaches a set limit?
-- Edited by mushroom on Thursday 21st of July 2011 12:00:19 PM
