Yellow Pages

Phone books delivered to your door.

[pageoneresults]

How many of you still use a "printed" version of the Yellow Pages or White Pages for that matter?

In the last 6 months, I've received over 8 different printed directories at my doorstep. All 8 have found their way to the dumpsters with hundreds and thousands of others.

I'm watching two people now with canvas bags full of yellow pages. They are jogging down the street, one left, one right, with a van following them. All of us are getting another damn copy of someone's yellow pages. Tomorrow the trashcans will be full of them.

What a waste...

[simonuk]

I've looked at it once in the last few years and this was only because my internet connection was down :)

[inbound]

Billions of dollars worth of ad revenue for YP publishers says enough people use them. WebmasterWorld members are hardly average joe's when it comes to using the web.

Around $50 is spent by advertisers on print YP for every man, woman and child in the US!

[LifeinAsia]

There's a good reason why hard copies still exist. Not everyone uses the Internet. And not everyone who does use the Internet has the same level of sophistication and experience that WW members do. And not eveyone who does have our experience and sophistication leaves their computers on 24 hours/day.

If I want to make sure my business is in front of everyone online, I'll have to list it in numerous online yellow pages.

Of course there are multiple offline options as well- do I list in every single one? So do I focus on the big guys and assume that the little guys will give me a free standard listing because they need to have filler besides the ads they've sold?

[jsinger]

My guess is that 99% of YP advertisers don't audit the book's effectiveness. You can do that by assigning different phone numbers to different ads. Or you can ask callers to tell you the page number of the ad they're looking at.

Our limited tests indicate our local YP (and rates vary wildly by locale) is way overpriced.

YP advertisers tend to be small local businesses with little ability to test advertising. That should say something about their value. Of course, if you're a plumber or locksmith, they probably work well.

[monkeythumpa]

I had a lady in a focus group say, "I don't let them drop off the Yellow Pages anymore. I just Google it."

And this was a focus group of 35-55 year old small business owners in Denver. Similar comments all over the US, not just the urban, but rural internet users are a big slice of the pie. Not saying this is a phenomenon yet, but you might want to watch this internet. It might be big in the future.

[limbo]

We get a few leads a year from YP ads.