Effectiveness of yellow pages listing?

[scratchy]

How is it going for all of you running a listing in the yellow pages? I have found these are the best customers yet. Wish everyone would let their fingers do the walking.

[Fasbreak]

I have a leader ad, which is four inches long and two inches wide. It is the second ad in the section. The book has only been out for 2 weeks and the calls just keep rolling in. I am very happy with my ad, however, next year I may go just a bit smaller. At the size I have it now it runs me $180.00 a month!

[StarQuest]

I was planning on running one last year until I found out how expensive it was. For the same size add as Fasbreak described they wanted $360 per month for my area Guess it's a Detroit thing.....bunch of crooks!!!!

Was thinking of advertising with the SuperPages online. Sure it's a whole lot cheaper too. Anybody tried this yet? Love to hear some responses! Yellow page books vs yellow pages online. Have a feeling that's the future ticket in our advertising. What do all you guys think?

[screenman]

Remember as I have said in previous posts speculate to accumalate. Is the cheaper option the best value for money in the long run try and work out how much each job costs you to do. If a advert costs $180.00 per month and gets you 10 jobs thats $18.00 per job if you only charge $25.00 is it worth doing.

100 jobs $1.80 yep its worth it then.

Personaly I have never advertised at all but then again I run my business using motor trade and fleet customers and do as much as I want to that way.

If you save 10% on advert costs and recieve 50% less calls then that saving is not cost effective.

I hope this reply does not insult anyones inteligence it is only to try and give you another view off the problem of getting advertisising right .

[StarQuest]

Screenman,

That's one good way of looking at it. I think Fasbreak and Scratchy are targeting the insurance calls through advertising in the pages which would yield $50-75 per repair without including additional hits. Guess we should all ask Fasbreak how many calls he gets per month with this type of advertising. For $180 per month I'd think he'd need at least 8-10 to be somewhat happy.

In my area I'd need 15-20 a month for $360 (doubt if that will ever happen) The big replacement companies in my area already offer both free glass repair & replacement on full color page ads. Don't think I can compete with them right now

I still believe online is the cheapest route in advertising, I know David C would second that

[screenman]

Starquest

I would have thought one of the biggest problems with advertising unless the customer is coming to you is decideing whether or not it is repairable and asking the customers the right questions to get the right answers I would imagine you would get a lot of calls from people wanting replacment or who had damage that was not repairable, you could waste a lot of time driving around.

Please give me your thoughts on this.

[Fasbreak]

I get about 10-15 calls a month through the book, otherwise its cold calling, refferals, or word of mouth. So far its worth it for $60-$70 per repair.

[gold star wsr]

Only mention I have in the phone book here is the one-liner the phone company gives me for having a business listing. But my situation is unusual. Our phone book is a conglomeration of many small towns 18 in all), some as far as 200 miles from me, with only 2 local prefix numbers, all the rest are long distance. So for me to advertise in the yellow pages would be a big waste of money. For the past 3 years, however, my friend and I have published a local directory which reaches our target market... specifically the local area... via direct mail. We are in what I call an advertising void here... too remote to benefit from any of the standard advertisment medium, but the directory is very beneficial to us.

[StarQuest]

Screenman,

You do bring up a good point. Although insurance work pays more per repair than fleet or rental account repairs it sometimes leads to wasted time, extra travel and disappointment. Nothing worse than driving 30 minutes to a repair, only to find out it needs to be replaced. I normally try to arrange insurance repairs within my daily service route to save time and travel but that's not always possible. For those special insurance trips I'll limit my travel like this....$50-$60/repair (up to 8 miles) and $65-$75/repair (up to 15 miles). I'll never exceed 20 mile drive for a insurance repair unless they have multiple vehicles that need repair or multiple hit's. In a big city like Detroit, 20 miles one way can take up to a hour with contruction and traffic. Not much fun or profit in that when you really put a pencil to it!

My bread and butter accounts are probably very similar to yours. Normal daily travel covers 65-85 mile round trips. They include a mix of truck and car rental centers, fleet trucking companies and the A & B used car lots (which have cars no older than 6 years old) I choose not to work the "C" lots (6 years and older cars) cause I usually find the damage is very contaminated or has been previously attempted. I currently average 5-8 insurance repairs per month through referrals or simply find them in the employees parking lot at my regular accounts. Those are always the most profitable since your already there

Fasbreak isn't doing to bad for a $180 monthly investment in advertising. I'm sure after a few more months he'll increase his insurance repairs up to 15-20. Can't make a living off that but I'm sure those few extra jobs help him out weekly if he can fit them into his daily scheduled stops.

Your probably right about having customers come to you when advertising. That seems like the ticket to really maximizing profits on insurance repair work. I've seen Optic-Kleer post some super nice tent setup pics....not sure how much he advertises in the UK in the books but would be interested in a response if he does.

[screenman]

Starquest
It is quite amazing how simular our businesses are I do however offer all the other services in smart repair its just that screen repair is the one I started first and the one I like the most.