Ok it is that time of the year around here where the yellow pages folks are pounding down our doors trying to sell us ads. This past year we passed on the ads since they were so expensive. My question to y'all is have any of you had good or bad experiences advertising your services this way? They are talking $200-300 per MONTH for an ad. I can't help but wonder if that money could be better spent on the net but we certainly could use the local market as well. Ideas/comments?

The yellow pages is a waste of money. this is our personal experience and similar for most of my business relations. remember they are comission driven sales-as such they will promise you 'the phone will be ringing', but it wont.
this tactic was recently used on one friend who fell for it. Is the pnone ringing? NO.......and it wont. save your money and spend the 200/month on a good affilaite program like cj etc...

I know several people with ads in the yellow pages in the UK and they get lots of people phoning them, the only thing is these people are trying to sell them something and not wanting to buy something.

I suppose if we were all a different business it might work better. If I'm looking for a plumber, or an electrician I'll grab the yellow pages before I go looking online. If I'm looking for hosting, or an ISP I'll be online checking them out. I tried a bit of local advertising a while ago to get some design work... Lots of trouble for little result, and the resulting clients I did get proved to be some of the most difficult I've ever had *lol*

Greg Moore

I am just trying to find a way to reach the local market. We are located in a city that has a population of almost 100,000 but is quite underdeveloped when it comes to the net. I should mention we are designers who recently got into the hosting market as a result of customer demand. So some of the clients we are trying to reach are not web savvy at all. We do well on the net in terms of clients but the local market seems hit and miss as most people do not know we exist! Course we do not have the time or manpower to send out sales teams either <grin>. We have also considered focused direct mail but that is also expensive even though we can advertise both design and hosting.

*just thinking*

I know a company locally here that put up posters around the CBD in places like the local shopping center etc. It's not too large around here either (around 40 000 or so). I can't say how well it worked but a lot of people must have seen them, and at the very least put the company name into their heads. They went for a nice glossy, colorful look and it was very noticable when you walked past it.

I suppose it despends on the local laws for poster advertising, but there's probably a noticeboard in your local shopping center. Maybe some local computer stores would allow you to put something in their windows.

Don't know how well that grabs you, but it's a pretty cheap altnernative, and very effective in a small area if it's done correctly. If the budget stretches maybe a letterbox drop with flyers?

# I used to do a little monthy nightclub once and our advertising was totally dependant on poster advertising so I know it does work. :)

Greg Moore

Thanks for the thoughts we are using many of those techniques now and will continue to do so. Problem is there seems to be a big jump from those methods to other more traditional methods (Billboard $500 per month, Radio $300-500 per month, Direct Mailing $1000 for one shot, TV (ha! like we could even look at that!)). So we are simply trying to maximize our ROI given this is a significant jump in our advertising budget. I have heard all sorts of stories of people spending $2-5 grand and getting a whopping 3 clients or so which we would really like to avoid! We are willing to spend the money just want to maximize it and hopefully not learn everything the hard way <grin>.

Hi..Not sure if you have them in your community but we do here in San Antonio.
They are small community papers, and ads are next to nothing to run for a week at a time. The community papers are either delivered or can be picked up at the local small stores, such as 7-11 or Stop-N-Go.
Another possibility is to look around online for your own community and see what they have online...you can probably find lots of free sites to run an ad in, or a biz announcement or something.
Good Luck

akashik

i had to laugh at your line
"Lots of trouble for little result, and the resulting clients I did get proved to be some of the most difficult I've ever had *lol* "

I thought i was the only one with clients fighting over the color of a hover button--i also had requests to set up shopping carts with 200 items for less than 500$ and by the way they wanted it yesterday. Since then if i have problem prospects like that i dont return requests for info, phone calls etc. life is too short.

MadMax82--stay away from goto.com also its a p******
contest with no winner!

:)

Network, network, network! Especially if you're looking for local business. I know it's old-fashioned, but it works!

I got my first few web design clients from people I know, who happened to own small businesses, which is my specialty. They in turn told their friends about me, etc. etc. Very soon I was turning DOWN business (and referring it...another great way to network) because of time constraints.

Also, you might want to check with your local chamber of commerce to see if they have any programs for small businesses. And your local paper for business meetings, business-related organizations, etc. Join them, make friends, and talk.

Big advertising bucks don't always mean big results, especially for an online business trying to get local clients.

Since we're on the topic of advertising, anyone tried out micro$oft's bcentral.com service for advertising? I'm sort of tempted to try them out for a month but am worried that they might just fill my impressions with remaining inventory from their linkexchange sites...

any advice would be greatly appreciated :)

We have used them and had a clickthrough rate of .2%. Not exactly what I would call overwhelming. Also if you do put a banner on your site in addition to the "business builder" membership you sometimes find competitors banners on your site! It appears some people misclassify themselves on purpose in their system.

Heh, that is something you have to watch with those banner exchanges. Kinda distracting for your visitor who is looking at your prices to see a big flashing banner that says:

"Unlimited Space, Unlited Transfer - ONLY $3.99/mo!!!"

DOH! :)

Yeah, i'll give them a miss for the meantime
Thanks :)

Originally posted by miami_g

I thought i was the only one with clients fighting over the color of a hover button


Oh gawd... don't get me started!! *grin* One of the better examples was a site for some packaging product company who *understandably* needed their logo to be the 'exact' color of their IRL letterheads (not even going to get into RGB Vs CMYK colors).

Anyway I has it exact so posted a demo.. No, it turns out it needs to be a little different. Not lighter, darker, pinker, bluer.... different. Ok, I try again tweaking here and there.... still not quite right. Decided to move some text around and repost it exactly the same (colorwise). *Almost* happy now that the colors were better *Sheesh*

As it turned out after two weeks of fighting over the color of the one graphic for the index page I ran out of time (left the country for 3 months), so I had to can the deal. I can only imagine how long it would have taken!

I checked the site a few months ago just to see if anyone else had picked it up. It's been done *badly* by someone and to the best of my knowledge looks to be using the same colors as the ones I'd been using. :) - In fact I have a sneaking suspicion the are *my* graphics, altered a little bit. I figure if it helped some poor guy get that site over and done with quicker he can have them *lol*.

On a side note, I read a story a while ago where some guy had to design 57 copies of a site (full site I might add), all the same, but using different color combinations so the client could see them and then choose one. Supposedly she chose 'brown and periwinkle' which was such a foul combination he walked out of the deal and didn't even ask to be paid.

Greg Moore

Originally posted by AppleCider
Network, network, network!

That's very sage advice too. I get a lot of referrals from clients, so it's something to aim at. Maybe go to Yahoo and go through the business listings till you get to your local area and see which busniesses are already online, and check out their hosts. If they are at a more expensive host, email them mentioning you're local and can offer something cheaper. Try to make it personal so it doesn't seem like spam. (yeah that VERY fine line).

If you get some, and they are happy wander past their business after a month or so and maybe strike up a conversation with them. If things go well mention you're the owner of the hosting company *yadda yadda*... I'm pretty sure most people would love to put a face to their hosting solution. It might lead to more recommendations too.

I'd recommend the first bit of this, the second half may be hit or miss.

Greg Moore

Originally posted by akashik
Try to make it personal so it doesn't seem like spam. (yeah that VERY fine line).

Greg, I've always wondered about this. I'm sure we've all picked up biz cards, and really, sending someone an email shouldn't automatically be catagorized as 'spam' yet I would be afraid it would be lumped in there anyhow. :(

We also have wondered about this. We of course come across various local company e-mail addresses but have refrained from unsolicited contact for fear of being lumped as spammers. We even thought about calling them rather than e-mailing them or using a targeted direct mail approach once we have done the research. It's funny both of those methods appear to be far more accepted than the personalized e-mail. We have yet to get unsolicited local stuff (other than resume stuff) it all seems to be the mass mailings. Speaking of which what about opt-in e-mail lists? Thoughts?

Yes, it's a bit of a sad world indeed where people are afraid to approach others via email in case of being labeled spammers. I email sites when I see they may have a use for a webdesigner, and have found people generally respond well if you follow a few rules.

1. Never use a generic email. Always write them from scratch to each company. I reduces any feeling that you've said the same thing to anyone else.

2. Always mention the company and the actual website URL (and site name). This at least proves you went to their site in the first place.

3. Be humble. Explain fully why you're emailing them. Don't just email them with a 'teaser'. People tend to react a lot better when they know the ball is in their court.

4. Be concise, and make sure your grammar and spelling is correct. People want to deal with adults. If you aren't one, at least sound like one.

Recently I've had email in my box regarding 'opt in' mailing lists. I've never yet opted in. I generally lump them into the wonderful world of spam. This is due to the sad practise of the spam-hounds using a genuine attempt at reducing spam (the opt-in), as yet another way to try to confirm email addresses. I know of a few of these opt-in emails that have told me I would only recieve it once unless I wanted to hear from them again, only to have the same email sent to me a week later saying the same thing.

It may possibly work and be regarded as an ok thing by most people. I can only speak from my rather insanely jaded, nasty personal view on email in general *lol*

It's a tough call though and my original mention of it a few posts ago still stands. As a companies online reputation is worth striving to gain, it's very easy to unravel all the good work. A nice 'softly, softly' approach is usually ok. Any hint of it being an advertisment as such usually spells disaster. I think most people can tell the difference between a mass mailing and a single personal email from one business person to another.

OH!! Subject line!! I usually just type in their URL plus website. eg:

to: akashik@akashik.net
subject: akashik.net website

or something like that.. I'd stay well away from a subject like:

subject: I HAVE A GREAT OFFER FOR YOU!!!

Would it be off-topic to ask what everyone else does when they contact people via email? I don't claim to be an expert at all... It's just what seems to work for me. I'd love to hear other ideas though as one of the hardest parts of this whole net.game is getting your site out there to other people who would have a use for it.

Greg Moore

Greg, sounds good. And the subject line tip is something to look at closely. We all know what, "Have I got a deal for you!" is gonna be, heh.

Using an email address like 45fgrt537yhf5437jd6@yahoo.com wouldn't be a good idea either heh. Also, maybe a message at the bottom:

--------------------------------------------------
Remove Instructions:
There are no remove instructions, you aren't on a list, so there's nothing to unsubscribe to. I am sending you this email to you personally after noticing that you are in our area. If you are interested in the services we offer, or have something you think we'd be interested in, please feel free to let us know. We believe in local networking and prefer to deal with local businesses, and hope that you feel the same way.

Name
email address
-----------------------------------------


what do you guys/gals think?

Despite your best intentions with email, it only takes one grumpy webmaster to cry "spam" and your day is ruined. Even email personalised to the webmaster in question wasn't too successful when we last tried it.

Since they're in your local area, why not telemarket them? The telemarketer can simply offer to email the information (getting around the "too busy to talk" excuse). If they are expecting your email, it's less likely to end up in the trashcan immediately. And the email it could never be considered spam because they have given you permission.

I also second Akashik and Chicken's pointers - make it look as un-spamlike as possible!

Back to the offline advertising, I once ran an ad for an Australian shopping site which took up the entire bottom section at the back of the Australian Financial Review (a popular paper in these parts). Despite costing A$2500, the number of sales it generated was about the same as the results from our regular email newsletter mailout to around 8000 subscribers.

Hope that helps.