Are Yellow Page Ads Antiquated in This Day and Age?

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SweetiePie

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I passed on purchasing ads this year and thought I might have made a mistake until I went to the post office and saw bins of untaken Yellow Page directories in March.
 

Morticia

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It depends on whether or not you do a lot of local business, which we don't. Everyone finds us online. Most locals (here) who are looking for a place to stay, immediately gravitate to hotels, so even if we were in the Yellow Pages, they'd skip right over us.
I do have to say that there are quite a lot of businesses here that have no web presence at all except in the yellow pages online. Mkaes me nuts trying to find them!
 

EmptyNest

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When was the last time you looked at the yellow pages to find a B & B?? We NEVER advertised in yellow pages...it was such a hassle to get into ours we said the heck with it. I don't think we lost any business because of it.
 

Morticia

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When was the last time you looked at the yellow pages to find a B & B?? We NEVER advertised in yellow pages...it was such a hassle to get into ours we said the heck with it. I don't think we lost any business because of it..
catlady said:
When was the last time you looked at the yellow pages to find a B & B?? We NEVER advertised in yellow pages...it was such a hassle to get into ours we said the heck with it. I don't think we lost any business because of it.
I mentioned that because she has said she does teas, too. So a listing in with restaurants might work.
 

JunieBJones (JBJ)

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Obsolete. Look at the stats of how many people are on high speed internet these days? Not worth the money for a B&B, unless you also are a restaurant or cater to locals. Then I would consider it.
 

Samster

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Unless you're providing services for the locals, no need to list in the Yellow Pages. We get almost all our guests via the Internet or our C&VB.
 

scrambled_eggs

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I have gotten a few referrals from the Yellow Pages. We don't pay to be in the Yellow Pages in our phone book we are in there for free. Not sure why you would need to pay unless you are paying that comapany that always is trying to scam people to get listed.
 

EmptyNest

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I have gotten a few referrals from the Yellow Pages. We don't pay to be in the Yellow Pages in our phone book we are in there for free. Not sure why you would need to pay unless you are paying that comapany that always is trying to scam people to get listed..
If you want more than just the one line listing you must pay THE YELLOW pages.
 

springlady

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The Yellow Pages was a must for my store - when I asked, most of my customers said they found me there. But I think the Yellow Pages would be a complete waste of money unless you're trying to generate local business like teas, a wedding venue, and so on. Odd that you saw them thrown away in the post office - in my area they're delivered door to door... I wonder if those were extras?
 

SweetiePie

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The Yellow Pages was a must for my store - when I asked, most of my customers said they found me there. But I think the Yellow Pages would be a complete waste of money unless you're trying to generate local business like teas, a wedding venue, and so on. Odd that you saw them thrown away in the post office - in my area they're delivered door to door... I wonder if those were extras?.
We're in a small town. That's how they distribute them. They don't deliver them door to door like the bigger cities.
 

Morticia

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The Yellow Pages was a must for my store - when I asked, most of my customers said they found me there. But I think the Yellow Pages would be a complete waste of money unless you're trying to generate local business like teas, a wedding venue, and so on. Odd that you saw them thrown away in the post office - in my area they're delivered door to door... I wonder if those were extras?.
We're in a small town. That's how they distribute them. They don't deliver them door to door like the bigger cities.
.
We get 6 different phone books here. The 'regular' local area phone book with white and yellow, then the 'regular' yellow pages, then the same setup for the big city nearby, then 2 more private companies that hand out phone books. In all, I think I get about 12-16 copies among them. I used to get 10 copies of EACH because they left them on the porch. I was home one day and refused delivery of more than 2 copies. So the supervisor had to call me (which they do anyway to be sure the books are being delivered) and I explained that, 'No, I am NOT putting all of these books in the guest rooms.'
Sometimes it's an auto dialer...'Press one if you received your phone book, press two if you did not.'
 

nanhinchliff

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SweetiePie said:
I passed on purchasing ads this year and thought I might have made a mistake until I went to the post office and saw bins of untaken Yellow Page directories in March.
I've been in business 15 years and haven't placed an ad in the yellow pages in around 12 years. No one here in Louisville does. We are all over the internet and googling will bring us all up on the internet. It's a technological world!!
 

gillumhouse

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I have never listed in the Yellow Pages and the B & B is not even listed in the phone book. I am a residence so we are listed under our name - not the B & B (commercial phone is $$$$$$$$$$$$$). As everyone else has said, the days of pulling into town with a fistful of dimes and getting the Yellow Pages to find a room are long over.
 

JunieBJones (JBJ)

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I have never listed in the Yellow Pages and the B & B is not even listed in the phone book. I am a residence so we are listed under our name - not the B & B (commercial phone is $$$$$$$$$$$$$). As everyone else has said, the days of pulling into town with a fistful of dimes and getting the Yellow Pages to find a room are long over..
gillumhouse said:
I have never listed in the Yellow Pages and the B & B is not even listed in the phone book. I am a residence so we are listed under our name - not the B & B (commercial phone is $$$$$$$$$$$$$). As everyone else has said, the days of pulling into town with a fistful of dimes and getting the Yellow Pages to find a room are long over.
We are a commercial number as we had to preserve the number. I hate it. I wonder if that is why we get so many more stupid waste of time marketing phone calls than some of you?
 

YellowSocks

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I have never listed in the Yellow Pages and the B & B is not even listed in the phone book. I am a residence so we are listed under our name - not the B & B (commercial phone is $$$$$$$$$$$$$). As everyone else has said, the days of pulling into town with a fistful of dimes and getting the Yellow Pages to find a room are long over..
gillumhouse said:
I have never listed in the Yellow Pages and the B & B is not even listed in the phone book. I am a residence so we are listed under our name - not the B & B (commercial phone is $$$$$$$$$$$$$). As everyone else has said, the days of pulling into town with a fistful of dimes and getting the Yellow Pages to find a room are long over.
Same here.
And yes, it may reduce my marketing phone calls some.
=)
Kk.
 

DaisyMae

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to the best of our knowledge, not one of our guests has ever located us in the yellow pages. it's just not that day & age anymore. i guess you could think that someone who might be a "walk in" could grab a phone book somewhere & look up inns but on the other hand it seems like "walk ins" more or less just drive around stopping at places & checking on the vacancy situation.
 

DaisyMae

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{We are a commercial number as we had to preserve the number. I hate it. I wonder if that is why we get so many more stupid waste of time marketing phone calls than some of you?}
Speaking of waste of time phone calls. i get these ones, just received one as a matter of fact, that on the caller i.d. shows up as 0000000. there is never anyone on the other end. a few times i have gotten one that said something like 021- 011 & it was a reservation from a foreign country.
 

scrambled_eggs

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I forgot that you do pay for having an actual ad in the yellow pages but never even thought of that of having an ad like that. We are just listed automatically under the bed and breakfast section with the name and number. The phone number is a commercial number but doesn't cost anymore than a residential number. Actually AT & T gives a better deals to commercial numbers in terms of the features that phone can have and the price is very reasonable. I sure do get a lot of 000-000-0000 calls and unknown numbers, probably 5 a day sometimes. I hang up on them right away or I don't even answer them. I would love to get that feature where unknown or private numbered calls don't ring through unless the caller presses 1 to identify themselves. I really hate private number calls coming in.
 

egoodell

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We are still listed under our last name, but I think I need to be listed under the inn. I'm afraid that someone will lose our card and not be able to find our number if they get lost or something.
It's good to hear the listing under the business section is not more expensive! I guess I'll have to get on it!
Riki
 

Morticia

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We are still listed under our last name, but I think I need to be listed under the inn. I'm afraid that someone will lose our card and not be able to find our number if they get lost or something.
It's good to hear the listing under the business section is not more expensive! I guess I'll have to get on it!
Riki.
egoodell said:
We are still listed under our last name, but I think I need to be listed under the inn. I'm afraid that someone will lose our card and not be able to find our number if they get lost or something.
It's good to hear the listing under the business section is not more expensive! I guess I'll have to get on it!
Riki
If you buy an ad you pay. Around here there is no cost to have just the name and phone number listed. However, in VT it was something like $100/month.
 
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