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Point of discussion: Do we buyers use the big Yellow Pages Book for major purchases anymore? I buy a lot of things, yet I can't remember the last time I "followed my fingers" (old advertising slogan). I need to make a decision to continue an expensive Yellow budget or rely on google/yahoo search engines. If any piano customers were to respond I would truly appreciate it!
Regards
Mike

When I am on a trip and am sitting around the hotel, one of the things I do is go to the yellow pages and look under pianos and organs and see what is available in that city. I know, wierd!! To me, it beats channel surfing!! LOL

I don't use the yellow pages for anything. My piano teacher advertised in YP for a few years, didn't get one call. My wife stopped advertising her business in YP because there was no response. I use Angie's list for all construction related things, web for everything else.

Good input. I enjoy out of towners. They always give a new perspective because they feel free to give opinions that locals may not. Whether to cater to the out of towners is a dilemna given the world is getting smaller due to to the WWW.
Regards
Mike

Let your fingers do the walkin' through the yellow pages...
It's the easy way to shop today!

NO

I don't use the yellow pages either. I have a business phone therefore, the ad the yellow pages gives me is very small but, it is also very free. So, I utilize that for only that reason.

When my ad was larger, I found that it mostly brought in price shoppers rather than real phone calls for appts. The real phone calls come from recommendations on my end most often but, some do come in from people actually telling me that they found me in the "phone book."

I've found since I went to the smaller ad many, many years ago, that some people tend to look at the smaller ads more than the larger ones. Not quite sure what makes that other than maybe they like the thought of a smaller ad or mom and pop business. Regardless, I get less price shoppers for sure too.

I throw yellow pages into the recycling bin as soon as they arrive. The web has killed this kind of advertising. Waste of money.

Yellow Pages are dead.

Especially with the younger generation. My kids - ages 30,32,34 - hardly know the Yellow Pages exist.

Same with newspapers, unfortunately.

I use www.dexknows.com for just about anything I want to buy from a local retailer. This is how I found the dealer where I bought my piano recently. There was a link to the dealers website with his ad on dex.
kadiddle

Add me to the list of folks who pretty much toss the yellow pages as soon as it arrives (toss == recycle of course). For a while the only reason I would retain it was to get the Dominoes and Pizza Hut coupons in the back. But now you can get those online as well.

I would think a piano retailer's customer base would generally be more inclined to look online.

Advertising in the Yellow Pages is expensive (especially these days, when cities will have MULTIPLE yellow page directories and you have to buy ads in each of them), so when I see a business with a full-page ad, I immediately think to myself "they're going to have to charge me more just to pay their overhead," and then I make my first call to the place with the smaller ad.

Though I mostly use the web, I do check the yellow pages once in awhile. When I see the huge ads, I think the advertiser must be desperate for business. I'm one of the those that gravitates towards the small ads. My thinking is that they are a local company. Usually I use word of mouth for shopping and services.

Thanks all. This confirmed the decision I was leaning toward. If you want to see sales pressure, get across the desk from a Dex sales pro who handles the bigger accounts. He pitied me for my business' funeral, which was inevitably going to occur due to this one fatal decision.
Regards
Mike

Most of the professionals who have opted to advertise with us have told me it's the best money they've spent in years.

I don't mean just with Piano World (I'm obviously a bit biased), but with the Internet in general. (of course, if you'd like to consider advertising on the Internet's most popular web site www.PianoWorld.com/advertising

That said, you can throw away a ton of money without solid measurable results if you don't know what you are doing.

Google/Yahoo/MSN will be happy to take your money.

In addition to being the founder/host of Piano World, I've been an Internet Marketing/SEO/SEM consultant for about 10 years now.

I once consulted for a company that was spending nearly $50,000 a month on PPC, and didn't have a way to measure the results.

That's just throwing good money away.

If you are going to concentrate on Internet advertising, hire someone who knows what they are doing.

I still use the yellow pages on a daily basis - but once I get an artist's bench that'll adjust to my son's height, they'll probably never be used again.

That said, you're asking a self-selected group of Internet people, and the answers you get on PW may not match what you'd get from the general public.

Still, I suspect that what others have said is correct, that the yellow pages are dead.

I think the small local phone book, that is subdivided into communities in about a 15 mile radius, is still useful. What is the amount of home internet usage in your selling area?

MAKitt,

For what it's worth (my two cents) I found the piano dealer that I eventually purchased my piano from on the internet. However, when I'm travelling on business I will use the yellow pages in the hotel to find local piano stores to visit.

John

The yellow pages have killed themselves by letting the advertising overwhelm the information.

Thanks for the chuckle

I still have Yellow Page ads. Very small compared to 10 years ago. I surly don't count on it, but I have it in case someone is trying to find us and can't remember our name. Believe it or not "Verhnjak" is a hard one to remember

All my advertising is focused on getting out my web site.

Years ago almost every other person came in from the YP. Today I feel it is throwing money out to have anything more than a listing.