Yellow Page Advertising Anyone?

An email from a window cleaner asking about his yellow page advertising:

Hello Steve,
 
I just have a couple quick questions for you. I just placed a ad in my local yellow pages the size of a dollar bill which is going to cost me 675.00 per month and also they are trying to sell me a website for $130.00 per month which includes marketing and in search engines(but no guarantee on placement)and a minimum of 240 clicks to my website over the year. my question is I am wondering if this sounds good as far as the website price.The name of the yellow pages is dex online.Also I am wondering if I am getting a little over my head on the whole yellow page thing. Could you tell me what you think. Also I know you said you aquired alot of customers in a short period of time. Could you give me some recommendations of how you did it. Hope your having a great day!!
 
Thank You,
 
Bret

My Response:

Hi Bret:
 
Good morning to you:
 
I think you're going in waaaaaay over your head at $675 per month.  You do realize that people price shop through the yellow pages, right?  My friend owned an insurance agency and he spent over $3k per month on a full page ad in the yellow pages, but for his business, that's what he needed to get the phone ringing.  Our market isn't like that.
 
My little $32 per month ad did me just fine with bringing in business, but it also left me lots of other dollars to promote my business in other ways.  So I would run a little yellow page ad like what I show in my manual and invest the rest in the numerous other techniques available to promote your window washing business.
 
$130 per month for a website?  It's a ripoff.  Heck for $19.95 as a member of my software program, The Customer Factor, I used to provide each member a free website. It may not have had all the bells and whistles, but it did what it was supposed to do. It was a real deal. $130 per month is not.
 
As a side note, 240 clicks to your website is window dressing.  It sounds nice, but are they really "targeted clicks"?  How do you know that those clicks are from actual homeowners interested in your window cleaning services?  The answer is that you don't.
 
And there definitely cannot be any guarantee on search engine placement.  Are you familiar with the search engines?  I spend quite a bit of time doing search engine optimization, and the vast majority of SEO is acquiring links back to your site.  Only 15 to 20% has to do with on-page optimization like keyword density.  The rest is all about off-page optimization like link building which I just mentioned.  So the bottom line is that when the yellow page rep talks about marketing in the search engines, they're talking about including some keywords on your webpages.  Because they surely are not going to go out and get links for you.  So again…you don't need to spend $130 a month for this.  Wow!  They are really ripping off an unsuspecting public.
 
As far as your last question about "getting customers fast"…my customers were acquired in a variety of different ways, anyone of them can result in "fast customers". I did a lot of postcard mailings to generate immediate phone calls.  I also went out every saturday morning with 2 to 3 kids and blanketed neighborhoods with flyers.  I also belonged to a business breakfast organization.  I also had maid services and other service businesses feed me business.  I also had newsletter ads placed in newsletters in certain developments.  Then I also had a yellow page ad-$32 per month, not $675 per month.  So as you see, it was a multitude of things that kept the phone ringing.

You can review chapter 7 in my manual and all past newsletters also for more information on this.
 
Hope this helps.  The stuff above may not be what you want to hear as far as your yellow page advertising, but I just don't like it when a yellow page rep tries to rip someone off. They wouldn't know what a window cleaner looks like if we fell on their head. What they do is make assumptions and assign those assumptions to ALL businesses when they try and sell you yellow page space. Therefore bigger must be better, right? Not true. Well…I guess I won't be getting Christmas cards from yellow page reps anytime soon.  :o) Oh well. 
 
Take care for now. Talk soon.
 
Regards,
 
Steve