Customer Reviews

Getting the Most From Your Yellow Pages Advertising, Second Edition: Maximum Profits at Minimum Cost

5 star:		(63)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What is wrong with this picture? The yellow page industry's annual sales figures are a mind boggling eleven to twelve billion dollars. Shouldn't the reader therefore conclude that dozens of books are constantly rolling off the presses devoted to this topic? Yet, I diligently searched for all the books and writings concerning yellow pages advertising---and this 2nd updated edition printed in 1997 is the most recent and comprehensive one that I could locate! What's more, according to Amazon.com's sales figures this book is not even close to being a best seller. Barry Maher has a virtual monopoly because of an apparent lack of interest. He focuses on the small to mid size companies who usually don't seem to spend five minutes a year figuring out their marketing strategy. The author brilliantly goes into a great deal of specific advice concerning why and when one should purchase an add in a particular yellow pages segment. Should one buy an ad in a "core" directory published by the local telephone utility, or might an independent publisher be more appropriate? Maher answers that placing an ad in the core book is usually mandatory. He quickly adds, though, that the independent offerings might also make economic sense. The independents may not obtain an equal number of responses, but their lower cost and impressive distribution figures often make them a great bargain.

What about a business to business yellow pages? In which circumstance is this the right choice for a business? How big should an ad be? Who should design the ad? Should the buyer pay extra for color? Is the price negotiable? How does one gauge success or failure? Why purchase an ad now if the book will not be released until later in the year? Barry Maher addresses these and other pertinent issues. He even comments briefly, but perspicaciously upon the new phenomenon of Internet yellow pages. This book absolutely should not be ignored. I suspect that too many entrepreneurs fail to seriously consider about how best to effectively market their products and services. A careless hit and miss approach is often the full extent of their willingness to invest time and energy in a matter of such overwhelming importance. "We aren't big enough to advertise," is an excuse commonly uttered. Maher rightfully points out that you don't advertise because you are big, but because you desire to become big. Ralph Waldo Emerson supposedly (or at least he gets the blame) said that the the world will beat a path to your door if you build a better mousetrap. Unfortunately, in the real world nobody knocks on the front door, regardless of your firm's excellent qualities, if they have never heard of you. Many companies go bankrupt solely due to abysmal marketing habits. Another good book to purchase is -The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook- by Jay Levinson & Seth Godin. They also have an excellent chapter dedicated to yellow page advertising.

Don't buy any phone directory advertising until you've read this book!!! Whatever you get will work better and you won't overspend or underspend or buy anything that's useless.

GETTING THE MOST FROM YOUR YELLOW PAGES ADVERTISING is a truly valuable book for any small business that advertises. Before opening my shop, I spent two years working for a directory company. But I learned more about yellow pages advertising from this book than I learned in that whole time. Plus the book is funny and always interesting.

GETTING THE MOST FROM YOUR YELLOW PAGES is the perfect step by step plan for increasing the results of your directory advertising and your small business marketing in general. The book made me laugh and what I learned made me money.

This book made me money and saved me money while doing it. If that author ever reads this I'd like to offer him a large "thank you" and tell him that he's got a fan for life.

I've been advertising in the yellow pages for almost 20 years. I spend a lot of money, so I've checked all every resource I could find. This is the best, by far.

Not with the book, havn't read it yet. But with Amazon. This book has a 19.95 cover price and they are charging $47 on their half site. It looks like they paid the original owner half - about 8.50. Since the description didn't list the original list price, I feel this that the pricing charged is very deceptive. I've completely lost trust now with this company, and all for a few dollars. Not very smart if you ask me.

When you're looking for good, solid, objective information for advertisers on yellow pages advertising, look carefully. There is so much BAD information out there, information that's at best useless, and at worst misleading in a way that will cost you money and make your advertising LESS effective. On the other hand, there's a reason TIME magazine called the author of "Getting the Most from Your Yellow Pages Advertising" the leading expert on advertising in the yellow pages.

Look carefully at some of the other, supposedly-objective sources of yellow pages information. Personally, if I was looking for objective information, I would be very wary about any book or booklet that's written by a yellow pages publisher or by somebody that works for a yellow pages publisher. Yellow pages publishers are more than happy to give you their propaganda for free. Why pay for it just because it's in book form? For the same reason, I probably wouldn't pay for anything on yellow pages written by an advertising medium that competes with yellow pages, like a newspaper or magazine. Why pay for a sales pitch that's going to tell you basically to stop advertising in the yellow pages and buy advertising their product?

The beauty of this book is that it is written FOR THE ADVERTISER, by an author who has no axe to grind, "the leading independent consultant on the subject," as TIME says, who's "helped thousands of small businesses get the most effective and cost-effective yellow pages advertising possible." This is the same author who wrote the Prentice Hall Marketing Yearbook series.

In my "Books for Business" column, I've reviewed other books by Maher, and I've never seen any sign of any hidden agenda that he's trying to sell the reader. That's probably because he's got nothing else to sell besides the information he collects and provides in his books. (One other supposedly-objective book on yellow pages for example, acually says that businesses should buy ads in every possible phone directory, that every one of these directories work great, even the worst of them. No statistics are given to support this claim, but it turns out the book is written by a person who works for a company that publishes one of those directories. And that's their sales pitch: "you should buy an big ad in our directory because you should buy a big an in every directory."

Of course, it's not the author's money going into a directory that nobody might be reading, it's yours.

There's another book out there based almost entirely on advertising theories that have been consistently and repeated discredited by research. That doesn't bother the author, he's not familiar with that research or apparently any other.

All the author of "Getting the Most from Your Yellow Pages" has got to sell is the the best available information, based on the best available research. That's why this is considered THE book on yellow pages advertising.

Rating $$$$$

Books for Business Ratings

$$$$$ A Must-Read, Invaluable

$$$$ Well Worth the Investment

$$$ Some Worthwhile Content

$$ Invest Your Money Elsewhere

$ Demand a Refund

With the kind of money I spend on yellow pages, I've been through it all, and this is the best available information on how to advertise in the yellow pages and get the best possible results.

This book really goes beyond yellow pages. It's tells you how to set an advertising budget and gives a number of solid insights into promoting a business in general. The ad design and ad copy chapter alone is worth many times the price of the book.