Is Yellow Pages advertising any good?

I tend to agree. I have not bothered to renew my Yellow Pages add this year as the number of new patients entering the practice via this advertising was too small to justify the cost. My mind was really made up by the very pushy sales women who kept trying to tell me that it was worth spending the money, despite the fact that I keep stats which were showing the opposite. The best bit was when she tried to tell me that I needed to advertise in yellow pages so that "existing patients know how to find me". igs::hammer:igs:

 

Tend to agree with Simon here. Similarly I have not re-advertised this year (who knows they may try and attract me back with a discount next year )

Ironically though, since saying no, the last five new pts have come from Yellow pages! I wonder if they are sending them round to soften me up!

Ian

 

Strangely experience is the opposite.
The Yellow Pages is a major source of new patients (I've been in practice 20 years), especially verruca patients (as my advert specifically says I treat them).
I don't find a colour advert is any more effective than a Black and White one though...
I always ask every new patient how they heard of me and got my phone number.

Interesting...

Cheers,

Robin.

 

We have same experience as Robin. Have found yellow pages to be cost effective. We take out a black and white box advert each year. It pays for itself.

 

Hi,
Another positive experience, very good results for about£500 per annum.
May have done better as "AARDVARK PODIATRY"
Dave Cluderay

 

80% of our new clients come from Yellow Pages.

 

I have advertised in Yellow Pages for the last 9 years.

The returns on the ad. aren't bad & I find it pays for itself, when a new patient attends via a YP ad. they are usually the source of further referrals which is always encouraging. (always ask newbies where/how they found me)

IMO waste of money ads are those in the local papers. The only response I appear to receive from those is from other agencies selling me more advertising space!

Does my head in frankly :bang:

Roll on summer

Bah Humbug :santa2:

 

Each person to thier own of course, your location may effect what works best for you.
We have found between the local paper which is huge for us and our website we are reducing then droping the yellowpages as a result of cost effectiveness/sales results

 

In France, advertising is forbidden for health professions ......

 

Hello frederic,

How do you locate phone Nos.? eg Dentists, GPs etc.

Regards :drinks

 

In fact, the size of the text is the same one for everyone


and only name, surname, address, telephone number

for example (dentists) :

at "Quoi Qui" (what, who in french) write dentiste and at "Où" (where) write Angers (it is the town where I live) and then click on "trouver" (find in french)
http://www.pagesjaunes.fr/trouverlesprofessionnels/rechercheClassique.do;jsessionid=FB0F473E583D936ACA973EE12D105DA6.yas04g:sinking:

 

It used to be like that in Australia and New Zealand last century when the Registration Board's were very prescriptive when and how you could advertise...its was silly :hammer:

 

Hello all,

i use the yellow pages and local Thomsons direct although i only use the free listing section as it does not cost. 5% of new patients

i feel the best advertising is good all fasioned word of mouth!! 95% of new patients

cheers
scott

 

Craig, It wasn't the Boards, it was the Legislation

 

I aggree with scott the best form off advertising is by word off mouth, I have advertised in yellow pages and have 1 new client.

lynn

 

I find that 95% of new patients come via Yellow Pages. I take out an ad in a corporate box with other practitioners, which gives us all a discount, and it pays for itself,
regards
Dido

 

We have gradually reduced our spending on yellow pages (Book) over the last 3 years. Depends who you are looking for and what area you are in. Online is far more cost effective for us as we are in a commercial/office area.

South Australia seems to have a huge amount of large colour ad's compared to NSW (despite a considerable population difference)

 

I think it's worth keeping a presence of sorts, as some people do still use it round my way. I always audit my referrals and what I have noticed this year is a significant increase in patients using google to find me. Another interesting thing is that increasing the profile of my ad by upgrading to a larger full colour ad and subscribing to yell.com made absolutely no difference to the number of referrals over the past 2 years. So next year I am dropping down to a very basic listing in the paper directory only, and using the savings to improve my practice website.

 

I tend to get at least 2 or 3 new referals a week from the yellow pages, which makes it gret value for money as my monthy subscription is only £12 !! The only problems i have is with the pushy sales staff who will try to confuse you with sales jargan. Stick to the basics!

 

[/QUOTE]South Australia seems to have a huge amount of large colour ad's compared to NSW (despite a considerable population difference)[/QUOTE]

Monkey see Monkey do!

 

guess it also really depends on your location too. my area has a lot of new retirees, which sort of cancels them out in regards to local knowledge and word of mouth, so for these patients the yellow pages works. also depends on how big an area your yellow pages cover, some area codes are smaller than others, or your clinic may be right on the border of two area codes, meaning you may have to advertise in two copies. for me, yes they work.....

 

yes, I agree, i think it depends on location.

When I first set up after qualifying, Yellow pages was a good source of new patients for me. A few years down the line I moved further up country to a fairly affluent area. I started up a clinic from scratch and advertised in Yellow pages and also a local glossy publication "xxx Life" . To my amazement, most of my new patients came from the glossy publication. I only had the occasional one from yellow pages.

So different areas for me, required different approach to advertising.

 

I've found that Yellow Pages is a reliable source of referrals, and has increased now I've changed from a black/white ad to a colour ad (I haven't become too extravagnat - only 2 colours). I've also taken up the Yell.com ad, but so far, I'm unsure of how beneficial that's going to be, and as Tim said above I've found more people finding me via a google search.

But this all still goes hand in hand with "word of mouth", which personally I don't think you can beat.

 

I have grown a very busy practice over the past 6 years and word of mouth has always been our major source of referral. Since the EPC was implimented though, allot of our new patient referrals come from GPs.

However I have always carried out Yellow pages advertising and from the feedback I get, it's worth while. I have to say though, after just forking out $6500 in total for adds in three Yellow pages areas this year, I think I will be scaling it down a little next year. I'm going to put more resources into a web site instead.

Regards
Trent

 

On our new patient forms we always ask how the patient heard of us. A bundle of new patient palliatives come from the yellow pages. Our biomechanical referrals usually all come through GP, orthopaedic surgeons, other health providers or satisified patients. I think taking the time to network with other health providers is the best advertising you can do (depending on how large the city is where you work!)

 

I advertised with yellow pages, a small box - they did interest free monthly payments - I only need one patient a month to pay for ad. Plus I also get free entry in yell.com. Also use local newspaper - both seem to bring in some business, then word of mouth from these folk increase numbers

 

Today started fairly well.

Until............. The new edition of Yellow Pages arrived that is!

I changed my ad. this year to be included in the SoCPs corporate advertising box within the page heading: Chiropodists & Podiatrists. You know the one, those clinicians using the PROTECTED TITLES.

<sigh> I was surprised to find that within the pages (page 222 Barnsley, Doncaster & Rotherham ed.) titled 'Chiropodists & Podiatrists' was an advert for a gentleman advertising:

'FOOT CARE'
Gentlemans name & the following letters: GCSCh, MAFHP
A Totally Mobile Service.
**SEE ADVERT IN FOOT HEALTH SECTION**
Tel: etc.​

I checked the HPC register & no the chap was not on it.

There is however a lage, bold print HPC 'Helpful info.' advert on the same page.

I rang them & they gave me the usual blarney about send them the ad. (done).

Is it me or is this really a problem?

I am interested in anyones toughts.

Many thanks,

Mandy.

 

I don't think Yellow pages care that much beyond getting their money. Perhaps if enough of their other advertisers complained they may do something for the next issue. However it is already out there so they are not going to mulch and reprint the latest issue. That means you have a year to go with this guy advertising under false pretenses.

In our state there are many display advertisements for Podiatrists the largest costing $25,000. There does not seem to be near as much for Physiotherapists here or Podiatrists in other state Yellow pages. We do a bold listing only but also advertise online. We ask every new client where they "first" heard about us. We then also ask them about who referred them. Less than 1% say yellow pages as you would expect. However even if we had the biggest advert it would have little impact amongst all the other adverts. We have put our money and effort into our own website and our own quarterly glossy magazines.

 

Thanks for your response Steve.

I have a dislike for advertising agencies generally. This most recent instance of take the money & run for the hills just helped to increase my distrust of anyone selling anything.

The part I found most odd was that Yellow Pages required my Health Professions Council reg. details before they would include my ad. in this particular section.

Hey ho. :deadhorse:

Regards,

Mandy.

 

All

I do get a high return form Yellow pages and I do monitor all new customers in terms of how they find my contact details. Advertising is about building a rapport and a brand image with your target audience. People generally do not suddenly decide to go to a podiatrist out of the blue. There is usually some build up time, in this time they get clues about who they might visit and when its time to make a decision they will tend to choose the brand they are most familiar with.
So just because a new customer (Fred) says that he came because his mate Joe told him about you does not necessarily mean that this was his only source of reference, only his final confirmation of who to see, EG he may have also been told about another podiatrist by his uncle Ben but Fred had never heard of this Pod and so went with the more familiar sounding Podiatrist that Joe recommended.
This is the same reason why people buy branded good for twice the price of non branded when in fact the non branded was made at the same factory, Duracell batteries are a good example of this. Duracell £4.99 a pack Tesco Alkaline 2.99 + BOGOF but Duracell still out sells Tesco batteries. Why? familiarity, trust, rapport = brand and confidence reinforcement thru advertising.

This then links into networking IE advertising to people who are not directly using your service but will influence people who do use your service directly. In this way your advertising is effective it will get new customers but you may never collect any hard data to show a link between customer and advertising, however, it does exist.

Have confidence to spend a reasonable amount of turnover percentage on advertising to your target audience and it will work, by my experience at least.

If you don't advertise and your still doing good business, well good for you but most should consider the above in my opinion.


Cheers Dave

 

As someone new to the Podiatry Arena I have read the threads on this with great interest. The vast majority of my new patients come by word of mouth but I still advertise in Yellow Pages. Why? Because most of my patients are elderly and many of them lose my cards or forget where they wrote down my number. They know I am in YP and that they can always pick up my number from there! Saves a lot of problems.

 

Hello Mandy,
I have only just seen your posting!
Misuse of Title can be a real problem in some areas. :craig:
I would suggest you send a copy of said advertisement to the CEO's assistant at the SCP.
I understand they are collecting information on this issue to send to the HPC. Apparently it is the most frequent enquiry that they have to deal with at Fellmongers.
Dido

 

I have just decided to go in the local directory this year, have taken out a business card box which is at least what the other four Podiatrists have in my area. They have done me a good rate, although still $700, but I think I want someone looking to look at my Ad as much as the competition, and as I am newly self employed, this is important to me. I don't want to be the one in small type that no-one sees!!

I have a question on my initial consultation form asking where the patient got my details so I will monitor over the year and then downgrade ad size if not working.
I figure I only need 2/3 patients referred a month to pay for the ad.

I am also targeting a specific area in the ad where I know there are no Podiatry clinics.

I have had a few patients say they tried to look me up in the local directories and couldn't find me so that is a good sign, or a friend has mentioned me and they couldn't find me in local directories.

I have had good success with leaflet dropping but only for home visits, not clinic. I try to target leaflet dropping to areas where I know there are a high number of elderly residents when directing it to home visits and am firm on the fact I only do home visits on certain days, it seems to work well.

 

I would consider exactly the opposite of that. If your ad isn't working it's probably not because it's too big. A few years ago I was trying to convince the boss that we needed to increase the size of our ad. His argument for not increasing it was that we didn't get that many people from the yellow pages, which was my argument for why we should increase it. In the end we increased the size of our ad and, surprise surprise, we started getting more people from the yellow pages. For us it has been very cost effective advertising.

 

This thread was started in 2007. A lot has changed since then .... consider this:

When was the last time you actually used the yellow pages to find anything?

 

The paper books or the search engines ?

In Sweden you can´t just be on the internet search engine site you must be in the book as well.

 

But my Ad is already a quarter of a page and stands out as much as other Podiatrists who have been in business many years, there is only one Podiatrist in the area with a bigger ad, and I would argue that they get a lot of business from word of mouth.

I could not afford to put in a larger ad and since the ad was placed 2 months ago I have only had 4 referrals which only just gets my money back. Mine is in the White Pages. I have had, however, 4 appointments from being in just the text part of yellow pages.

 

Twice last month..once for a pizza and other time to look up a person I already knew about!