Yellowpages Marketing Ripoff
Filed under: Low Cost Marketing, Online Advertising, Small Business Advertising, Small Business Marketing, geo domains, rural advertising
I am sure the Yellowpages has been doing this for years but I wanted to warn small business owners as they open their mail in the next few days as I had two other people mention this to me today unsolicited.
I have no idea if this is being done because they are desperate to sell paper print ads or if it is something they have always done or if it is something new they are trying for another reason but as a person who sells advertising to companies I took major offense to the way that the Yellowpages sent their mailing asking for payment on an "order" I had made. Now keep in mind I have had the Yellowbook people visit but never the Yellowpages and have done posts about the Yellowbook visit. But in this case, and I threw it away or I would post it verbatim, the Yellowpages sent a mailing out too, as far as I can tell, all businesses in the area and I am sure a much larger area than that, asking for payment for an ad order I had placed....Ummm never placed.....
Well guess what, there was no order, by any of the other people I talked to either. Now from the marketing side I can see what they are trying accomplish, I am not naive and I do understand the value in positioning a letter to make it sound like the customer must sign and act. I get it!!!
But also, the goodwill that gets dimished by positioning like this, basically by either a) feeding on a customers lack of knowledge of marketing techniques, or b) a customers lack of time to read through what was sent, is just sickening to me.
The first person that mentioned this to me today is a very smart businessman, a long term restaurant owner who has seen it all and he almost signed it and sent it back, in effect agreeing to an order he never placed but he would of been held responsible for. Why, because he was busy and did not have the time to review it in detail, luckily he had sat it aside and decided to review it later.
After he read it he figured it out quickly that the letter was basically saying that buying send this you are agreeing, etc but in reality no order had been placed. Imagine how many people actually sign this and just send it back because they do not understand the way this scam is setup. And I do consider it just that, a scam. It preys on those that do not have the time or understanding of what is being pulled over on them. Sure I know these people should be responsible enough to watch the contracts and orders their business signs but when something like this is received from an authoritative company many small shops will sign and move on. It just is what it is.
Well, it sucks, it is wrong, and I can tell you as more people realize that the amount of print Yellowpages being actually used is dropping at a faster rate everyday people will stand for it less.
If you want to quit receiving the Yellowpages visit YellowPagesGoesGreen.org. I do not get paid for anything on that site but did help them with some of the marketing for it, to tell you the level of interest by people to know longer receive the print Yellowpages they had 165,000 sign ups in one year with ZERO paid advertising....
From what I understand, doing that is illegal unless it clearly says somewhere that “This is not a bill”. If you talk to anyone who didn’t throw it away, you should ask them if it says that anywhere. Really despicable either way.
Michael, I will check to see what I can find, it was about as blatant as I have ever seen.
Was this “bill” from a real phone book company? My family biz used to get what sounds like the same sort of thing all the time when I worked for them. As Michael says, it needs to say on it that “this is not a bill” and it usually did, albeit small etc. but hey, if you send them money, you agreed. But it’s pure BS and then you got to wonder if they ever print any sort of directory… and then if more then 10 people get a copy of it?
Been awhile since I got one, but (sadly) it’s sort of like the BS to get people to renew (and switch) their domain registrations. Though at least then you know they are providing a service, though of course an overpriced one most of the time.
@John, yep this was the Yellowpages, not one of the spinoffs. That is why it frustrated me. I have seen some of the not so on the up and up companies send stuff like this but this came from the big boys…
@Bruce, then that’s really sad and they should go out of business. I know times are tough for them, but they really need to reinvent their business model, not stoop to those levels.
I recently got a new client from a referral and they “phone company” had built him a (really bad) web site and charged him a lot more then the contract stated too. I just switched on his new web site this week, it has among other things (missing from his old site) his company logo, pictures that get this, relate to his business and other crazy things. Now he’s either going to send a letter or have his lawyer do so, to get back the money they ripped him off. I thought it was like $200 or so over the past year, but when we talked the other day I found out I heard wrong, they really owe him over $1,000!
@John – Interestingly enough I have a customer that I will likely sign on this week that has purchased the Yellowpages landing page they offered for 6 months but asked that we build him a real website to take over for the YP site because he sees that it really isn’t his website, it is just a landing page for their Adwords campaign….
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Sincerely,
@Bruce: Yes, the name is good, thanx. But that particular pronunciation – noo yawka — is disappearing, like so many other regional accents.
I’ve been getting that kind of phone book solicitation for years, and I haven’t been in the business they solicit about for ten years. It’s a part of being in business, like getting phone solicitations for the ‘policeman’s union.’
I got a piece in the mail a couple of weeks ago billing me for ‘renewal’ of websites. It came from a company I’ve never heard of or done business with.
Everyone wants some of your money.
@Noo Yawka – You are right, it is disappearing, really kinda a bummer.
Yeah, I know they have sent stuff similar in the past but I usually saw it from “fly by night” type of Yellowpage companies, what made it interesting was that people that had also had them in the past noticed the difference in this one.
Hi Bruce,
Nice heads up for your readers. A lot of “phone book” companies use this tactic to get people to either “renew” or “secure” their spot in the book. They make it seem as if it is the duty of every business entity to have an ad in their publications. This is based on the long history of the Yellowpages and the old style of advertising that was basically replaced by the internet years ago.
However, their online services are seemingly adequate, so I don’t understand why they feel the need to play these old style marketing tricks anymore. Maybe old habits die hard.
For me, I just ignore them. What domainer is going to go to Yellowpages to search up “Domain Consulting”? lol
cheers bro
To James who is not in the comment list here and sent me an email from an address that cannot be replied too since you are afraid to have an interactive discussion —-
Next time you send an email through the contact me box and try to say I did not do my research you may want to have the intestinal fortitude to actually use an email address I can reply to so I can tell you that you were totally incorrect and have no idea. You, my fine sir, are the one who needs to research.
The letter was in fact from the Yellowpages, and ummm, I have an ex-Yellowpages regional manager who works for me who indicated that they had been getting more aggressive. Not sure what more I need than that to confirm who it was from, research complete at a graduate level there.
Although I agree with you that it is usually the smaller players that do this, in this case it was not. So while you talk about the Yellowpages being such an upstanding company you might want to do YOUR research. Oh btw, that upstanding company recently reused a landing page they sold to one of my customers for another customer after it was done, basically took what was a trademarked name and reused it…. This comes directly from a customer, once again, research complete.
So, let me see, you send me an email and do not allow a reply back because, well, I figure you knew that I could probably reply back with information that you could not respond too.
What is more interesting is the fact that you even searched for Yellowpage Rip offs. Sounds like the Yellowpages may be doing some damage control.