I called today to embarq our area phonebook/yellow pages and for $69 a month I get an inch add with my business name, 3-5 lines of whatever I want and my name and # and address at the bottom. I get one in the bakery section and one in the wedding section and a full color coupon with a picture of my cake in the back of the book in the coupon section and an online listing and business profile....does that sound good? How many people have you booked cakes through them finding you in the phonebook? or online phonebook?

Thanks,

April :0)

I have advertised in my local yellow pages for the past 4 years , it has been well worth it for me. I ask each new customer how they heard of us, what brought them to my bakery over the others. I have found that my area is growning rapidly, many of my new customers are new to the area and have no idea where to purchase a great cake, so they turn to the yellow pages unless they have a friend the doesn't buy cakes from a grocery store. Over the years we have gotten several cake orders, but I have only had 3 customers use the coupon found in the back of the telephone book! GREAT for me!!! However, if I had to pay for an ad in the coupon section I would be rather upset.

I've gotten several wedding cakes from my yellow book ad as well (and several others told me it would be a waste of money as everyone uses the internet now). I just met with my yellow book rep, I changed my ad to be listed ONLY in the bakery section based on the feedback from customers, they generally look in the bakery section. Normally one or two wedding cakes will pay for the ad for the year.

YOu mean that big book they leave on my front porch? That lays in my front hallway for weeks? Until it finally gets thrown in the trash because we look everything up online? That one?

You can get a free ad on Yellowpages.com.

I have a small ad in the Yellow Pages......under just weddings. And it pays for me each year. I get quite a few wedding orders from it. I have mine just under WEDDINGS....as in the past....I was under bakery's.....and then I got all the calls for donuts, pastries, cookies, pies, etc. So my main focus is for the wedding cakes......so that is where I have my ad.....and I get anywhere from 5 to 10 from the ad.....so one good wedding cake pays for my ad.

i don't. i assume most brides are in my age range (early 20's) grew up with the internet and rely on it heavily like i do. if i'm looking for something i google it. i get quite a few hits to my website from google, msn, and yahoo searches.

i've had my phone # free in the yellow pages for years.

after reading this post, i went and added myself to the free listings in the yellow pages. that was so quick and easy. thanks for the great tip.

well..its not exactly the yellow pages...i dont look at that book either...its the red pages by embarq our local phone company...and for years whenever I needed something I would look in it because its just our area's vendors and businesses. I look on the internet too but many times I look in our local phone book too and I think a lot of people still do it here...so hopefully it will pay off for me!

Thanks!
April :0)

Good Luck! Like I said, it has worked out great for us. Today another customer called, found us in the phonebook. They anitipate 285 guest for a May 10, 2008 wedding. I'll be meeting them today (at 3pm). They will take my final opening If we book them, their booking will pay for my ad for next year.

I have a listing in my phone book and I feel it has done great. But I also have a listing on line through those yellow pages and that one really does it for me. I just renewed my contract last week and they had all these specs and said that there were over 6,000 hits from their website to get to my website, so I thought that was pretty cool.

I had a paid ad... but this year I am just making sure I'm listed. Bold is like $5 a month and sets us apart a bit and thats enough for me. The calls I have had from the phone book are mostly price shoppers - which is not my market.

My first year I did flyers, business cards, and dropped off samples, My second year I decided to go big and put a display ad in that ran me about 3500.00 for the year. I did not receive that many orders. After that I just ran the freebe, and have done better then the display, go figure. They say that you have to keep those bigger ads in each year so that it shows stability, I chose to be unstable and go the cheaper route, it has more then paid for itself.

I have a good website and had just a listing in our local phone book (the local one, not the big huge thing that keeps the shelf standing straight)... I got more CONTACTS from the website, but I got more bookings from the phone book. I had a listing under "Specialty Bakery" because I didn't want to be grouped with the other bakeries in the area.

Couture Cake
Specialty Cakes & Confections
Tailor Made to Order April-October...(Phone #)

I'd go for the LOCAL phone book and not the big book. It's cheaper for advertising and I've found a lot more people look in the little book than they do the big one because they're looking for their local area. My ad in the local phone book was $120 for the YEAR where the yellow pages would cost me that much a month. Dollar per dollar, no brainer on which was the better investment to get established.

Of course, this year since I'm going to be building the licensed kitchen, I didn't take out the ad because I'm not sure when I'll be able to take orders again. I figured I didn't want brides calling me even about next year because I can't do tastings anyways and with commodity prices doing what they are I don't want to be locking in rates yet.