For >20 years now my business has advertised in Dawsons Pink Pages.
For all that time I've asked every single customer of mine where they found our telephone number. So I've built up an incredibly accurate set of data showing where our work comes from.
I saw that I wasn't receiving calls from about 40% of the suburbs I was paying for, in & around Campbelltown. I rang my Yellow Pages customers & Local Papers customers & asked them when they last received a Dawsons Pink Pages directory. I was told that they'd NEVER received a local directory.
When I approached Salmat, who deliver the Dawsons local directories, they told me they had been told by Dawsons NOT TO DELIVER to some of those suburbs, & as some were classified as rural, they wouldn't deliver there anyway.
This means for my >20 years of advertising with Dawsons, (in just one book), I have paid for 40% more than were ever delivered.
I was also told by 2 ex employees that some years they took money from advertisers & didn't print, (or have delivered) some issues. Down & out fraud!
When I checked on another local directory, (Bankstown), they say they deliver to Bankstown Square, that's a shopping centre & they haven't delivered books to local businesses for at least 6 years now!
Bankstown DC? I believe that's where solicitors pick up their legal documents etc, again books not delivered.
I would say that in all of their books they say they deliver tothe suburbs shown in the front of each book & yet my conservative estimate is they don't deliver to at least 30-50% of those suburbs.
For many years now they have refused me a meeting with their distribution manager & have constantly ignored my requests for answers.
Tom.
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