CVL Advertiser Questions

Find Canadian B&Bs, Hotels, and much more on CanadianVacationLocations.ca

Questions from Advertisers

Q: How are you able to offer your services for so much less than your competition charges?

A: We have automated most of the functions of the business that would normally require an expensive human worker to perform. We also believe that we are providing our services for a fair price.

Q: Why would I need to appear in more than one business category?

A: If you look at our business categories, you will see a wide variety of business types. Some will be general and some will be specific. Each advertiser has the ability to select up to 5 pre-existing business categories that they might wish to be found in, as well as create a single new category if our list of business categories don't have something that they would fit into.

You can never be sure of what a customer is looking for when they search for a business in a directory. They might be searching for your business because they know your company name and what products or services you sell. If so, they can do it the slow, old fashioned way by using the white pages of the phone book which is limited to the city they are living in only. Since they know your name (and presumably the alphabet), they can start flipping back and forth through the white pages until they come to your company's listing. The listing will give them your company name (which they already know), your address and your telephone number.

Now, if the same customer was looking for your company by name on this Internet directory, all they would have to do is type in a partial spelling of your company name and click a button to see a list instantly provided on screen of all possible matches for the partial company name entered (in our Advanced Search menu option). Each company name in the list can be clicked on and a very comprehensive list of information can be instantly displayed. This list can include all of the usual name, address, and telephone number information that you would find in the phone book, but it can also include a fax number, a toll free number, the name of a person to contact and their title, an e-mail link for the company if they want to ask questions any time of the day or night, a link that would take them to the company's website, classification for the business (up to 6 different ones), and even a long description (500 characters) that the company can use to inform the potential customer about themselves, or perhaps a product or service they are offering. The information available for a given company will depend on what type of company it is. For example, if the company provides accommodations, there may be up to six pictures available for the consumer to view to help them decide if this is some where they would like to stay. This source of business information is far faster and potentially more useful for the customer.

This has covered the 'white pages scenario'. Now what if a potential customer for your product or service doesn't know your company name. Maybe they've never even heard of you. How are they going to find you?

In the past, they would probably have thought of a classification for a product or service they were interested in and tried to look up this classification in the yellow telephone directory pages telephone book. If your company had placed an ad in the yellow telephone directory pages (months prior to the publishing deadline) and it just happened to be in the same classification that this customer was looking for, they will come across your company in the list of companies in this yellow telephone directory pages classification. You've paid $50, $100, $200 or more per month to have this ad appear in the yellow telephone directory pages. If you make enough profit from your product or service you may even cover the cost of the ad for the current month. Most business don't cover the costs of a telephone directory ad from a single sale, but hope their ad attracts a large number of customers to cover the cost of the advertising and then make some profit later. Ask yourself how many customers do you need to attract from your telephone directory ad to cover its cost and make a profit from your product or service. Now ask yourself how many customers you need to cover the cost of a $25.00 ad. The very first customer that you attract through the use of this Internet directory will probably make a profit for you!

Even at this incredibly low rate, you won't have to attract nearly as many customers to make a profit as you would with other similar forms of advertising. In the future, we will be able to direct more and more customers to you as our websites popularity grows. Its all about Bang for the Buck. You want to put your advertising dollars to work where they will work the hardest and return the most for you. We believe our website does give you the highest annual return for a mere twenty five dollars. If you are advertising on other Internet directories, we encourage you to compare what you are paying for to what you would get from us. Start with the price. Are you paying a lot more that $25 for your other advertising? Compare features. If you look at our application form, do you see anything missing that you are getting from anyone else? (If so, please let us know! We may be able to add it for free.) Do they have various levels of service? Bronze, Silver and Gold options perhaps? We give you everything found in most of our competitors top of the line 'Gold' options for less than they charge for their 'Bronze' or 'Basic' options. Compare Extras. Do they charge for making a change to your company information? Many of our competitors will charge $10 or more for changing your address or updating a picture. Our updates are free!* Now compare service. Do they offer to add your company information within a week or within 48 hours? Or do they offer to make your changes within 24 hours as we do? When you take everything into consideration, we believe you will come to the conclusion that CanadianVacationLocations.ca offers you the most bang for your advertising dollar.

This covers the 'simple yellow telephone directory pages scenario'. Most things aren't as simple as you would like them to be. In the previous example, if you happen to have entered your ad in the same business classification that the customer was looking in, you are in luck and will have a chance to make a sale. However, does your business only sell one product or service? Most business can be classified in several different ways because of the large number of products or services they offer. Lets take a typical hotel as an example. What do they sell? The first thing that comes to mind for most people would be a place to stay. Great. In the yellow telephone directory pages, they would probably appear under the 'hotels' classification. But what if that is not all they do. They may happen to be located on a hot spring and have a heated pool. Obviously they would want to attract people looking to visit a 'hot springs'. If they didn't also advertise under a 'hot springs' category the would potentially be missing customers. They might also have a day spa in the lobby of their hotel. They would want to be found under the 'Spas' category as well. Each category will cost a large amount of money that will need to be recovered before a profit can be made. They may also sell other products or services such as a restaurant open to the public or items in a gift shop. Do they want additional yellow telephone directory pages category ads for these as well? Are they of a size that some people might consider them to be a hotel, while other people might consider them to be a motel? Do they want another yellow telephone directory pages category ad for 'Motels' as well? You can see where I'm going with this. At some point they have to draw the line and say we can't afford any more ads. Then they will be offering products or services that aren't classified in their yellow telephone directory pages phone book. With this Internet Directory, you can be listed in up to 6 different business classifications for no additional charge. The total for your whole ad is just $25 per year, not several times that much per month per classification.

How many classifications can apply to your business? How many do you pay for in your directory advertising? Do you think your are missing potential customers by not advertising under more classifications? Do you think you would miss some potential customers by not advertising on this internet directory?

Q: How do the CanadianVacationLocations.ca advertising rates compare to other types of advertising?

A: We are trying to offer our clients the best value available for their advertising dollar. Currently we are offering the service for only $25 per year. Compare our service to the other common advertising methods your business employs. We are less expensive, we can reach a larger and wider range of customers, and we are sought out by your customers. This is targeted advertising. The people who will be using this website will be interested in vacationing in Canada and possibly be interested in the exact product or service that your company provides.

We invite you to compare us to the following types of advertising and remember that we are only $25 per year:

An ad run in your local newspaper over a long weekend. We will be much cheaper and last a full year.
Your business cards. They probably cost three times as much but will only reach 500 customers (per box). Customers who have already found you. Our Internet business directory will help new customers find you. You can offer them several methods to contact you (phone, fax, e-mail, toll free number) and you can even let them know something about your company or what you sell through the Business Description section or on your own web site.
A graphic on your vehicle. This can easily cost 5 to 10 times as much as a listing on our site. This would be more of a name promotion form of advertising. Who writes down phone numbers from a car's rear window or door as it passes them? Our listing information is available to the users from their office or the comfort of their own homes. They will immediately be able to learn about your business or contact you based on the information you provide on our site.
Other Internet business directories. We encourage you to seek them out and see for yourself how they compare. We believe our combination of low price and a full suite of features make us the best choice for your advertising dollar.
Radio advertising. Your listing on our site is likely less than a quarter of the shortest radio spot you can buy in the most off-peak time slot. Yet with us, your information is available to millions of people on the Internet and lasts a year - instead of 15 or 30 seconds.
Television ads. If you can afford a TV ad, you should definitely have a presence on the Internet. We would be happy to help direct customers to your website if you use our services.
Yellow telephone directory pages Ads. The yellow telephone directory pages are currently the first place a person in your municipal region will likely think to look for a company in a business category. However, we believe this will gradually change as more and more people experience the speed of searching for information with an Internet Business Directory. Take this little test: Select a category on our site and look for a specific business. Now, go find your yellow telephone directory pages and start flipping through the pages to find the same information. Don't get too distracted by all of the ads mixed in with the normal listing information. Now try to find a business located in a different city in your yellow telephone directory pages and on this Internet directory. You can still find it on our site.

Remember, of all of the advertising mediums listed above, only the yellow telephone directory pages and an Internet directory will be sought out by your customers to find you. Our listing will be much cheaper than a yellow telephone directory pages ad, easier to use, and can contain much more information than a yellow telephone directory pages ad. We also have the advantage of being able to link to your e-mail and website directly.

Q: Can I add additional information to my listing later in the year?

A: Yes. You can add additional listing information at any time throughout the course of the 12 month advertising period.

* All changes to your listing information or pictures will be processed within 24 hours. Over 90% are processed with in 10 minutes of being received.

Q: Why isn't there an application form that can be printed out and mailed to you?

A: If we were to accept mailed in forms we would then have to manually enter the information you submit into our database. This would create two problems for us. First of all, it would introduce the possibility of data entry errors. We wouldn't be able to guarantee 100% accuracy of the information you submit if we had to have a human being try to read everyone's handwriting and then type it all into a computer. Now, even if we could rely on someone to interperet everyone's handwriting correctly and accurately enter it into our computers, we would be faced with another problem. We would have to pay these people for the work they do. If we had to pay extra to have your information added to our computer system we would then have to charge more for our service. Therefore, we have decided in order to maintain the accuracy of your company information and to keep your advertising costs as low as possible, we would only accept advertising submissions through our website.