This week, we’ve discussed the importance of multi-platform advertising for local businesses seeking to reach ready-to-buy consumers wherever they are. Now, I’m eager to highlight the significance of inter-platform advertising opportunities as a means of generating additional visibility and leads.
On the digital front, our industry is not only expanding the reach of Internet Yellow Pages directories, we’re also partnering with a variety of popular local search sites including Yelp and Citysearch in an effort to provide our clients with more ways to reach online consumers.
Under the new arrangement, sponsored listings from YP.COM will have the opportunity to appear on CityGrid, Citysearch’s extensive local content and advertising network. The new agreement builds on an existing relationship between Citysearch and AT&T Interactive where Citysearch listings, user reviews and editorial content have the opportunity to be displayed on YP.COM.
Additionally, YP.COM advertisers will have the opportunity to place ads alongside content on Citysearch or other CityGrid publisher web properties, and CityGrid reseller partners will have access to distribute advertising across YP.COM.
This open arrangement benefits local businesses by allowing them to explore new, exciting online advertising opportunities— all within their established Yellow Pages marketing strategies.
In my Search Engine Land article posted today, I talk about how in today’s digital world, the most successful local search campaigns are those that create integration and leverage audiences across technologies.
That’s why a multi-platform approach, championed by our industry, makes the most sense for local business advertising. It realizes the benefits and opportunities available across all forms of media, whether they’re in print, online or on mobile.
Starting this week, developers can begin including the Facebook “Like” button on any content on their sites, whether it be a photo, article, video – or for our purposes, a local business. Users will also be able to view which of their Facebook friends have visited a certain site and what content they liked.
The press release notes that with a single click of the Facebook “Like” button, YellowPages.ca users can now highlight a positive experience with a local business or service directly on the site, as well as see which businesses their friends on Facebook “Like” and have their “Like” appear in their Facebook newsfeed.
Additionally, in a separate release, YPG announced that it had launched a new Urbanizer iPhone application that offers mood-based restaurant recommendations. The new app is linked with Facebook Connect so that users can share their business experiences with friends, tag establishments they’ve visited, and identify their favorites.
With so much conversation during our annual conference this week about the growing importance of social media and mobile opportunities, I’m glad to hear that our member companies are on the front lines of these new technologies. This is a really exciting time for our industry.
In yet another rebranding for a major Yellow Pages company this year, AT&T Interactive announced this week that it’s introducing YP.COM as the new name of its flagship YELLOWPAGES.COM web property and brand.
AT&T said that YP.COM, which consists of more than 21 million business listings, will allow local businesses and consumers to take advantage of the latest tools in the local search experience, including filtered results, video profiles, business coupons, customer reviews, sharing features, mapping capabilities, and a host of other features.
Additionally, YP.COM users now have access to expanded lifestyle content, including the ability to book business and leisure travel, find thousands of live events, search new and used cars, find and book reservations at restaurants, and find and purchase movie tickets.
AT&T said that the enhanced platform will deliver better results for advertisers. In beta testing, advertisers averaged a 28% increase in calls and clicks per search as a result of placements on the updated site.
That’s great news. Between the rebranded YP.COM and the soon-to-launch buzz.com, AT&T is joining other YP companies making major strides in the local search space. Our industry’s ability to create innovative platforms for our advertisers and users to interact will help drive our success moving forward – and so far, it looks like we’re right on target.
Local mobile search leader Avantar, a sister company to Yellow Pages Directories, announced the first Yellow Pages app for iPad. Based on the screenshots on their Web site, it appears the app allow users to seamlessly search for local businesses based on various categories, share their results, review and add reviews and ratings, as well as view locations on a map. The app will join Avantar’s suite of mobile apps, which now operate on iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android devices.
Additionally, Yellow Magic, which currently offers Yellow Pages apps for iPhone and iPod Touch, also introduced a new iPad app to its mobile portfolio. Interestingly, Yellow Magic apps include “all facets of the printed directory including covers, community pages, tabs, indexes…etc…” so that, “all elements and advantages of the printed book are retained with the added benefit of it all being searchable.” According to the company, this approach satisfies younger demographics who are increasingly using digital devices when searching for neighborhood business information.
I’m thrilled that Yellow Pages is taking part in the launch of yet another platform for local search. Our involvement shows our industry’s ability to leverage the latest trends to deliver real results for our business customers and the consumers who use our products.
Yesterday we released new data from Burke that showed both strong reach and trust for Yellow Pages products. I thought today I’d explain a little bit more about how and why we collect these data.
YPA has conducted research to understand consumer use of our products for years. We make these data available to our members who use it as competitive intelligence, and we release it to analysts and media to help them understand our role in local search and generating leads for local businesses.
About two years ago, we realized we needed to reinvent our data collection process. Our previous usage study had become antiquated – it only polled consumers via land line telephone interviews and it did not measure the reach of other sources of local business information.
Those two deficiencies were critical. Internet and cell phones have made land line-only surveys unreliable since many in certain demographics no longer use land lines. And as media fragmented, consumers started searching for local information by consulting multiple sources. Add that Yellow Pages companies now partner with search engines, offer SEO/SEM services, and even provide direct mail, and it’s easy to see we needed a much broader perspective on media used for local search.
We wanted the sample to represent the overall population. Here’s how we achieved a fair representation of American consumers:
Multi-mode data collection with 80% online and 20% telephone participants.
A balanced-screening method to ensure the survey sample is in proportion to the actual U.S. adult population – including age and geography (urban, suburban, and rural).
Interviewing spread across all days of the week and all weeks of the year.
The survey took about 20 minutes, on average, to complete.
Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.
Goal was to collect 8,000 interviews over a 12-month period. For the 2009 analysis, we actually conducted 8,062 interviews.
The Questionnaire
The questionnaire was designed to measure a number of key areas including reach, annual references, and perceptions – data points that we released yesterday.
For reach, the question asked was: “We would like to know when, if ever, you last used some potential sources to look up information to find a business, or to shop or look for a product or service in your local area. Please include your use at home, at work, or elsewhere.” Then we listed a number of options including print Yellow Pages, Internet Yellow Pages, search engines, magazines, newspapers, etc. in a random order, so as not to highlight any one option.
To understand perceptions about the Yellow Pages and search engines, the interviewer read a series of statements. The instructions were as follows: “For each of the statements, please indicate which one of the following media is described best by the statement: Is the source I trust the most for finding local business information; Is the most accurate source for finding local business information.”
To calculate annual print references, Burke uses a formula that estimates the percent of use against the total U.S. adult population.
Future of the Local Media Tracking Study
In addition to the 2009 reach and trust data, we collected other information from consumers that we plan to release soon, including brand awareness at the time of search and post-search actions for Yellow Pages products.
We’re also continuing to collect data in 2010, which means we’ll have a new set of data points next year. What’s most exciting about that is we can trend the year over year data, so we’ll see how print Yellow Pages and Internet Yellow Pages are doing compared to the wider local search universe.
I am extremely pleased with the first Local Media Tracking study. I believe it achieves the objectives we set out to accomplish, providing YPA members and observers with thought-provoking data based on the most acceptable research methodology we’ve ever used.
Today is the final day here at BIA/Kelsey’s Marketplace 2010. I’m glad I had the opportunity to hear so many great speakers and learn about the innovative approaches and strategies various companies are using in local search space.
Our friends at the BIA/Kelsey are keeping the outside world up-to-speed on all of the sessions via their blog, Local Media Watch. Some interesting posts include:
Urbanspoon CEO Jay Herratti talks about his company’s popular local search iPhone app, which has been downloaded 9 million times. Interestingly, since CitySearch bought Urbanspoon last year, the company’s Web site has shot up 220% to 7 million unique monthly users.
Nearly two years ago, we began the process of reshaping how we collect Yellow Pages usage data. We wanted to create an index that measured Yellow Pages usage better than anything we had before, and to have the ability to compare that data with other sources of local information.
Today, I’m glad to say that hard work has paid off with the release of our first annual Local Media Tracking Study. Because this survey included 80% online interviews and 20% telephone interviews, I’m confident this reflects the population better than our previous survey, which was only conducted by telephone and focused solely on Yellow Pages usage.
Conducted by Burke, the study found that the Yellow Pages industry continues to have significant reach in local search, and that consumer trust in Yellow Pages remains strong. It also found that our reach and frequency grew between the first and second half of 2009, following the general economic trends we saw on a macro level.
Yellow Pages Products Capture Greatest Reach
In the survey, consumers were asked what sources they used in the last month to look up information to find a local business, or to look for a product or service in their local area.
In answer to that question, 65% said they used print and/or Internet Yellow Pages – more than any of the other sources. When analyzed individually, print Yellow Pages was 54% and Internet Yellow Pages was 33%.
Search engines scored 58%, followed by flyers/coupons, newspapers, and magazines. Because Yellow Pages companies have formed partnerships with search engines, it’s fair to say the Yellow Pages reach is quite high across a number of platforms.
Yellow Pages Continue to Maintain Consumer Trust
Trust has always been a big talking point for the Yellow Pages industry, and the data show why.
More than two-thirds of consumers (67%) said that print or Internet Yellow Pages are the source they trust most for finding local business information, compared to 33% for search engines.
When polled on accuracy of local business information, print and Internet Yellow Pages scored highest with 68%, compared to search engines with 32%.
Print and Internet Yellow Pages Generate 16.9 Billion References
In total, consumers referenced print and Internet Yellow Pages 16.9 billion times in 2009.
Separate research from comScore found that Internet Yellow Pages continued to chart growth, increasing from 4.6 billion searches in 2008 to 4.9 billion in 2009. Burke found that print Yellow Pages received 12 billion references in 2009.
The results also indicated growth in the reach (the number of U.S. adults who use Yellow Pages) and frequency (how often Yellow Pages are referenced per adult) in both print and Internet Yellow Pages between the first and second half of 2009:
The percentage who said they used print Yellow Pages within the last month increased 12 percent, from 51.5% in the first quarter to 57.6% in the fourth quarter.
Respondents also turned to print Yellow Pages more frequently as the year progressed. In the first quarter, there was an average of 0.93 references per U.S. adult per week. By the fourth quarter, that had grown 19 percent to 1.11 references per adult per week.
Internet Yellow Pages saw an even sharper 20% growth in reach during the year, from 31.6 percent in the first quarter to 37.9% in the fourth quarter.
The frequency of Internet Yellow Pages usage grew 24% from the first quarter (0.54 references per week per adult) to the fourth quarter (0.67 references per week per adult).
A Reflection on the Data
Overall, I’m pleased to see very solid performance by Yellow Pages. Of course, these results reflect the overall U.S. population, so there are differences between age groups and geographies. Not surprisingly, print Yellow Pages is less popular with the 18-24 crowd than other age categories, while print Yellow Pages reach is stronger with rural consumers than with urban and suburban. Internet Yellow Pages reach ranked highest with consumers under 55, and most popular with suburban users as compared to urban and rural.
I’ll blog more about these data points in the days and weeks ahead, but I believe they demonstrate a critical point: advertiser’s can benefit from the Yellow Pages industry’s new agency model – where depending on your business, target customer, and geographic location – you can work with your Yellow Pages rep to put together a program that will work best and focuses on the right kind of advertising. Whether that’s a display ad in the print directory, a video ad on an Internet Yellow Pages site, or a robust SEO/SEM program or sponsored YP listing in Bing – it’s up to you and your Yellow Pages rep to create a program that generates the sales the business needs to win.
In a release, the company said its mobile users can now sign up for SuperGuarantee, find qualified businesses, register service appointments, and file claims straight from their wireless device. Currently, SuperPages mobile apps are available on iPhone or iPod touch, BlackBerry, and Google Android platforms—with Palm Pre and Windows Mobile apps coming soon, according to the company’s Web site.
Yellow Pages mobile apps are increasingly in the news. Last week, UK’s Yell Group announced an Augmented Reality iPhone App that allows users to see business information for more than two million local shops, offices, restaurants and other useful services through the iPhone’s camera viewer.
According to Greg Sterling’s blog Screenwerk, SuperMedia CEO Scott Klein credited the SuperGuarantee program in January with helping drive “meaningful spikes in registrations and healthy improvement in possession and usage.” Klein told Sterling that in “90% of measured markets; possession and usage are up in double digits” as a result of the program.
I think we can expect the mobile version of SuperGuarantee to only expand the program’s popularity and benefit to SuperMedia’s local business customers.
In our “Locals Only” column for Search Engine Land this month, we talked about growing online demand for digital coupons and the opportunities this presents for local businesses. According to BIA/Kelsey’s User View Wave 7 Survey released last week, 58% of respondents reported using an online coupon when shopping for products or services in their local area in the past year.
SuperMedia.com, which launched a local search Twitter channel last September (@sp411), announced yesterday that it’s tapping into the coupon trend by launching a new initiative on Twitter to drive more leads to its business listings. In a release, the company said that it has started distributing thousands of coupons from its local business listings to 72 city-specific accounts on Twitter—at no cost to business owners.
Businesses which upload coupons to their Superpages.com business profile page will see their coupons tweeted on their local SuperMedia Coupons Twitter channel. Among other options, businesses will also be able include a promotion code to track specific offers.
This is just another example of how Yellow Pages companies are taking advantage of new online tools to generate value for their business and consumer customers. We look forward to seeing how both sides take advantage of this new program.
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