This is good news for Internet Yellow Pages because it essentially helps extend the reach of those resources for consumers, and helps advertisers access a desirable demographic – the ready-to-buy shopper.

comScore found that the number of mobile subscribers accessing business directories on a mobile phone increased 14 percent year-over-year to 17.3 million users in March 2010, extending the reach of Internet Yellow Pages beyond just the personal computer. This increase outpaces the10 percent growth in the number of mobile media users who browsed the mobile web, used applications or downloaded content during the same time period.

Additionally, the number of people accessing business directories on a mobile device at least once per week increased more than 16 percent year-over-year to nearly five million in March 2010.

Much of this growth is due to the rapid growth in smartphone users combined with the adoption of 3G technology, better search offerings, and higher advertiser engagement.

As I point out in a column on Search Engine Land this morning, this high growth illustrates that as more consumers use mobile devices to search and access content, they are continuing to rely on Yellow Pages’ convenient and reliable business listings to help them find local businesses on-the-go.

It’s also great news for advertisers. In addition to the benefits of advertising with IYPs to attract those searching for business information on their personal computers, local businesses are receiving added value in online listings being accessible to a growing number of mobile users.

Other interesting mobile-related data points from the study include:

• The mobile browser was the most common access method for users, with 10.8 million subscribers in March 2010 and 21 percent year-over-year growth.
• Apps are hot, with 42 percent year-over-year growth in the number of mobile subscribers using apps to access business directories.
• Mobile unlocks a desirable user for the advertise: 58% are 34 or younger; over half have a household income in excess of $75,000; and they are three and half times more likely as the average mobile media user to access women’s magazine content, health information, real estate listings, and job listings via their mobile devices.

IYP Local Search on Personal Computers

comScore also found that local searches on personal computers saw year-over-year growth.  Searches on IYPs and portal sites increased 4 percent to 444 million in March 2010, or 5.3 billion annually—indicating that more consumers are coming to rely on Yellow Pages when searching from their computer.

Additionally, the report showed that people access IYPs and local online sites in a number of ways:

• Traffic to IYPs from web search sites increased three points from the first quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2010, to 44 percent of visits.
• Direct traffic also increased over the same time period, up four points to 32 percent.
• Referrals from affiliate sites (advertisements, e-mail marketing, and other partner sites) decreased six points to 25 percent.

comScore’s data illustrate how in today’s changing media environment, IYPs are attracting growing audiences online and via mobile—giving advertisers new opportunities to reach consumers wherever they are.

This is a testament to our industry’s strong emphasis on building our digital and mobile platforms this past year. Whether its rebranding our companies, creating new iPhone, iPad, and Google Android apps, or launching new IYP concepts like buzz.com, Yellow Pages companies are building on decades of experience to deliver the highest-quality directories for advertisers and consumers to connect.

• Prior to opening the Yellow Pages, nearly three quarters of users (72%) have a decision to make, meaning they do not have any particular business in mind, or are deciding between two or more places.
• Nearly three quarters of consumers looking for caterers look at one or more ads and among those looking at ads, the average is 5.7 ads referenced (both values are notably higher than the all-headings average)
• 60% of purchases made under this heading are made by customers new to the business (compared to 43% for the average heading)

Yellow Pages is a helpful tool for those who want to research what local caterers have to offer before committing to a specific business for their next big event. The catering heading receives more than 22 million references in print and Internet Yellow Pages each year.

Depending on the industry and business, different Yellow Pages platforms and offerings may work better than others to attract new business customers. That’s why it’s important to work with a Yellow Pages sales representatives on the best portfolio for your business.

For more information, read our press release about the Yellow Pages “caterers” heading.

Currently, thousands of California businesses advertise in the Yellow Pages, generating a high level of new business leads and revenue across numerous industries from ready-to-buy consumers.

It’s clear that any effort to limit local businesses from reaching consumers not only hurts businesses, but negatively impacts the state economy. In times like these, we can’t afford to place an undue burden on local business owners trying to make ends meet.

These days, Californians  access local business information in a variety of new ways, including  online directories and mobile apps. But studies from both Burke and Simmons show that 70% of Californians continue to use print Yellow Pages to find neighborhood businesses.

Over the years, our industry has made concerted efforts to design consumer choice programs that let consumers manage their Yellow Pages experience, as well as introduced a variety of environmental initiatives that further limit our impact on the environment.

Last year, the Yellow Pages Association launched www.yellowpagesoptout.com, a one-stop destination for consumers across the country to reduce or stop directory delivery.

And through advancements in paper production, it is no longer necessary to use new trees to make directory paper. In fact, most publishers now use a mix of recycled directories and leftover woodchips from the lumber industry to create Yellow Pages paper. Read more about our sustainability programs.

Additionally, Yellow Pages companies are proud members of the California economy, employing thousands of local residents and paying local and state taxes.

We hope the California state legislature will take into account the value our industry brings to the State when considering this bill and the negative impact its passage will have on local businesses and publishers. In short, we believe the bill is unnecessary in light of industry programs that are in place, working well and getting better.

So far, a number of key constituents in the State are standing up against the bill, including small and large business publishers, LGBT and minority publishers, advertising agencies, and local and regional suppliers.

To let your voice be heard, contact any member of the California Senate Appropriations Committee by clicking here.

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.

So we commissioned the research firm Burke to create a completely new survey.  And thus, our new Local Media Tracking Study was created.

Methodology

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:

• Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti overviews the company’s strategy and Citygrid network, which is the largest content and ad network for local with 100+ Web and mobile partners. Yesterday, we covered Citysearch’s new distribution agreement with Dex One, which will give Dex One advertisers the option of having their business listings appear across Citygrid.
• 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.
• Loopt CEO Sam Altman discusses his company’s popular social mapping service and fast mobile adoption rates across the country. Did you know that GPS is now the most requested phone feature?

For more of the latest thinking on local search, be sure to stay tuned to InsideYP next month during the YPA’s Annual Conference – Transformers – in Las Vegas. Check out an overview of our conference speakers here. We’re looking forward to it!

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.

Just weeks after announcing a continuation and expansion of its successful SuperGuarantee program, SuperPages.com said yesterday that it is integrating the program into SuperPages Mobile applications.

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.

Yesterday, the company took another step in that direction by announcing a new agreement with Yelp, the popular local business review site, to provide consumer feedback on its local search listings.

Starting next month, DexKnows.com’s approximately 500,000 small business clients will begin seeing Yelp-branded content—including ratings and reviews written by the Yelp community—appear within their individual local businesses listings. The Yelp content will complement the existing user-generated content already provided by DexKnows.com users.

User review sites such as Yelp are very popular with consumers. Consumer opinions posted online are among the most trusted forms of advertising, second only to recommendations from personal acquaintances, according to the Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey released in July 2009.

For more, check out the press release by clicking here.

What does this mean for our local advertisers? Among the various YP platforms consumers use to search for travel agencies, our data shows local businesses make up nearly two out of every three references. Because nearly 60% of all users do not have just one travel agency in mind when turning to the Yellow Pages, there is a real opportunity to generate qualified leads and establish long-term client relationships. In fact, travel agents that invest in YP advertising are typically seeing a 3-to-1 return on investment.

According to Chris Russo, president and chairman of the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA), Yellow Pages has been a critical tool in the overall marketing plan of the organization’s members.

For more information – as well as tips from the ASTA on selecting the best travel agency to fit your needs – click here.