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.
Over the past few months, we’ve released new data that reinforces the ongoing value of print and Internet Yellow Pages to local businesses. Now a new advertising campaign by Sensis, an Australian Yellow Pages provider, shows that when put to the test, our findings match up closely with the real world.
As The Australian reports, Sensis opened a new Melbourne restaurant, the Hidden Pizza Restaurant, in the basement of an alleyway earlier this month. Flyers distributed in the local area, as well as the restaurant’s website and Facebook page, offered a free pizza to consumers who could find its location during a two week period. The restaurant’s blog told consumers to, “just look us up the way you would any other business.”
Data collected during the campaign, which concluded April 25, found that of the 8,000 consumers who located the restaurant, 70% found their way via a paid Internet Yellow Pages listing, through paid search engine listings that Sensis placed, or from a print Yellow Pages directory (which were delivered shortly before the campaign began). Blogs, social media, and other forms of word-of-mouth accounted for the other 30% of customers, the company said.
We’re very encouraged by the results of this campaign, which we believe illustrate the strength of Yellow Pages’ multi-platform advertising model in driving real leads for local businesses.
We’re excited to see that eMarketer published another statistic from our research as their Facebook “Stat of the Day” on Friday. It’s nice to see that the online community is taking note of our data and the continued role that Yellow Pages platforms provide in generating leads in our rapidly changing media environment.
In an article published in last Sunday’s Dallas Morning News, reporter Victor Godinez discusses the pitfalls the media industry has faced in dealing with the Internet’s growth. For example, the music industry was crippled by free online music. By the time the time iTunes and other legal online music services were launched—and the industry began suing for illegal file-sharing—consumer behavior had already been set.
Godinez says that Yellow Pages’ company SuperMedia, however, is “trying to shape their future before it gets shaped for them,” Godinez writes. In an interview, CEO Scott Klein notes that “the Internet will clearly continue to grow,” and cites the company’s efforts in the online space – including adding a Facebook page, Twitter accounts and an iPhone app. These efforts complement the company’s existing print Yellow Pages business, which recent research confirms remains a viable platform for local business listings.
In today’s digital age where your online presence can make or break your business, it is vital to keep pace with ongoing shifts in online technology and consumer usage. The news we share on this blog about Yellow Pages’ expanding digital offerings—including new online advertising partnerships, agreements with popular local search sites, and new online and mobile offerings—is a testament to the industry’s commitment to growing and evolving its business model to leverage the latest consumer trends.
Back in January, we talked about The Berry Company’s transformative effort to put itself in a stronger position to assist small businesses in developing a multi-platform approach to their advertising, including print directories, Internet Yellow Pages, Web sites, search engine marketing optimization and video.
Now the company is expanding its relationship with Yodle, an emerging local online advertising company, through a strategic partnership that will give Berry’s approximately 260,000 small and medium-sized business clients access to Yodle’s Web site creation and search engine marketing and optimization offerings.
According to the joint release, while more than 82% of all consumers search online for local services, only 56% of small businesses providing these services have a Web site – and just a small percentage of these sites are properly optimized.
Today’s partnership gives local businesses the opportunity to expand their online presence in ways that will give them more exposure to the growing online market – and put them ahead of some of their competitors lagging in the space. It’s also well-structured in that it combines Yodle’s technology products with Berry’s existing sales channel, giving local businesses the online reach they’re looking for without the hassle of looking outside of their existing Yellow Pages relationship.
With Berry’s hybrid model, local business can combine online advertising with the print options they’ve used for years, creating an integrated message that reaches a larger audience of potential customers. I look forward to hearing how this partnership creates new leads for Berry’s local business customers.
In a press release, YPG said the company had acquired Canpages, a Canadian local search and directories publisher. In addition to its 84 printed directories with total circulation of 8 million, Canpages’ website, Canpages.ca, attracts more than 3.5 million unique visitors monthly. The company, which said its online operations account for 23% of its annualized revenues, employs about 700 people in Canada, of which 450 are sales consultants.
In a separate transaction, YPG said it contributed its U.S. directory operations, YPG Directories—the publisher of Your Community Phone Book (YCB)—to Ziplocal. YCB is the publisher of independent directories in selected Mid-Atlantic and Southeast American markets and was acquired from Volt Information Sciences in 2008. After the transaction, Ziplocal, which runs the Web site ziplocal.com, will reach over 300 U.S. markets. The deal will give YPG a 35% minority ownership in the new combined entity.
We’re excited about Yellow Pages Group continued expansion in the digital space and the new opportunities it will provide local businesses in Canada to reach their target consumers on multiple platforms.
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 my article posted on Search Engine Land this week, I discuss how advances in digital offerings are presenting small businesses with a growing range of possibilities for where to spend their ad dollars. Additionally, I discuss how owners these days are faced with the difficult task of determining how to link old and new initiatives into cohesive strategies that deliver the strongest rates of return for their businesses.
Since the start of the year, we’ve shared announcements from several major Yellow Pages companies including SuperMedia, Dex One Corp., The Berry Company, and Yellow Pages Group about new services, partnerships, and acquisitions that provide small business with the means to combine the most recent digital marketing possibilities with traditional print and online options that they’ve used for years.
Today, it’s not just about Internet Yellow Pages, which millions of small business already know and use. I’m also talking about new vertical web sites including digital coupon sites, shopping comparison sites and user review sites that are among the latest drivers of local leads and are increasingly being added to the portfolios of various Yellow Pages companies.
For my thoughts, check out my Search Engine Land column here.
Recently, we’ve talked about the tough times facing many of our small business advertisers and the important role that Yellow Pages will play in ensuring their recovery.
In a clear win for small businesses nationwide, YP provider SuperMedia announced yesterday that it is continuing and expanding its successful SuperGuarantee program, which provides consumers with added confidence when hiring contractors, plumbers, auto body repair shops and thousands of other service-based businesses.
The program, launched last year, ensures that customers of participating SuperGuarantee businesses can rely on SuperMedia to help resolve any service issues they experience—or SuperMedia will reimburse the customer up to $500 of the cost of labor for the service. The continuation of the program speaks to how well it has succeeded in generating new sales leads for SuperMedia’s clients.
SuperMedia is also expanding the program to include an auto-specific offering that provides a free powertrain limited warranty covering many automotive components up to $3,000 for consumers who find and purchase qualified vehicles through Superpages.com or EveryCarListed.com, the company’s vertical auto website. Additionally, the company is expanding the capabilities of its mobile applications so that users can sign up for SuperGuarantee, register for service appointments, and file claims—all from their mobile devices.
SuperMedia is also creating a new ShieldPower program that gives small business clients more ways to advertise themselves as part of SuperGuarantee, including the ability to use the SuperGuarantee logo on the front door of their businesses, on their Web sites, business cards, TV ads, and more.
For more on SuperMedia’s announcement, click here.
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