If you’ve followed headlines about the online deals space over the past year, you might wonder if the phenomenon has lost its appeal.
In our monthly Locals Only column on Search Engine Land, I discuss that while the industry is facing challenges, both local businesses and consumers continue to see promise in the medium. I lay out 10 key questions that local businesses should consider when deciding whether an online deal makes sense for them.
PagesJaunes, France’s Yellow Pages publisher and one of the world’s most progressive local search companies, yesterday announced the launch of a new corporate brand – Solocal Group. The name change comes at a time when online revenues are becoming a greater share of the company’s bottom line: today, 58% of the company’s revenue comes from online, a figure that is expected to rise to 75% by 2015. The company chose the new name Solocal to better reflect digital growth and its leadership in online and mobile local search.
Though the corporate entitity will now be known as Solocal, it appears that the company’s consumer-facing products will continue to be branded as PagesJaunes for the time being.
In conjunction with the rebranding, Solocal also launched a new initative called “Digital 2015.” While the company has been rapidly transforming from traditional to digital over the past few years, Solocal will introduce Digital 2015 to fully make the switch. The company’s new objectives will include:
As you may know, Solocal CEO, Jean-Pierre Remy will be traveling from France to deliver the keynote speech at this year’s Search Starts Here Conference in Las Vegas. We’re very excited to hear more about the new iniative, the new name, and the company’s incredible transformation.
To hear fantastic insights from Jean-Pierre and other Local Search leaders at the 2013 conference, log onto LocalSearchAssociation.org to register.
As previously announced, we will be introducing numerous enhancements to the Directories Online (DOL) application during the 1st Quarter of 2013. Over the weekend we added two enhancements that improve DOL’s efficiency and usability.
We added a new “Save Page” icon on the Page View screen. The “Save Page” icon makes it easier to perform a quick save to the workstation without needing to move the page to the Cart first.
We’ve also refined the Search Results screen giving it a cleaner appearance, more information and improved efficiency. The column header is now a static display and the individual heading selection checkboxes were eliminated. In addition, directories that were selected in the initial search that returned no results will now appear at the end of the list with the phrase “No Match to Search Criteria.”
More useful enhancements to come!
If you have any feedback or suggestions for future enhancements, please contact Kevin Kalinowski at (248) 244-0713 or via e-mail at kevin.kalinowski@localsearchassociation.org. If Kevin is not available, please contact Ed Halasz at (248) 244-6201 or via e-mail at ed.halasz@localsearchassociation.org.
Local market research group, Borrell Associates, released a new report on SMB advertising plans for 2013, in it they predict local digital advertising spend in the US will reach $24.5 billion this year.
The report, ‘2013 Local Advertising Outlook: Get Ready for the Rebound’, shows that local digital ad spend is on track to increase 31% over last year with most of the focus going toward targeted display ads and paid search.
Social and mobile will be a big part of the local advertising mix in 2013 as well. According to the survey, Facebook is the number 1 online platform SMBs plan to place ads this year with nearly 3 out of 10 reporting those plans. Additionally, 75% of SMBs surveyed reported familiarity with mobile platforms in 2012 whereas only 40% were familiar in 2011.
Those surveyed were interested in exploring mobile coupons, text messages, and mobile optimized sites among other tactics. Interestingly, four out of ten of those surveyed said they’d never been pitched by a mobile firm, showing an opportunity for agencies in that space.
Click here for the full report.
Following Facebook’s expansion of ‘Nearby,’ Foursquare announced new adjustments to its privacy policy that will allow merchants to gain much more data on customers who check-in using the social network’s mobile app.
Previously, merchants who managed venues with Foursquare could only see users who had checked in within a short time window. Now, merchants can see the exact time and date users have checked in historically. This will enable merchants to give specific perks to their best customers, offer specials during heavy periods of frequent customer visits, and provide special perks to returning customers when they come back.
Another update is that Foursquare will now show the first and last name of users in lieu of a first name and initial. This gives merchants more information to connect with customers via social media and other means with greater ease.
Analysts are chalking the new changes up as a bid for increased ad revenue. “If the owner can put a name, face, and detailed dossier to his die-hard customers, he will have even greater incentive to buy Foursquare ads, which can be targeted at regulars. That means more revenue for Foursquare…” said a recent Wired.com piece.
What do you think? Are the new updates a win for everyone (revenue for Foursquare, insights for merchants, perks for customers), or are they changes too privacy-sensitive?
Last week, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals once again ruled in favor of First Amendment protection in our case against the City of Seattle over its discriminatory phone book law. In a ruling filed on January 3, the Ninth Circuit denied the City of Seattle’s motion to revisit its earlier decision that directories, like all media, are fully protected speech under the Constitution. In doing so, the Court’s ruling is final and it effectively struck down Seattle’s discriminatory phone book law.
As you may recall, in October 2012, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit unanimously ruled print Yellow Pages directories are fully protected speech and the City of Seattle’s discriminatory phone book ordinance was unconstitutional. However, in November 2012, the City of Seattle filed its petition requesting a full Ninth Circuit panel review of the decision.
The Ninth Circuit’s ruling is binding in all courts within the Ninth District, including San Francisco, unless Seattle files an appeal that is accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court and wins at that level. We are optimistic San Francisco’s even more restrictive Yellow Pages ordinance will be overturned.
The Ninth Circuit’s decision represents a decisive victory that protects all media from restrictions that hurt local businesses and consumers and unnecessarily cost taxpayers. The ruling is good news for residents who find value in free and easy access to community information, emergency information, and local business listings in print Yellow Pages. It is also a win for local businesses that depend on Yellow Pages advertising to attract new customers.
Our national consumer choice program, rather than government mandates, is the best approach to ensure consumers can control the delivery of Yellow Pages directories to their homes. We believe it doesn’t make sense to deliver a directory to someone who doesn’t want one. Our national opt-out website at www.YellowPagesOptOut.com has been available since 2011 at no cost to taxpayers and without the use of government resources.
As we kick off 2013, we’re pleased to announce new enhancements to LSA Directories Online (DOL) that will make the database more robust and productive. These enhancements, which follow changes made last October, will be introduced throughout the first quarter. The first of the changes were implemented this past weekend with the addition of the new YP Section Heading Box.
YP Section Heading Box
When reviewing the Yellow Pages section of a directory on the Page View screen, a new Heading Box will appear to the right of the directory page. This feature will compliment the Page View heading search for potential alternative headings.
The heading box will initially display, in blue print, the first heading found on the page followed by a list of up to the next ten headings. If the page is advanced by increasing the page number or by using the “Page >” button, the first heading found on the selected page will appear in blue print preceded by the previous five headings and followed by the next five headings. By clicking on any of the headings shown, DOL will display the page the selected heading appears on while updating the heading list to reflect the selected heading.
A user can also enter an abbreviated heading in the Heading field on the Page View screen and the Heading Box will update to reflect the first heading that begins with the characters entered. For those instances where a heading is long, such as with the Physician headings, the heading list will appear truncated. Simply position the mouse pointer near the heading to display it in its entirety.
Additional Enhancements
This weekend, we implemented a refinement to the “Include Cover” toggle switch function. The ‘Include Cover’ toggle will now print one cover per directory instead of a cover for each heading selected. With this enhancement, users will no longer receive a cover for each heading printed when printing multiple headings.
Other DOL enhancements in the works include:
If you have any questions or additional suggestions, feel free to contact our DOL experts Kevin Kalinowski (kevin.kalinowski@localsearchassociation.org) or Ed Halasz (ed.halasz@localsearchassociation.org).
As 2012 comes to a close, I want to take a step back to reflect on the important progress we’ve made as an industry this year. Whether it’s the changes our major publishers have made to reposition themselves for future growth, the strong partnerships we’ve developed with government officials and environmental groups to raise awareness for our consumer choice program, or the efforts we’ve undergone to improve our environmental impact, our industry has faced our challenges head-on with positive results.
Here’s a recap of some highlights from 2012:
And as we end the year, we look ahead to what we know will be another great year for our industry as it transforms itself to meet the new opportunities and challenges of today’s changing media environment.
Wesley Young, our vice president of Public Policy, will be taking over the helm of the Local Insider blog, as I’ll be leaving the Association on December 31. Your LSA team will continue to focus on the local search industry, environmental stewardship and product innovation, and keep you in the loop through the LSA web site, the annual Conference (April 13-16 at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas) as well as our Twitter and Facebook sites.
We wish all of our members and readers a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!
What is the role of government in product stewardship? This question was posed to me as one of five panelists on yesterday’s Product Stewardship Institute (PSI) webinar. Many government officials and recycling professionals listened in, and other panelists included:
According to PSI’s invitation, the purpose of the webinar discussion was to discern, “…whether key [product stewardship] program principles, such as transparency and accountability, are best attained through voluntary, mandatory, or hybrid programs that encompass elements from both approaches.”
During the webinar, I stressed that it is important to not lump all of private industry together when considering how to regulate the environmental impact of products in the marketplace. Government leaders and other key stakeholders should look at what each individual industry is doing and not take a one-size-fits-all approach.
As we know, many states and cities are feeling the budget pinch, and taxpayer money has to be carefully prioritized to protect public health and safety. The bigger the threat, the greater need for government.
Certainly, hazardous products require government oversight in order to protect consumers from injury. As the ACA’s Alison Keane noted, paint is the top household hazardous waste product. That is why the ACA founded “PaintCare,” a non-profit program to manage the reuse, recycling and proposal disposal of unused paint. This industry-support effort is in conjunction with government oversight initiatives that include a per-can assessment fee, convenient paint collection and a management system run by manufacturers.
However, a telephone directory does not present the safety hazards that paint can. And when it comes to the print Yellow Pages, we know that voluntary self-regulation through industry-led efforts works best for consumers, small businesses, and most importantly, taxpayers.
Our industry has been proactive in reducing the carbon footprint of our products and has generated significant results. Last year, we re-launched our successful, industry-funded consumer website, www.YellowPagesOptOut.com. The site, which is provided at no cost to consumers or cities, enables residents and local businesses to choose which directories they receive or stop delivery altogether. The recycling rate for print directories is high and the impact of phone books on the municipal waste stream is miniscule. Moreover, over the past five years, our industry has undergone a 50% reduction of paper use for directory production.
Another factor is whether government and an industry are aligned in their goals. For our industry, we have a common desire with government to reduce the number of unwanted directories. Publishers do not want to incur the cost of printing and delivering a product to a household that does not intend to use it. Local government wants to reduce unwanted directory deliveries but often have competing budgetary demands. So, the industry offers a free solution: a website where consumers can opt-out of phone directory delivery.
Mr. Lifset included in one of his presentation slides that there is, “No sound science to support effectiveness of voluntary approaches to environmental policy,” and that the, “Majority of voluntary schemes collect little or no data… no data, no evidence!” I disagree. For one, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) provides us with credible data on the success of our efforts. Back in 2009, the EPA determined that directories made up three-tenths of one percent of the of discarded paper & paperboard products in the municipal waste stream. Now, however, the EPA has determined that phone directories are such a small part of the municipal waste stream that they no longer see a need to track the product separately.
Mr. Martin noted that Australia had a 77.7% recovery rate for newsprint in 2011. That is very common to the recycling rate for newsprint in the U.S. – which includes telephone directories – of 71.6%. Whether or not the Australian rate includes telephone directories is secondary to the larger point of the commonness and success in paper recycling globally.
While our industry continues to responsibly self-regulate the production, distribution and disposal of our products, we believe that government can play an important role in communicating solutions and options to the public. I shared with the webinar listeners an overview of the collaborative press releases that our industry has issued with state and local lawmakers across the country, several of whom are noted as strong advocates of the environment.
I’m glad that our industry had this opportunity to share our positive story with interested parties on the PSI webinar, and I look forward to continued dialogue.
We’re on-site at the National League of Cities’ Congress of Cities and Exposition at the Boston Convention Center & Exposition Center this week, as more than 3,000 mayors, city managers, city council members, government staff and industry corporate partners gather to discuss, among other topics, ways for cities to build more sustainable communities.
Yesterday, Dex One’s Tim Foster, Yellowbook’s Matt Krug and YP’s Jim Troup set up Booth #1149 in the Sustainability Pavilion in the Exhibition Hall in preparation for the event, which officially begins today.
In the evening, Neg and I attended the NLC’s Board of Directors reception and dinner, where we had the opportunity to meet with a variety of attendees. Notably, Neg spoke with Seattle City Councilmember Richard Conlin about our industry’s desire to work with the City of Seattle to address its concerns about directory delivery and update them on positive developments when it comes to our sustainability and consumer choice initiatives.
At dinner, we had the chance to talk one-on-one with Melodee Colbert Kean, the recently elected mayor of Joplin, Missouri. Mayor Colbert Kean, who is the first African-American to be elected as mayor of Joplin, was a very engaging woman and told us stories about how her city was recovering from the devastating 2011 tornado. She discussed how one-third of the city was damaged or destroyed and that more than 160 lives were lost in the storm.
But Mayor Colbert Kean also emphasized how her city is emerging from the destruction with a new hope and vision. She said rebuilding is taking place with a master plan – including the construction of a vibrant city center – to make the city more attractive to new residents and businesses. As part of the rebuilding, the Mayor said she recognized the usefulness of phone directories in helping local businesses in Joplin attract new customers, in addition to providing residents with useful information to use in emergencies like a storm.
Mayor Colbert Kean did note that she believes some residents would prefer to opt-out of directory delivery. She was so encouraged to learn about our consumer choice website at www.YellowPagesOptOut.com that she tweeted about it from the dinner table. The Mayor said she looks forward to gauging interest in the tool from her constituents and will report back to us.
A very exciting and productive kick-off to what we know will be a very productive week. Stay tuned for additional updates from the NLC conference!
In a move to make mobile impression counts more “robust and reliable”, industry groups including the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), and the Media Ratings Council (MRC) have released updated guidelines for mobile web advertising measurement. The new guidelines impact mobile measurement definitions, click measurement considerations, general reporting parameters and auditing recommendations.
The groups proposed that client-side counting for mobile web ad impressions be required to help limit discrepancies. They also recommended that the mobile advertising industry work on a standardized definition of viewable impressions.
“Our objective is to ensure that mobile remains a valued component of the marketing mix with clear, actionable guidelines in place,” said Michael Becker, managing director of MMA North America.
For details on the recent updates, visit IAB’s website.
Check out SuperMedia’s new “Seeing Success” ad campaign! The campaign highlights what local search marketing consultants can do for small businesses across local, mobile and digital platforms.
Take a look below, we think it looks great!
BIA/Kelsey recently released the latest addition of its ongoing tracking survey of small and medium businesses, the Local Commerce Monitor Survey. The results showed that businesses are looking to dig deeper into digital in the coming year.
Of the 300 small and medium businesses surveyed, 40% said they plan to increase spending on digital marketing in the next 12 months, while only 3.7% said they planned to decrease their digital budget.
The survey showed that Facebook is a top marketing channel for SMBs. Among the businesses surveyed, 52% said they are currently using Facebook’s advertising service, making the social network more popular than e-mail marketing and online banners.
Check out more insights from the survey over at eMarketer and the soon-to-come full report at BIA/Kelsey.
Joseph Henson is an Internet Marketing Specialist at Search Influence, a national online marketing firm focused on small and medium-sized businesses, and white label online marketing products for publishers and media partners who serve them. Search Influence is the largest online marketing company on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans’ only Inc. 500 honoree in 2011.
In terms of monetization and positioning, Foursquare has made great strides in 2012. What started back in 2009 as a “50% friend-finder” app with social gaming and local business review elements, has evolved into a powerful social-local-mobile recommendation engine that has the potential to rival more traditional local search powerhouses like Yelp and Google. The company is also showing promise in creating a mobile advertising platform that is seamlessly integrated and appreciated by users.
Foursquare’s sudden burst of upward momentum can be traced back to last June when the company raised $50 million in a round of venture funding that went towards further building the app’s functionality. Soon after, the company began making robust improvements to their local search feature, “Explore” by including results based on the time of day, friend activity, followed lists, and the 2.5 billion check-ins made by their 25 million users.
In July, Foursquare began its push into monetization with the limited roll-out of promoted updates. These relevant ads are included in search results where a business can promote its services, events, products, and specials. Promoted updates show promise in being a powerful mobile advertising tool for local and national businesses alike. The options, when compared to the likes of Yelp, are elegantly integrated into the existing Explore search results and are surprisingly relevant, customizable, and targetable.
Most recently, the company took another leap towards local search preeminence by partnering with OpenTable. This partnership allows for deep in-app integration with the restaurant reservation service, allowing Foursquare users to access menus, browse reviews, and make reservations. While the partnership is great news for users, it is a bit of a late effort — Google and Yelp have been integrated with the OpenTable platform for quite some time now.
Foursquare has no signs of slowing down, and it will be interesting to see how events play out now that the company is directly positioning itself against the heavy hitters of local search. While it is true that competitors like Yelp and Google have the advantage of higher amounts of users and traffic, numbers that are sure to increase for Yelp due to recent partnerships with the likes of Bing and Apple, Foursquare still has a variety of qualities that make it a viable competitor. The company truly gets how social-local-mobile should work; its ability to utilize rich behavioral data in search results and integrate relevant advertising cleanly and manageably stands out amongst the competition. If Foursquare can maintain this momentum and form more strategic partnerships in a similar fashion to Yelp, the company could establish itself as a high-engagement marketing tool that both small local businesses and large national brands won’t be able to ignore.
We continued our ongoing work telling the local search industry’s sustainability and consumer choice story as an exhibitor to about 300 local and area representatives at the GreenTown Highland Park conference last Friday in Highland Park, IL.
The event, which we attended at the invitation of Highland Park Councilmembers Paul Frank and David Naftzger, gave us the opportunity to meet one-on-one with a variety of local government officials and representatives of organizations who share our interest in building sustainable, prosperous communities. LSA and our members had previously worked with Councilmembers Frank and Naftzger in February to promote www.YellowPagesOptOut.com, the industry’s national opt-out website for phone book directories. We again met with Councilmember Naftzger at the event and he personally thanked us for our continued involvement.
This GreenTown event follows hibu & LSA’s similar participation at the Illinois Recycling Association conference in Rockford, IL back in June. Special thanks to hibu and Matt Krug for their participation again at the Greentown event.
LSA's Wesley Young and hibu's Matt Krug at GreenTown Highland Park
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