We’re pleased to invite Trevor Nadeau, managing director of Turkey-based Yellow Medya (formerly Turkey Yellow Pages), to guest blog on Local Search Insider. Since joining Yellow Medya in 2008, Trevor and his team have transformed the company from a traditional Yellow Pages publisher into one of Turkey’s most dynamic local search media agencies. Read Trevor’s post below to learn more about the leading role Yellow Medya in playing in Turkey’s local search space.
I am very excited about the future of our Yellow Medya business here in Turkey. Let me tell you why….
A couple of years ago at the board of directors meeting of Turkey Yellow Pages, I told the board members that there was no longer an appetite for our Yellow Pages offerings in Turkey and we needed to re-invent and re-engineer our business offering for the fast paced digital economy in Turkey. As a relatively young Yellow Pages publisher in a very unique market – a market that has already seen a number of Yellow Pages and directory publishers come and go in the past 20 years – we knew that the momentum was already in Google’s favor for online search and it made no sense for us to compete with them, so we had to identify a “need” in the Turkish marketplace and leverage it to the max.
We have all heard the saying “Content Is King.” It was in this saying where we found our marketplace “need” in Turkey. With the board’s support we made the strategic decision that Turkey Yellow Pages would create, grow and maintain the most accurate, up-to-date categorized and geo-coded business listing database Turkey has ever seen. This business listing database asset has now formed the foundation for our success in establishing key strategic partnerships both locally and globally. It has also enabled us to introduce new products that have transcended traditional Yellow Pages offerings. Today, we are the “one and only destination” for business owners to come to in order to have their businesses found on virtually every possible local search platform in Turkey and the world. Our business has changed so much that we even changed our name from Turkey Yellow Pages to Yellow Medya (“Medya” is the Turkish word for “media”). We have become a local search media agency in reality.
As Yellow Pages publishers, we all have a particular expertise in business listing compilation and cleansing. I might venture to say that in emerging markets and less mature markets, Yellow Pages publishers by necessity are forced to hone their business listing compilation skills even more so. Often there is not a reliable “telecom” database to serve as the source for business listing data or if there is a telecom DB available it is usually in pretty bad shape. I talk from real experience.
And herein lies what I feel is one of our industry’s strongest yet maybe least leveraged assets: the high quality local business listing database. In Turkey’s for example, the market has never seen a quality local search business listing database. None of the previous Yellow Pages or directory publishers in Turkey had ever taken the time nor invested the money required to create a great business listing database for local search. We at Yellow Medya recognized that by leveraging our existing expertise in local search business listing compilation, our purpose built database applications, and our expanding data compilation team, we could quickly became the owner of the best business listing database Turkey had ever seen.
“Build it and they will come.” A good line from a great movie and so very true when it comes to a quality business listing database.
Even though our Yellow.com.tr website is one of the busiest local search websites in Turkey, it is still a Google world here. That is okay though, because Yellow Medya is in most cases the company that is giving those business listings to Google through our business listing partnership agreement. We also now provide our business listings to Yandex, Nokia Location & Commerce (formerly NAVTEQ), TomTom, TripAdvisor, Foursquare, and countless other platforms through various APIs. All of these partnerships are a result of our focus on ensuring that Yellow Medya possesses the best business listing database available in Turkey today.
We have also found fantastic new ways to repurpose all the great rich business listing content we collect for our database into over 25 different local search advertising products. We have created phenomenal new opportunities for our business through these partnerships, not only with small businesses but now brand owners are knocking on our door in order to ensure Yellow Medya can make sure we get all their brand points of sale in the market discoverable on all the SoLoMo related local search platforms.
With SoLoMo marketing activities becoming so important for brands and small businesses alike, it is absolutely essential that a business listing be accurately named, addressed, geo-coded, categorized and brand associated.
Yellow Pages and directory publishers around the world should realize they are sitting on a priceless asset. Take a look at your database and enhance each and every business listing with an accurate geo-code, a full and complete address including suite and floor number as well as nearby landmarks. Get store operating hours and forms of payment accepted while you are at it. Get some or all of the brand names each business carries and you are on your way. You will have built something the SoLoMo platforms of the world desperately need – quality location based business listing content.
Now here is the kicker. Once your database is that good and your company becomes the data supplier to all the local search and map platforms in your market, major brand owners and SMBs will be paying you to add their points of sale to your database. This phenomenon now transforms your data compilation department from a cost center to a profit center. And to put icing on the cake, by growing and maintaining the database quality in your market, there is no chance your content licensing partners will ever leave you.
Build it and they will come. They are in Turkey. They will in your market.
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