Posts Tagged ‘Yellow Pages’

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LSA, hibu at the Washington State Recycling Association Conference

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Matt Krug from hibu and I are attending the Washington State Recycling Association (WSRA) conference in Stevenson, WA to promote the industry and highlight the environmental and sustainability initiatives of LSA members.  We’ve had the opportunity to speak in front of hundreds of city and county waste management staff about our self regulatory efforts involving the opt-out site as well as meet individually with them at our booth.  We’ve also developed some personal relationships and contacts with staff at cities across the state.  These relationships should be valuable contacts for us in making sure our message gets heard and in keeping regulatory pressure off of the industry.

Here is Matt giving a quick pitch about the yellow page industry’s opt-out program to a large audience at the conference.

May 14, 2013 | Leave a Comment
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LSA Talks Sustainability and Consumer Choice During KAB Webinar

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Keep America Beautiful

In March, I had the privilege of presenting during a webinar titled “Recycling Niche Materials,” hosted by Keep America Beautiful (KAB).  I presented alongside representatives from the plastic film recycling industry, Steel Recycling Institute and International Sleep Products Association.  This was a great opportunity to show KAB’s audience the tremendous strides our industry has made in sustainability and consumer choice.  Here is a video showing LSA’s portions of the webinar:

May 7, 2013 | Leave a Comment
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LSA Reaches Settlement with City of Seattle Over Phone Book Ordinance

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

I’m pleased to share that we recently reached an agreement with the City of Seattle to end litigation resulting from its discriminatory phone book ordinance. As we shared last October, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals gave a unanimous ruling in favor of free speech that protects all media, including Yellow Pages, from restrictions that hurt local businesses and consumers and cost taxpayer dollars. Now Yellow Pages companies can continue to offer their services without the challenges put in place by the City’s ordinance.

As an industry, we know it doesn’t make sense to deliver a directory to someone who doesn’t want one. But we believe our industry’s consumer choice program, rather than local government-led initiatives, is the best approach to ensure consumers control the delivery of Yellow Pages directories to their homes and businesses. Consumers in Seattle and nationwide can visit www.YellowPagesOptOut.com to limit or stop delivery of directories. The straightforward, easy-to-use website is free, funded by Yellow Pages publishers rather than taxpayer dollars.

We look forward to working with the City of Seattle to increase visibility of www.YellowPagesOptOut.com among its residents and will honor opt-out requests previously submitted to the City’s former opt-out website.

We will also continue to help Seattle’s local businesses navigate the increasingly complex local media marketplace to give them their best possible return on investment and to provide residents with the ability to find those businesses wherever they search.

March 6, 2013 | Leave a Comment
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PagesJaunes Groupe President and CEO Jean-Pierre Remy to Delivery Keynote at LSA Annual Conference

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

We are really fortunate to have secured a phenomenal keynote speaker for our 2013 annual conference, “Search Starts Here”: Jean-Pierre Remy, President and Chief Executive Officer of PagesJaunes.

PagesJaunes is the Yellow Pages publisher in France. Since taking on his role in 2009, Jean-Pierre has led the remarkable transformation of the company from a traditional print publisher into one of the world’s most progressive local search companies.

Recently, MIT’s prestigious Sloan Business School, in association with CapGemini Consulting, conducted a study into digital transformation within large traditional billion-dollar-plus organizations. The purpose was to identify companies from traditional business sectors who had successfully embraced digital technology in order to radically transform their performance. Jean-Pierre’s ability to successfully capitalize on new digital opportunities for PagesJaunes within the directive media-publishing was specifically cited in the report as a model example for the industry.

Today, PagesJaunes reaches 90% of French consumers through its portfolio of print, digital, mobile and social products and ranks as one of the top 10 global companies in terms of online revenues, with 59% of its approximately $1.5 billion annual revenue coming from its digital offerings. In my opinion, PagesJaunes represents one of the greatest transformation stories from traditional to digital media ever.

PagesJaunes’ successful realignment serves as a model for all traditional media companies looking to evolve into forward-looking digital media players.  I encourage anyone who is looking to make a similar transition to the digital world to join us in learning how Jean-Pierre led the transformation of his company.

Visit our conference website for more information and to register for “Search Starts Here,” April 13-16, 2013 at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. We’ll be posting additional details throughout this week on the exciting things we have planned for this year’s gathering.

January 16, 2013 | Leave a Comment
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Ninth Circuit Denies City of Seattle’s Latest Motion, Finalizing Free Speech Protection for all Media

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

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.

January 9, 2013 | Leave a Comment
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HuffPost: ‘The solution might be as simple as remember to check the phone book’

Thursday, December 13, 2012

In a column on the Huffington Post, reporter Gillian Frew makes a strong argument for the ongoing value of print media, specifically phone books, in today’s increasingly digital world.

Recently, Frew was researching genealogy information for a story. She searched Google and looked through several online genealogy forums, without success. It wasn’t until Frew referenced the phone book that she was able to find the family she was looking for – including key background information like names, phone numbers and addresses.

Frew said the experience should, “be a lesson to all young reporters out there: In the digital age, with more information available online than before, we still need to remember the basics. To scope out stores and suss out sources, reporters must rely on all of the tools at our disposal, both hi-tech and low. Sometimes, when all else fails, the solution might be as simple as remembering to check the phone book.”

While Frew’s story had to do with white pages, her experience mirrors the role that Yellow Pages play in helping consumers find basic local business information. Research shows that consumers continue to cite print and Internet Yellow Pages as among the most accurate and trusted source of local business information. Yellow Pages’ complete listings not only help consumers, they ensure that local businesses can easily and effectively capture potential customers who are ready to make a purchase.

Take a look at Frew’s column and let us know what you think.

 

December 13, 2012 | Leave a Comment
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LSA’s Neg Norton to Participate in Product Stewardship Institute Webinar

Monday, November 26, 2012

The Product Stewardship Institute (PSI) will host an expert panel webinar tomorrow, Tuesday, November 27 at 1 p.m. ET, about the intersection between government and industry in attaining high performing product stewardship programs. The webinar will address whether key program principles are best attained through voluntary, mandatory or hybrid programs.

We’re pleased that our very own Neg Norton will present our industry’s story on the webinar as one of two industry participants. The discussion, which will be moderated by PSI founder and CEO Scott Cassel, will also include input from academic and government leaders.

Please RSVP with PSI to listen in on the conversation. The event is free to PSI full members and sustaining partners, and payment options are available for others as well.

November 26, 2012 | 1 Comment
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Print Yellow Pages Remain Strong Advertising Choice for Attorneys

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Recently, a legal marketing firm issued a press release on the changing ways that people find lawyers. The release, citing an American Bar Association (ABA) public opinion poll, stated that the use of print Yellow Pages “as the primary way to find a lawyer for a personal legal matter appears to be waning.”

The marketing firm’s conclusion is misleading for several reasons.

  • The poll, which was conducted way back in September 2010, told us what we already know: that many people searching for a lawyer for a personal legal matter find one through friends and family or by contacting a lawyer they’ve used previously. But when it comes to those who find a lawyer through advertising, the poll showed that the same number of people who search for a lawyer via the print Yellow Pages search for one online. The report itself said there may be “some erosion” from anticipated use of print Yellow Pages compared to research that was conducted prior to the availability of the Internet, but the degree of shift to the web is difficult to assess. So while there’s no doubt the Internet is playing a bigger role in how lawyers are found, there is also minimal evidence to suggest that print Yellow Pages are losing their historical prominence as a place where consumers go to find lawyers.
  • The 2011 Local Media Tracking Study, conducted by the independent research firm Burke on behalf of the Local Search Association, found that print Yellow Pages generate an impressive 93.4 million look-ups annually for attorney services. The attorneys heading ranked 9th based on usage among the top 300 print Yellow Pages headings. This is a decline over previous years, but still a very strong and healthy standing.
  • Our Local Media Tracking Study also demonstrated the high value of print Yellow Pages look-ups for attorneys. Approximately 55% of consumers have a decision to make when searching print Yellow Pages for attorneys. This includes consumers who had no name in mind or had two or more names in mind before looking in the directory. Additionally, 63% of consumers contact an attorney they found in the print Yellow Pages, while 68% of consumers using directories make a purchase of attorney’s services or intend to make a purchase. Furthermore, 70% of purchasers secured through print Yellow Pages are new customers for the attorney they contact.
  • Print Yellow Pages deliver an unduplicated audience because they have low duplication with other media, according to the 2011 Intermedia Shopping Study conducted by TNS. For example, when print Yellow Pages is used in combination with online services advertising, it extends the reach to purchasers by 58%.
  • Finally, a review of 26 display ad call tracking studies conducted for 10 national advertisers showed print Yellow Pages deliver strong value to attorney advertisers. Average return on investment is 7 to 1, and median return on investment is 4 to 1, according to Local Search Association data.

While our industry recognizes that general use of print Yellow Pages is declining, that does not mean that legal related ads are no longer an effective marketing tool. The data above speaks for itself: that an integrated advertising approach that leverages directories in addition to newer platforms like the web will garner the best results for lawyers looking for new customers.

September 20, 2012 | Leave a Comment
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Report: Global Mobile YP Market to Reach Nearly $30 Billion by 2018

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Market research firm, Global Industry Analysts (GIA), recently announced the findings of a new report analyzing the worldwide market for mobile Yellow Pages.

The report, which profiles 37 local search companies including YP Holdings, Dex One, Pages Jaunes Groupe, SuperMedia, and hibu/Yellowbook, projects that the global market for mobile YP will reach $28.8 billion by 2018. GIA said that growth will be attributed primarily to increasing use of mobile phones for local search and the local search industry’s push to diversify.

GIA expects location-based services and mobile advertising to greatly expand in the coming years, carving major market share for mobile Yellow Pages.

For more, go to GIA for the full report.

August 9, 2012 | Leave a Comment
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Live Blogging from the 2012 CRRA Conference Next Week

Friday, August 3, 2012

Last month, we shared news that Yellowbook and the Local Search Association had signed up as bronze sponsors of the 2012 California Resource Recovery Association (CRRA) conference. This will represent the second year that we are participating in this great event.

The CRRA conference, which takes place this upcoming Sunday through Wednesday at the Oakland Marriott City Center in Oakland, California, will feature an exhibit booth staffed by on-site representatives from Yellowbook and the Association.

I’m excited to head out West to discuss important topics with CRRA attendees including our industry’s sustainability and environmental efforts, opt-out program and the importance of buying locally for the entire community. I hope to see some familiar faces but also some new ones as we try to spread the word about the industry’s work in this area.

I’ll be blogging live from the conference, so stay tuned for updates from me throughout the week!

August 3, 2012 | Leave a Comment
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PinDot Media: Yellow Pages Remains Competitive

Friday, July 6, 2012

Check out this video from PinDot Media, a marketing agency, on print Yellow Pages’ continued competitiveness as a local advertising tool. PinDot stresses the importance of a holistic, multi-platform approach that includes print Yellow Pages in order to receive maximum impact.

Also be sure to watch out for a brief history on how phonebooks got their yellow color back in 1883!

 

July 6, 2012 | Leave a Comment
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Berry and Frontier Continue Local Search Partnership to Reach Rural Communities

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Earlier this month, The Berry Company and Frontier Communications announced their continued partnership to produce FrontierPages through 2014.

According to the press release, the partnership will continue to include both print and Internet Yellow Pages and other digital advertising solutions to more than 36,000 small and medium-sized businesses in 142 of Frontier’s local rural markets.

Yellow Pages offerings play an important role connecting local businesses with residents – especially in rural communities – so I’m glad to see that this partnership is continuing.

June 26, 2012 | Leave a Comment
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Sales Training vs Product Training

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Tony Lannom, Regional Manager at Axiom Sales Force Development, has over twenty-five years of sales and sales management experience in a broad range of industries including software, electronics, and communications.

I started this morning just like any other: with cup of coffee in hand, I begin reading my emails. The first email I came across began with the statement: “Product training is the most important aspect of sales training.”  While I wasn’t interested in the free webinar the email was offering, the statement evoked a thought: Is product training more important than sales training?

Many organizations invest money, time and effort to teach sales people all about the products and services they sell. Perhaps as a direct result of this effort, we often find sales people spending the bulk of their time attempting to pitch their products and services to prospective customers.

So what’s wrong with this approach? To fully grasp the problem, we have to put ourselves in the position of the prospects. Prospects often sit through sales presentations learning about the sales rep’s new products and services. The prospect must then attempt to make the connection between these products and any applicable impact on their organization. Unless the product clearly solves a top-of-mind problem the prospect recognizes, most simply won’t conduct that thorough an analysis.  It becomes a bit like channel surfing – if their attention isn’t grabbed quickly and decisively they simply move on to something else.

Unfortunately this pitch, or even the value prop approach, works often enough that many believe it’s a good idea, but what about the more than 80% of meetings where this approach didn’t lead to any meaningful opportunities for either party?

Placing priority on product training runs the risk of focusing sales people in the wrong direction: our solutions instead of the prospect’s company.

Does this mean everyone should abandon all product training and focus exclusively on selling skills?  Of course not.  However, all training should focus on the customer first.  Moreover, equipping sales people to engage in meaningful conversations about the customer’s business must be the top priority for the organization.  Assume for a moment that a sales person knows nothing of her products. As long as this seller focuses her energy on gathering critical information from the prospect, the meeting is likely to be more productive than a product pitch. This assumes the sales person has the skill needed to gather critical information including details regarding the prospect’s organization and the criteria the buyer would use to evaluate any proposed solutions. Obviously there are additional information objectives that would be important from the prospect’s perspective, but you get my point.

Leaving the meeting with meaningful information from the prospect, the person could simply take this information back to his company and seek help finding an ideal solution. Imagine a seller returning from a sales call and stating: “Here are the business objectives I learned from my prospect… Here are the criteria the prospect will consider in order to make a decision….Do we have any solutions that address these problems and align with their criteria?” Assuming once again the sales person knows nothing about his company’s products; it seems likely there would be adequate help to define the ideal solution.

There is no question that equipping sales people with a clear understanding of the solutions they offer is important to the success of the sales organization. However, when product training becomes the top, or sole priority, there is a risk that the sales people becoming too focused on their products, and not focused enough on prospects’ best interest.

Have you run into obstacles with product focused training programs? If so, were you able to find a good balance between products and skills training?

June 7, 2012 | Leave a Comment
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American Idol Finale Showcases Yellow Pages in Tribute to Randy Jackson

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Last night’s American Idol finale gave some unexpected airtime to the Yellow Pages in a satirical tribute to judge Randy Jackson.

In a skit watched by more than 20 million viewers across the country, the finalists played on Jackson’s frequent comment that contestants sing so well they “can sing the phone book” by doing just that! Check out the clip below to see American Idol finalists take out their phone books and put the Yellow Pages to song.

May 24, 2012 | Leave a Comment
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Trevor Nadeau: ‘Build It and They Will Come.’ Yellow Medya – Turkey’s POI Powerhouse

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

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.

May 22, 2012 | 1 Comment
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