Local Businesses and the Internet Yellow Pages
Mary Bowling | 21 April 2008 |
In order for an advertising platform to be successful, it must provide value to both its advertisers and its users. This is what the yellow pages industry has done for close to a hundred years.
It’s pretty much a given in the marketing world that small business people do not
buy advertising. Instead, it must be sold to them. Even though local enterprises truly need to be represented in the Yellow Pages, which is THE local business directory with which everyone is familiar, many of them would never change a thing in their listing if their rep didn’t come around once a year and remind them of it.
About 40% of businesses that purchase advertising in the printed Yellow Pages also purchase advertising on the an Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) website. This is because the Yellow Pages representatives are selling it to them. This ubiquitous sales force is the major impetus for local enterprises all over the country to move into marketing online and they’re moving them into marketing online using their services, not the services of Search Engine Marketers.
The IYPs are bundling together their own pay per click, pay per call, enchanced listing, preferred placement and website creation and hosting. In addition to ads appearing on their own directory sites, the IYPs are partnering up with other publishers to widen their distribution. These ad networks enable them to come closer to providing small to medium sized businesses with a comprehensive package of online marketing, which can often include ads on Yahoo, Google, MSN and important local websites. They also put these pieces together in an easy to manage package with simple monthly billing.
Are the Internet Yellow Pages destined to be the preferred Search Engine Marketing agencies for small, local businesses? Perhaps they already are….
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April 22nd, 2008 at 9:00 am
No yellowpages is a thing of the past for small business owners for online markering/advertising. First off they charge a fortune for very little value online. Secondly, people do not go to yellowpages online and search for a local business. They go to google, yahoo, msn and do a search there. That is where a small business needs to be found, it is on the first page of those search engines.
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:25 am
Matthew,
You have a very narrow view of Local Search-what it is and all the different ways and places that people search for local businesses.
Also, for many small local businesses, it’s a matter of advertising ROI and when they see the fees that most SEMs charge, it becomes a fairly easy choice.
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:52 pm
The margins that YP make and their bundling business practices will be their downfall. How can they justify the outrages rates on the web??
They will only survive if they change their ways and they won’t…just look at the newspaper industry!!
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Hi Jose,
The newspaper industry and the Yellow Pages industry are both struggling with the transition from print to the web. Only time will tell how well they meet the challenge. My point, however, is that right now they still have a lot to offer small businesses and the people who are searching for them.
For their users, it’s easy-to-find, reliable information about local businesses. And for their advertisers, its someone who will do the internet advertising leg work, package it well, and allow them to pay as they go.
I absolutely believe that good SEOs/SEMs can do a better job of online promotion for any sized business, but to do so we must consider the needs of the advertisers. Small business people are simply too busy running their shops to do anything else. We need to make our services as easy to understand and to buy as the IYPs do. Then, we must get out there and sell it to them.
June 7th, 2008 at 5:09 am
Hi Everyone,
I just wanted to say that you are all (minus one person, we all know who you are) right in different ways.
What most people (searchers on yahoo and google and etc..) dont realize that when you do a search on those site for a local product or service 61% of the search results on those sites come from IYP’s. The person clicks over to a yellowbook.com and buys thier product. People are starting to realize that if they want a local product or service, you might as well go to a yellowbook.com for example, since you are going to end up there anyway. They are skipping the step and going directly to the source. I know I use yellowbook.com all the time and have even downloaded thier tool bar. It makes sense to me that they put out the local books (which I occasionally still use myself) so they have the most up to date local information here in Massachusetts. Google and Yahoo don’t have a sales group here so how do they get that info? They get it from either local business doing SEM/or SEO, they get it from IYP’s, and some other options. If I do a search for something in my town of Canton, Ma and don’t put ‘MA’ there I will still get results on the first page for Canton, OH which is larger city then Canton, Ma. I’m far from an expert but I do know people that advertise in the books and online. She tells me that the internet has obviously taken over some business from the books but they still have headings that get a great ROI from the books. I know that if my computer is off and I need a number or anything local I’m not going to turn it on when I can just go to the book and be on the phone before my computer even is ready to use. My friend, who is here with me, says she does very well from the books, has a PPC program through YellowBook, and advertises on YellowBook.com as well. She says she tracks everything and they all are working for her for now. If one falls off you take it off, thats all.
Someone made the comment that it’s easier to have a rep come in once or twice a year to your business to set up some of these programs. I, and my friend, agree. She told me that if the rep didnt come in and offer the program to her (the PPC one) then she wouldn’t get to even start to look into it for months from now because she is so busy. This way it’s out of her hands and they provide all the results to her and although she knows it would be cheaper to do it herself, she is willing to spend the extra money to not have to maintain it or bid on keywords daily.
I did some quick (very quick so if I’m wrong I appologize) research on IYP’s. Thier usage is growing steadily every month. It could be people like me that want to skip the Google search for something local because I know i’ll probably end up on an IYP like yellowbook.com anyway. People that blog and comment like us are fairly smart savey people. Doesn’t this explaination make sense? I think it does because I do it so I may be leaning one way and I understand that. I just think that we all had to learn how to use computers, then we learned how to use search engines, I think people are now learning and becoming more educated on how to effectively search so we evolve again and now go to and IYP for local purchases.
What does everyone think? I could be biased and wrong because of my own search patterns. Am I?