Industry Usage Data Released
The Yellow Pages Association (YPA) recently released new data that shows that Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) experienced double digital growth in 2008. According to comScore, Internet Yellow Pages searches grew 22% from 3.8 billion to 4.6 billion, in 2008.
“The growth in Internet Yellow Pages usage in 2008 emphasizes the increased trend toward local content on the Internet,” said Yellow Pages Association president Neg Norton. “Consumers are seeking highly specialized, localized business listings when and where they want it and they are increasingly finding it on our online platforms.”
Even with a tough economic climate for all advertising, overall usage of Yellow Pages products (print and Internet) totaled 16.9 billion references in 2008 compared to 17.2 billion in 2007 – a 2% overall decline. The print Yellow Pages references in 2008 were 12.3 billion compared to 13.4 billion in 2007.
Given the trends in all advertising media, the overall results have be viewed as somewhat positive. Of course the Yellow Pages are not immune to the advertiser cutbacks that have been ravaging other media such as newspapers, local TV, and even out of home. But clearly the impact on Yellow Pages has been smaller than many of the other advertising media. And an 8% drop in print usage is hardly a sign that the products are “dead” or will be dying next week as some would want you to believe. We still talking about people turned to those print directories more than 12 billion times last year at a point where they are in an active, ready-to-buy mode. Hence, the books still remain an important source for consumers during these tough economic times.
It comes as no surprise that the online local search products are the most vibrant, growing items now. But even that growth points towards the positive transformation publishers are going through in a the move from a one product media solution to becoming a true multi-channel consultative advertising solutions provider.
As we have commented to several financial entities — don’t confuse the debt issues at some of the publishers as an indication of the strength of the overal industry. It still is the best advertising ROI program a small business can get anywhere.
on March 29, 2009 on 3:22 pm
I have a hard time understanding how the YP industry can be called the best advertising ROI program while shrinking at the same time. If it was the best, wouldn’t people cut everything else they were doing while maintaining their ad spends with YP?
On the growth of IYP side, I encourage you to compare the largest IYP sites against yelp.com, craigslist, and other local advertising/information sites. One of the biggest threats to YP is also the biggest threat to media sites: businesses are getting better at building direct relationships with customers, so are becoming less advertising dependent.
on April 2, 2009 on 6:37 pm
Your comments are naive Edward. Small businesses are feeling the pinch so badly they are cutting ALL advertising, not just Yellow Pages. But the level of cuts that most are making in their YP expenditure is much lower than what local TV, radio, and newspapers are experiencing. That shows that with whatever cash they do have, the print Yellow Pages is still the best advertising media ROI out there.
On the IYP side, first none of providers ever suggested they were going to replace Google or the major search engines. And if you have ever been on sales calls to many of these small businesses, while they may know their core business inside and out, they never claim to be marketing experts. If businesses feel more comfortable in building these direct relationships you suggest, fine. But then the drop in overall industry revenue would be much steeper than it is, wouldn’t it?
on May 15, 2009 on 2:31 am
[businesses are getting better at building direct relationships with customers, so are becoming less advertising dependent.]
If that was true then businesses would never go out of business, they would always have a loyal customer base that would never go anywhere else. There would be no need for competition, new businesses would never start up.
Businesses are getting worse at this….. Every scandal is proof of it. http://www.boston.com/business/gallery/Businessscandals/ The scandals are getting bigger and people are getting more distrustful.
Consumers will go where they get what they want. There are different groups of consumers…. the innovators, they don’t care how much something costs just as long as they are the first ones to get the next popular thing. It’s all about image to them. They view themselves as trend setters and with all trend setters as soon as they set one trend they are looking for the next one. What was popular yesterday is not tomorrow.
The next group are the value buyers and they are the largest group of buyers. They wait until prices come down and look online for information about where to get the best value for their money. They like to touch, see and know that they are getting. They buy when their friends buy – they keep up with the jones’ but aren’t the jones’.
The final consumer group into a market are the price driven consumer. They look for the bargains and shop in clearance aisles. By the time they buy something the items are so last year.
Not everyone is like you, in fact the majority are not like you and shop differently.
According to the Knowledge Network’s latest study (Dec 09)
48% use a phone book
21% use a search engine
13% use an online directory
8% use 411
2% use the newspaper classifieds
1% use mobile services
The rest don’t look for a business – your loyal customer.
on May 15, 2009 on 4:13 am
I have to apologize – I was wrong on what the rest use to find a business:
1% is Social Networking Sites
2% is Other
The balance is shared by vertical sites and GPS location devices.
The graphed results: – http://www.techvibes.com/blog/the-yellow-pages-adapt-or-die Ed you would love this blog the writer doesn’t like Yellow Pages either.
on May 23, 2009 on 2:35 pm
Carennedy, here’s one way to look at it: the number of businesses in the United States (and Canada) has likely grown at a faster rate than the number of yellow pages advertisers. I haven’t verified this, but it seems like a reasonable assumption (let me know if I’m off).
Assuming that’s the case, more businesses than ever exist today without yellow pages as part of their advertising mix.
I’m not suggesting that every business will learn how to market directly to loyal consumers, thus shed their dependence on other forms of advertising including YP.
I’m not sure what your innovators, value drivers, and price drivers have to do with this debate. And I’m even more curious to hear how the yellow pages helps people in each of those groups. For example, wouldn’t innovators discover and try new businesses before the latest round of yellow pages is dumped at their homes? Wouldn’t value drivers want to research companies beyond print ads? Wouldn’t price drivers prefer to comparison shop online?
The stats you present are very interesting. They make we wonder why the YP insists on wasting advertiser’s money by sending books to such a large (and growing) percentage of non-YP users.
on October 22, 2009 on 2:00 am
I just moved from one province to another and I can honestly say that I used the phone book to find a number of services. I searched for activities for my kids, agents, brokers, and lawyers. I searched for employment offices, libraries, rec centers, and schools. I searched for pizza and other local restaurants. Any business that wants to take advantage of new residents in their local area should be in the directories.
I could go on here but if you are interested in how much the directories, online, print, and moble helped during my relocation check out my blog.
I am currently not in the industry, in fact I’m unemployed, but I still believe in the product and in the company I used to work for. If a company has the right Sales rep and ad, both in size and content, then they will get calls. Since the ad can be measured easily, the only goal of the ad is to get calls (other ads create awareness and information), it is relatively easy to see the ROI of a directory program. Sometimes a lazy rep and a wrong ad provide less then stellar experiences for a company. Companies need to be a little more proactive and go to experts to design an ad that will work best.
Yes lots of businesses work without having a print ad… but that doesn’t mean directory ads don’t work, it just means that there are other methods, some more labour intensive then others to get clients. It also means that companies are not growing as fast or as big as they could. They have left themselves out of the decision making process of many consumers.
The recession has closed a lot of doors. It would be interesting to see who survived and what they did in order to survive. Many consumers are looking for new providers because they are either dissatisfied, in a different income bracket, or their provider shut their door. Many go to directories to help them decide who to contact. Some are good at searching on google but not everyone has the patience to wade through key word pollution to find the local provider. Afterall if you live in Vancouver BC you don’t want Vancouver Washington.
The phone directories provide consumers with a thorough list of providers and businesses available to them. It makes it easier then page upon page upon page of organic searches to find the one business that will meet your requirements. Online directories and Print Directories help start people off on their search for more information.