Louisiana Kids Recycle Old Directories

Good to see the effort from Tioga Junior High School students in the Rapides Parish schools in Louisiana, who collected 5,884 books for the annual telephone book recycling collection program.  Link to article:  http://www.thetowntalk.com/article/20091005/NEWS01/910050319

We can get books recycled if we can increase awareness of the recycling programs in local communities, especially those that don’t have curbside recycling programs.

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.

Appreciating Intellectual Honesty

It was refreshing to see this recent piece that at least restored my hope that even print Yellow Page atheists, as impassioned about their cause, at least can sometimes be intellectually honest about valid results put in front of them, such as this analysis from Ian Andrew Bell in his The Yellow Pages: Adapt or die article. Mr. Bell presented all sides of the discussion but nicely articulated the frustration behind those online only pundits that decry the printed products as “spam”. Check this out:

“….But unfortunately, the Yellow Pages business is not yet the death march that the Web 2.0 kids have hoped it would become.  … This may say a lot more about the new media of web, telephony, and mobile and their capabilities than it does about the old medium of schlepping giant books door-to-door for punters to thumb through.

For one thing, the Yellow Pages is still the number one tool used by consumers to find local business; the industry continues to forecast growth in the bellwether US marketplace from $10.3 billion in 1996 to a projected $18 billion by 2010 — yes, some of their revenue comes from online, but that number is pegged at between 25% and one-third.

Oh.  And people still (gasp!) turn to their Yellow Pages more frequently than anything else for finding products and services that are local to them. According to research released a couple of months ago from Knowledge Networks, nearly half (48%) of consumers report print Yellow Pages as the resource they turn to most often for information on a business or service, and more than three-quarters (77%) use the print Yellow Pages overall….”

We all know the industry in the throes of a conversation where as the needs of the customers it serves – small and mid-sized business, change/evolve to also include online advertising as a bigger and bigger component of their marketing plans, the industry will be there to help them in this evolution.

But that evolution doesn’t mean the print Yellow Pages aren’t also going to be a key ongoing component of that marketing plan, no matter how much some people despise their very existence.  Get over it.

Marketing A Big Challenge for Small Business

A majority of small business owners believe that generating (and retaining) customers is the toughest marketing challenge they face especially in these tough economic times.

The just released “Small Business Marketing Poll”  from the Yellow Pages Association (YPA) found that nearly two-thirds (62%) of small business owners say they use only internal resources to assist in their marketing efforts, while nearly three in five (59.1%) small business owners say generating new customers/retaining current customers is the toughest marketing challenge they face.

The national study, conducted by global marketing research firm Issues and Answers, included 200 telephone and 200 online interviews with owners of small businesses (one to 50 employees), asking about their marketing and advertising habits.

From YPA’s press release:

“A majority of small business owners are not asking for outside help when it comes to marketing and advertising, so many may not realize that there are ample resources available at little or no charge” said Neg Norton, president, Yellow Pages Association. “And in times like these, when every dollar spent must be justified, and when winning and retaining customers is crucial, we feel that getting a professional opinion simply makes good business sense.”

How do we really search for businesses?

When to comes to searching for a business or service, every thing from restaurants to landscape contractors to tire dealers, people use a multimedia strategy with both “old” and new media, based on a recent report from Knowledge Networks.

In results presented from a poll conducted in the spring among respondents age 13 and older, the report says 77% turn to print Yellow Pages. Yep, despite what you may be hearing those print phone books continue to be a preferred local shopping resource. In fact 48% said this is the source they use most often.

Of course online can be also be a valuable source when you are “browsing” for information.  Search engines were the second most popular information source with 49% saying they use them to find a business or service, and 21% indicated they the Web is the most-often-used source.

The only other resources to register double digit usage in the survey were Internet Yellow Pages – IYP’s  (36%, 13% used most often), free or fee-based 411 (30%, 8% used most often) and newspapers (19% , but only  2% used most often).

The study also shoots holes in the popular perception that people are roaming the streets with new web-enabled mobile devices in hand seeking those sames products or services.  Currently just 5% included “mobile search” among their sources, with just 1% saying they use mobile search most often.

Yellow Pages Industry Adding Mobile to Its Product List

YPA President Neg Norton was intereviewed by Mobile Marketing this week (click here).  It’s an interview you should check out as it shows the range of media advertising products that publishers are bringing to small and midsized businesses:

What role will mobile play for the Yellow Pages industry?
Mobile fits the Yellow Pages strategy of making information available anytime, anywhere.

Accessed shopping guide or price comparison services at least once per month. Source: comScore M:Metrics

Additionally, we believe wireless access affords us the opportunity to attract new customers beyond those who purchase print and Internet advertising.

In a related story, in this weeks YP Talk newsletter we also provided an article on a key industry supplier – AdFare, who is working with publishers to help them repuprose the video ads they have been adding to their Internet ads to also work in a mobile environemnt (click here)

Journalism is what is really becoming extinct

The Wall Street Journal has long been known for some pretty incisive, well researched articles. Which is why Emily Steel’s “Extinction Threatens Yellow-Pages Publishers” (Media & Marketing, Nov. 17 – subscription may be required) article was such a huge disappointment.

Usually the concept of “journalism” is to research both sides, gather all the facts, and then try to present a somewhat balanced presentation so readers can appreciate both sides and draw their own conclusions. Note that nowhere in that process do you see the concept of injecting your own bias into the article. Ms. Steel apparent missed that day during her reporter training.

Why can I make this claim? In her preliminary efforts Ms. Steel had free access to many of the industry leaders and even went as far as to spend time with them on the phone in gathering her facts for this article. Yet in her one-sided assessment of the overall health of the Yellow Pages industry nowhere do you see any of their comments presented. Instead it’s a simple one way conclusion that print is useless, faces extinction, and the publishers online efforts are for naught.

Since Ms. Steel conveniently skipped the facts, let’s be sure you at least know them.

“The yellow-pages industry is running out of lifelines.” – A great opening designed to sell papers but a conclusion that has no basis for truth. In fact, how is it that she can make the claim that publisher IYP efforts are floundering but then put up a graph which shows substantial growth in the major ones (SuperPages.com and YellowPages.com) who have seen 46% and 9% growth in unique site visitors in the last year ???

“In recent years, as its customers migrated to the Web — flocking to sites like Google — the telephone-directory business followed, hoping the Internet would be its salvation.” – I can only assume that she missed the fact that no other advertising medium generates new and qualified sales leads as effectively as the Yellow pages.  In 2007, print and online Yellow pages generated over 17 billion look-ups.  But more importantly 90% of those references came from consumers ready to buy goods and services. Not people just browsing, but buyers. Never mind that almost half of those buyers were new customers to the business they chose from those very Yellow Pages products!!!!  Which other medium does Ms. Steel suggest that would produce such a volume of high quality leads??

“Print and online ad spending on yellow pages will plummet 6.3% next year, more than double the rate of decline expected for broadcast TV, according to forecasts by Wachovia analyst John Janedis.” – Heaven forbid I challenge a respected analyst, but in a rapidly slowing economy one of the first moves small businesses will make is to pull back on their advertising spending whether it makes sense or not. Both reporter and analyst ignore the research which shows that Yellow Pages offer an average sales ROI of 33:1 for national advertisers, and nearly 14:1 for local advertisers.  And of course those 3+ million local and national advertisers that do rely on the Yellow Pages to connect with consumers must be ignorant. Why would any business advertise in a media which actually makes the phone ring??

“Facing the real prospect of extinction, the publishers, many of which have considerable debt, have been slashing jobs, scrapping dividends and exiting unprofitable markets.” I guess this reporter hasn’t looked around much because there aren’t many businesses that aren’t doing the same things in this down economy. Let’s deal with the real elephant in the room – because Idearc (IAR) and RH Donnelley (RHD) have received notice from the NYSE about potentially being delisted from the exchange because their stock price is below $1 per share, the assumption that immediately flows is that these companies are about to close their doors, as well as all the other publishers in the industry even if they aren’t publicly traded. The fact is delisting doesn’t necessarily mean that a company is going to go bankrupt. There are plenty of private companies that survive without the benefit of a stock market thank you, and it is not unusual for a company to be delisted and still be profitable. Ironically there are three newspaper stocks that have been delisted by the NYSE this year — GateHouse Media Inc. (one of the nation’s largest publishers of community newspapers), Sun-Times Media Group, and the Journal Register Co., but they still seem to be around.

The NYSE lists 53 companies on its Web site that don’t comply with listing standards, including Rite Aid, Six Flags (amusement park operator), Westwood One Inc., the syndicator of programs to radio stations, and Citadel Broadcasting Corporation, a radio broadcasting company. On the Nasdaq Stock Market, by my quick count some 265 or so companies closed below $1 yesterday, compared with 53 at the end of last year. Nasdaq stocks under $1 yesterday included Sirius XM Radio Inc. and Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc.. Do we think either of these companies is about to become “extinct”???

What you didn’t see in the article is that without question the Yellow Pages industry has succeeded in migrating to a true multi-platform product set which includes print, online, search optimization, mobile, and even direct mail and billboards, to provide an optimal one-stop advertising program for any business. It’s also clear that this conversion has come faster and more effectively than any other media players.  This is evident in the fact that most local search engines get a bulk of their search data from those various publishers that are approaching “extinction”.

Next time Ms. Steel, could we please get all sides of the discussion in your articles?

Errors in Printed Books Cause Problems??

How could that be?  if the paper atheists who are now perpetuating the myth that no one wants or uses print Yellow Pages anymore, why do people seem to get so upset when a listing is occasionally wrong in the book?  We’ve ask that question several times at the askmeaboutyp blog.  Here is a recent example (link).

Here is another example which just came out:    Cox Communications in Kansas is all upset because their address was listed in a recently published phone book despite their request to keep that information private (link).

Guess they are afraid that someone must be looking in those printed directories and that if they do, someone might actually find them….

How The “Truth” Can Be Skewed Any Which Way You Want

In a recent YP Talk article titled “Now We Are “Paper Fetishists”, I cover just how far some of these anti-Yellow Pages people will go. I even quoted this jem:

“…Recycling isn’t the answer. Rather, phone books, like gas-guzzling cars and cheap air fares, are so last year. Now that over two-thirds of the country has access to the internet, people are surely using their paper directories less and less. I reckon that phone books are on the way out — so let them fade away gradually, and provide small numbers for the elderly, the unconnected and the paper fetishists. The rest of us are done….”

But what really set off some people was this list I presented which followed. The print Yellow Pages:

• Uses no additional energy all year long unlike the computer you are probably reading this on, which does use electricity continuously.
• It requires no batteries or power or connectivity to make it work
• It is made with recycled paper, is fully recyclable, and in the .3% of the landfill space it takes up, it does not pollute the landfill with the many toxins that all the electronic junk and batteries does.
• It is not made with plastics which requires petroleum (at some $135.00 or more per barrel) like the computers, PDA’s, IPODs, fantastically equipped cell phones, switching equipment, cable shielding, and all the related hardware does
• Is quicker in nearly every case I have seen to find the information you need
• Is often more complete and accurate than many electronic products
• Isn’t biased because of your age – with tattoos, sushi, and skateboards being some of the fastest growing headings, I doubt it is only being used by “the elderly”

Ok, we all acknowledge that the Internet will someday be the preferred source for information. But currently, it is far from perfect. And please don’t ask me to click away on my cell phone using some 2” screen to find what I need.

So next time you see comments like this in another post: “Of course, this doesn’t take the environmental costs of delivery, recycling transportation, recycling, or the 85% dumped-in-landfill costs into consideration.” be sure to ask them how their PC arrived — since I assume there was no environmental costs to produce, delivery, and landfill their machine.

It’s all in how you define the real “truth”.

Now it get’s personal

You’ve seen them — bloggers who by virtue of the fact that they have a keyboard, an Internet connection, and half a brain can start spewing all kinds of inaccuracies across hyperspace. Among those I have seen:

• Yellow Pages kills trees — Not true — see article on how paper is made (click here)
• No one uses them — Not true, unless you consider nearly 14 BILLION look-ups last year to be “no one:
• the Industry makes up the usage numbers — Not true unless you believe that all the research organizations that do research for a range of media have some compelling reason to ONLY bake the number for Yellow Pages
• I don’t want one, I don’t use, I am offended you deliver one to my doorstep, — me, me, me. Please people, get a life. It’s just a phone book. It takes them longer to write their rants and complaints than it does to just recycle what they don’t want.

And so on and on. Usually I find the vast majority of these people are well intentioned but totally uninformed. Usually when presented with the facts, they will at least take the time to reconsider their position.

But now it’s getting personal. Case in point — this captain of commerce ignored all the facts presented and still ran this charming write-up: click here, but don’t do so on an empty stomach. He even went as far as to suggest everyone send me books they don’t want. Well, if they want to waste the postage and be even less eco-friendly, fine, I will gladly recycle any that show up. But you should note that the writer also closed his blog to further comments — hence, you now see the ugly side of the Internet, and it’s personal. Of course the other thing to note is the writer is hiding behind his site — you don’t know anything about who this, they don’t even have a formal mailing address, and it appears they are some local search engine marketing group (so of course there is no agenda there).

I hope all of you that read this have this key takeaway — these efforts are not going to go away, this industry in under siege, you livelihood will soon be under attack –> it’s time to start pushing back. All of us. Now. Because it’s starting to get personal….