Small Business Commando News

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LiveDeal (who owns YP.com) has elected Rejesh Navar to Chairman of the Board and is searching for a CEO to replace Dan Coury.

YP.com was notorious for sending “activation checks” that appeared to be small rebate checks from the Yellow Pages publisher.  By cashing the checks (they were generally about $3.52), the cashing company granted access to YP.com to withdraw a monthly fee from the bank account.  Other billing methods consisted of LEC billing where charges go on a businesses’ phone bill.  That billing source has become much less viable recently because of changes in requirements by carriers.
After an FTC investigation and change at the company, independent board member Dan Coury stepped up to the CEO position to clean up the company.

I’ve become friendly with Dan during his time, and was frankly amazed that he was able to keep the company from falling into oblivion.

The new team at YP.com merged with LiveDeal.com to combine online Yellow Pages and classifieds.  Their sales came through domestic and offshore telemarketing. The company became listed on the Nasdaq, streamlined operations and retooled its sales / marketing processes.
The transition from deception (which was highly lucrative) to reality was painful, and unfortunately Dan Coury was a casuality of depressed stock prices and slower than acceptable ramp.  You’ve got to grow to keep investors happy.
Selling advertising to SMEs is hard work, but can be highly rewarding if you control expenses while building revenue.

(This is a post of the recent Small Business Commando Newsletter)

My 80-year-old father is in a nursing home, and I’m fortunate to spend time with him weekly.

My daughter and the Bishop, our 8-pound Maltese puppy, join me on every visit.

Dad’s doing pretty well, but he misses his old friends. He can’t talk on the phone, use a computer or write a letter, so he’s pretty much cut off in that respect.

To help him reach out, I snapped a photo of Dad holding the Bishop and made a greeting card. My Dad has a great sense of humor, so I put little thought bubbles on the photo.

Both Dad and dog were thinking the same thing, “I hope he doesn’t pee.”

Then I wrote a few paragraphs in my Dad’s voice to let his friends know how he is doing.

The online card service printed the cards with my message inside, stamped and mailed the cards via first class mail. His friends were hysterical and were thrilled to hear from him.

This greeting card is a great example of how technology allows us to personalize communication. I would never take the time to physically print and write two dozen cards, but using an Internet service, I was able to complete the task in a few minutes with much greater impact than if I had sent a fancy Hallmark card or an email.

This teaches us a powerful message about advertising and marketing.

As you market your business, look for ways that you can personalize the message, inject humor, and make the recipient happy to hear from you.

That’s the real power of technology. It gives us the ability to target and personalize our communication.

See you next week.

By the way, if you’d like to see a copy of the card, email me your postal address. I’ll be happy to send it.

My LinkedIn network recently passed the 1,000th connection.  I’m currently at 1,018 connections.

That’s quite a few, and I wonder what significance it has (if any).

I receive a 5-10 emails and requests each week that originate from LinkedIn.  Generally, they are people seeking advice, trying to sell me something, or wanting to connect to someone else in my network.

I like being well connected, and think that LinkedIn has done a very nice job.  I’ve posted a number of jobs there, so they do make some money from me.

If we’re not linked, drop me a line.  You’ll have access to my network.

The wife, kid and I recently moved back to Chicago after living in California for 20 years. I suppose wanted to beat the rust belt rush that global warming will cause. After our first real winter, I’d say we’re a millennium or two ahead of the crowd.

We built a house in the city, close enough to hear the Cubs fans wailing at Wrigley Field.

One thing I noticed about Chicago is that the houses are long and narrow.

Another thing I noticed is that this is a bricklayer’s town. They use real brick with mortar and everything. In San Diego, brick is actually stamped plaster that is propped up with two by fours.

San Diego brick reminds me of the fake wood paneling on my father’s 1973 Chevy station wagon.

Real brick is expensive, so builders only put the good brick on the front of the house and use cheaper structural brick on the sides and back.

When we built our dream house (not pictured here), my wife selected a brick that is reminiscent of old Boston. It’s a deep red with character and weather marks.

The builder convinced us to pay more to match the color of the side and front bricks so it’s hard to tell where the expensive brick ends and the structural brick begins.

Chicago houses put their best foot forward leading with the good brick out front.

So what does this have to do with small business marketing?

I thought you’d never ask.

When you’re marketing your business on the Internet, you’ve gotta lead with your best, most compelling benefits.

This is particularly important with when marketing with video.

Attention spans are incredibly short, and if you take more than a few seconds to get going, you’ll lose your audience. Your online video is one click away from dismissal.

When you produce a video, grab the viewer’s attention immediately. You have less than 5 seconds before you’re in the danger zone. If you haven’t grabbed attention in 15 seconds, you’re toast.

We’re finding that the optimal length of a business marketing video should be around 30 seconds. If you have to go longer, you’re better off making two short videos that are each focused on an individual topic.

What are your thoughts, comments, questions, or ideas?

I read a lot about marketing and the importance of segmenting your target audience.

I get that, and agree, but it’s really hard to do.

If you happen to be a dentist (an extremely competitive field of medicine), your target audience can change at a moment’s notice.

Take this young chap in the photo.

A few seconds before the photo was taken, he was merely an average prospective client for a dentist.

You know, semi-annual check-ups, maybe some braces, a cavity here and there. Nothing special, right?

But immediately following this photo, he’s suddenly become a highly valuable client needing extensive dental work. Say it with me, “cha-ching!”
This is the customer that you reach using Directional Media also known as “who?” advertising. You do not need to convince him of the value of good dental health, or spend much time on branding with him. You simply need to be the go to provider of services and answer the question, “Who’s a good emergency dentist near here?”

Branding through repeated television, radio and print advertising will all come into plan as this boy makes a decision for a dentist.

If you do not have a currently running search marketing campaign or Yellow Pages presence, all of your previous marketing will go to waste, because the customer with an immediate need can not find you.

Find three places this boy (or his parents) will look to make a quick decision on emergency dental care, and make sure your business is well represented.

Alert blogger Andrew Shotland (not pictured here)

tipped me off to a fascinating article on Slate about the history and challenges of the Yellow Pages industry.

I’ve said it before, but the Yellow Pages is a deeply misunderstood directional advertising medium.

While many (including me) have predicted the demise of the Yellow Pages, there continues to be value for advertisers.

This article dives into the amount of waste and environmental impact, but does not address the positive impact of consumerism and reduced driving when fingers do walking.  The simple fact is that not every uses (or wants to use) the Internet as their sole source for local business information.

Armageddon in Yellow Pages?

I can’t write about Yellow Pages without thinking of the scene in Monty Python’s Holy Grail of the warrior claiming “I’m not dead yet!” as pieces of his body are hacked away.

Ken Clark, a highly respected Yellow Pages insider wrote an enthusiastic rah-rah piece about the underlying strength of the Yellow Pages and how the industry does a lousy job of promoting itself.

I must agree with Ken that the core product is strong, and is perhaps the most misunderstood of all advertising mediums.

According to recent industry-sponsored surveys, usage of old yeller remains steady. While I find this particularly hard to swallow (as I do see falling usage), there remains plenty of usage in the print directories. I imagine that print Yellow Pages would easily come in behind Google and Yahoo in local references and well ahead of MSN and Ask.com.

In the heyday of the Yellow Pages (the period between the US Civil War and the Vietnam War), most people I spoke to claimed that they rarely used the directories. There are about 39,000 industry professionals in the US who beg to differ.

I’ve had the unique vantage point for the last few years working on online marketing to compare rates of return for online advertising and traditional media. I’ve been running call tracking test for a variety of clients, and have continually been surprised at the results.

While I firmly believe that nothing compares to a highly efficient online campaign (I am VERY biased), I continue to be amazed at the call volumes delivered by print advertising.

For years, I would ride along with Yellow Pages sales teams, and nearly every renewal sales call began with the advertisers stating (often vehemently) that he was NOT going to renew the Yellow Pages advertising for another year.

More often than not, the sales call would end with the advertiser buying a larger ad package than the one he wanted to cancel. I mean, this happened so regularly that it was comical.

See, Yellow Pages advertising is not BOUGHT, it is SOLD. The advertiser needs a respectable sales person to relate the value story, calculate ROI, provide guidance on proper tracking techniques and help the business owner make a wise decision.

I doubt that many of the folks on Wall Street have ever had to sweat making payroll as a small business person. I can tell you that it is not fun. That’s especially true when you (as the boss) have the great honor of going without pay, or reaching into your own pocket to ensure that your employees never miss a paycheck.

Yellow Pages is not glamorous. It will never be highly respected as a money maker for local businesses. It won’t win any awards other than ones it bestows on itself.

But at the end of the day, when the dust settles, and all good cliches have been ridden hard and put up wet . . .

The Yellow Pages remains one of the most fundamentally important aspects of a local businesses marketing campaign (alongside with his web site, online video, and search engine marketing).

Nice write up, Ken.

Bloomberg.com: U.S.

In this article, Bloomberg writers discuss the distressed high-yield bonds of RH Donnelley and Idearc.

I’m not a bond trader, and these guys know far more about coverage levels and projected cash flows than I ever will. So I won’t even begin to question the value of the RHD and Idearc debt.

I suppose that the problem is that revenues are decreasing when the bonds were sold based on projected earnings growth. It’s not the core business that’s in question, it’s the sales projections vs. reality.

So is the print Yellow Pages industry collapsing? I don’t think so.

In fact, the underlying directory businesses will continue to throw off outstanding cash for many years to come.

However, it’s a bit of a melting glacier. It’s hard to tell the rate of melting until it’s past.

I am not recommending, nor have I ever recommended that advertisers abandon advertising in print Yellow Pages. As a multi-media marketing executive, I am privy to inside call measurement studies that show that traditional media still deliver strong ROI.

However, most advertisers in the Yellow Pages are not sophisticated buyers, and they make decisions based on limited information, unbelievably complicated pricing schemes and fear of making a major mistake.

So don’t let the reaction of Wall Street toward debt levels drive advertising decisions.

Use call measurement services and challenge your local Yellow Pages publisher to do a better job of providing fair pricing and clear information.

And, as an Internet marketing professional, there is no business that can afford to ignore online marketing as a foundational element to their marketing plan.