Small Business Commando News

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.

Andrew Shotland (no, that’s not it) wrote a beautiful piece of link bait in his blog on Local SEO.

http://www.localseoguide.com/naming-your-business-with-seolinkbait-in-mind/

He highlights a photo of a business that has a sophomorically funny name.

I would be remiss in my responsibilities if I did not share with you the actual best name ever.

This is a real man who lived in Odon, Indiana, just up highway 231 from my birthplace of Loogootee.  There is a man currently living in Odon with the same name.  As they say, birds of a feather don’t fall far from the tree.
Here it is.

Warning . . .

Parents, chase your children from the room.

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Small Companies Are Finding a Home on the Web - New York Times

An article in today’s New York Times Small Business Section discusses how small businesses are embracing the Internet as an important source of customer acquisition.

They mentioned my company, Weblistic  as a company designed to help small businesses solve these issues.

Although we’re normally very quiet about the secret sauce that helps Weblistic customers achieve superior returns, it is very flattering to be recognized. 

It’s important to view online marketing as a series of blocks that build a solid foundation.  Google PPC advertising, Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask, AOL, Superpages, Video, Mobile, Pay-Per-Call and lead generation sites are all important components and vary in their effectiveness.

The one thing that I see is that the business evolves quickly, and what was effective last month might not have the same power this month. 

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Shares in most Yellow Pages publishers are taking a beating amid a panicked sell off.

See story here about RH Donnelley shares plunge.

Advertisers should not be so quick to abandon the print product.  While usage is declining, it is akin to a melting iceberg.  There is still a lot of value, and the best way to track is to use call tracking numbers and measure the ROI.

Note to investors:  Yellow Pages companies throw off loads of cash.  Most could seriously reduce their overhead and increase cashflow without increasing revenues.

Note to advertisers:  No single vehicle will solve all of your marketing needs.  The money you make from your yellow pages ads is just as green as the money you make from your local online advertising (gratuitous link).

I just finished presenting a breakout session at the International Franchise Association convention in Orlando. I shared the stage with the amazing Gregg Stewart of TMP Directional Media and highly creative, Mark Ludwig of Hot Dish Advertising.

We each covered our areas of specialties, and I did a segment on using video and video sharing to market your business.

It really struck a nerve, and the questions would still be coming if we hadn’t run out of time.

One of the simple tips is to break videos down into easily digestible segments.

You’re far better off producing 15 videos that are each 1 minute in length than using one video that is 15 minutes in length.

When you submit the videos to the video sharing network sites (such as YouTube, Veoh, and AOL Videos), use a very simple phrase to title and tag each video so that Google will know how to categorize it.

A few notes on franchising. . .
Franchising is hot.  There were over 3,000 total attendees at the show representing over $16 trillion of economic impact in the US.  This is an industry that thrives when the economy slows because talented employees lose their jobs and purchase franchises.  These are some very sophisticated and dynamic companies that attract entrepreneurial managers.

I read an interesting article about an Arbitron survey of a rural county in Southern Indiana residents.

It’s interesting to me because I grew up in the adjacent county (Martin).

The telephone survey of 151 households found that 52% had high-speed Internet access at home.

52% ! ! !

The town where I grew up (Loogootee, Indiana) has about 2,400 residents and is the largest “city” in the county.  Then entire county has only 10,000 residents.

A large percentage of the young people move away to find gainful employment.  So, this is beyond an age-driven cultural shift.  When you consider that the public internet emerged in 1995 (13 years ago), this is even more amazing.

Imagine what changes will take place in the next 13 years.

29 percent of Daviess residents shop in Evansville monthly: Marketing director shares results of survey at Rooster Booster Breakfast

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Kelsey Group Blogs » Universal Search Paves the Way for Local Video

Michael Boland of the Kelsey Group has a point on post discussing the impact of video syndication and universal search.

The point he makes is that some companies (usually traditional publishing companies) are fighting against publishing video through syndication.

Syndication means uploading the videos on YouTube, MySpace, DailyMotion and other video sharing sites.

On the one hand, you lose control when you syndicate the video.  It resides on someone else’s servers, and they control the surrounding page.

On the other hand, the video will be seen by many more potential customers.

At Weblistic, I’m thrilled to have played a part in the development of local video saturation.  We regularly push local videos to dozens of sites in an effort to generate leads for our clients.  Our clients relish the leads they receive because the customers have a better understanding of the products and services being offered.

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JupiterResearch Finds Local Advertising Will Represent A Key Battleground on the Web - BroadcastNewsroom

Jupiter Research released their survey and predictions for local online advertising growth (along with their predictions for online advertising as a whole).

In short, they predict that local is where the battle will have the msot heat.  Perhaps it’s because the Yellow Pages publishers and newspaper publishers will have finally caught fire with sales.

Perhaps it’s because the advertisers are demanding to reach the audience that relies on the Internet to find local information.

Here’s a dirty little secret.

Local online advertising is much harder than it looks.

Converting searchers to buyers is a skill that very few traditional publishing companies possess, and fewer know how to monetize.

Advertiser expectation and patience for results from online advertising are difficult to meet because the Internet does not bypass human nature of procrastinating, building trust, qualifying, deciding and taking action.

It’s important for traditional advertisers to NOT abandon their terrestrial publications, rather embrace change as a restaurant owner embraces trends.

Mad Cow disease did not kill the beef industry any more than Yellow Pages bashing will eliminate the value delivered by a high quality directory. 

However, Mad Cow did reduce consumption and some consumers forever changed their diets.

Smart publishers will provide a mix of media to deliver customers to their clients.  That includes search, display, video and much more.

The growth of local online advertising will not be a zero-sum game at the expense of traditional publications.

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TNS MEDIA INTELLIGENCE FORECASTS 4.2 PERCENT INCREASE IN U.S. ADVERTISING SPENDING FOR 2008

A report on advertising forecast by TNS Media projects that Internet advertising would surpass radio advertising this year.

I remember back in the olden days in the late 1990s when I was heading sales at GTE Interactive Media and the first banner ads went online to the horror of the purists who believed that the Internet should be free of the evils of advertising.

Thank God for advertising, because that’s what has kept the Internet free for so many users.

Can you imagine paying a few cents or a buck to Google for every search? No chance.

However, by providing high quality, targeted advertising, technology has been funded by our consumerism.

. . . and how cool is that?

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