Sensis is a key sponsor in this year’s event, which is an annual celebration of the importance of small business to the social and economic fabric of NSW.

In its fourth year of sponsorship, Yellow Pages® is running a month long series of education seminars targeting SMEs in growth in both greater Sydney and regional NSW.

Yellow Pages® experts will focus on to two key areas – digital marketing and greening up your business.

Experts from our business will talk about how SMEs can leverage mobile capabilities, undertake effective SEO and SEM marketing, provide key insights from a special report on e-commerce in metropolitan and regional NSW (from the Sensis E Business Report) plus sponsor a keynote speaking engagement by Jon Dee on environmental sustainability.

As in past years, Small Business September is an opportunity for people in small business to extend their networks, develop their skills and build links with the many support organisations that exist to promote business success.

I encourage small business owners of any background and industry to get along to these events (most of which are free) to help them build their knowledge and skills in managing a business across marketing, finance and operations.

Our consultants get quite involved in letting their customers know about these seminars and getting along to the seminars themselves to network with SMEs and further understand their advertising needs and business objectives.

Be inspired by over 300 events designed by industry experts to help your business flourish – I know I will.

To register for events – visit www.smallbusinessmonth.nsw.gov.au or call 1300 661 539.

Sock's back. This year we’ve let him loose in the 1234 Call Centre and after being locked in a bottom draw for the past three years he’s determined to make up for lost time.

He exploded (quite literally) onto our screens in 2007 and now he’s back! He’s Sock, 1234’s green, keen information machine. This year we’ve let him loose in the 1234 Call Centre and after being locked in my bottom draw for the past two years he’s determined to make up for lost time.

In 2007 you may remember Sock launching out of an old chest and a laundry dryer before he caught a rash and needed plenty of recuperation in 2008.

Now our gregarious garment has decided that action speaks louder than words. Rather than telling people about the benefits of 1234, Sock is on the front line, providing answers to customers who call or text 1234.

Sock loves working in the 1234 Call Centre and will stop at nothing to impress his new boss, Ryan. Although Sock’s dedication to 1234 customers is unwavering, his cheeky personality remains unchanged from his early days and he wreaks havoc at the Call Centre much to Ryan’s dismay.

Sock is the brain-child of White Pages® Marketing Manager Nick Winbanks and the team of advertisers at DDB Melbourne.

He is a fantastic medium for communicating the benefits of 1234, which is a difficult service to promote as it has no tangible product.

Keep an eye out for Sock as he decides that pens are redundant for Telstra customers looking for answers on the move. And later in the year he takes his dedication to the job even further forsaking his sweet tooth in the process. 

If you have missed the ads and just can’t wait for them to appear, you can view them on the 1234 YouTube site.

Hi again. Well, Winter is here with some great rain for our gardens and dams. There’s a lot of exciting things happening at Sensis. And, to top it all off, St Kilda’s nudging the top of the AFL ladder. Could life get any better? In this update, I wanted to share with you some comments on our two speed economy, an exciting couple of months on the innovation front and a few beautiful sets of numbers.

Australia’s two-speed economy
We seem to have hit an uncertain cross-road in the Australian economy. There are signs of a solid return to growth and businesses in many sectors are performing well.

At the same time, however, confidence has dipped among Australia’s small to medium enterprises (SMEs). While SME confidence grew strongly from its historic lows during the GFC, the June Sensis® Business Index reported a significant quarterly drop in confidence. Confidence is still above the lows of last year, but it is concerning that it has fallen so far: especially when you consider that the chief concern among SMEs is ‘lack of work/sales’.

As we all know, the Federal Election is not likely to be far away. Given the importance of Australia’s SME sector and the millions of people it employs, I sincerely hope that the policies of all political parties will reflect a real focus on support for the SME sector.

A busy time for Yellow Pages®…
On a more positive note, we’re currently finalising the distribution of our Yellow Pages® print Regional and Living Local directories to households and businesses around Australia. As I mentioned in the last report, I’m proud to say that we have taken responsibility for the carbon footprint of all Yellow Pages® and White Pages® print and online directories from 1 February 2010. We will offset the carbon emissions through Government accredited providers and projects in Australia.

At the same time, the 2010 Yellow Pages® metropolitan campaign is now well and truly underway. This is one of Australia’s largest customer engagement operations with more than 1,000 consultants developing solutions that help hundreds of thousands of Australian businesses connect with the well over six million potential customers who use our print directories every month¹. That’ real muscle for Australia’s SMEs.

Of course, Yellow Pages®’ value extends far beyond the print directory these days, with millions more searches of Yellow Pages® advertising being conducted in online, mobile and voice every month.

… and a busy time in the labs as well
And we’re committed to building on that value. The evidence of this lies in the ‘run’ of digital innovations we’ve delivered recently. All these new releases further improve the quality and ease of use of our services for buyers and sellers. With so much to report, it’s hard to know where to start, so let’s just jump in.

Early June saw the launch of Yellow Pages®, White Pages® and Whereis® sites specifically designed for the Apple iPad. It was great to be able to launch these tailored sites (complete with gestural interactions like panning and zooming with a swipe or pinch of your fingers) in time for the iPad launch.

We’ve also released upgrades to our Yellow Pages®, White Pages® and Whereis® Mobile sites. All three incorporated auto suggest features to make searching easier for users as well as gestural mapping for high end Android and iPhone supported phones. On top of this, we added a more seamless click to call feature for the White Pages® and Yellow Pages® sites. In the case of White Pages® Mobile, this dropped the call wait time from around seven seconds to practically zero. And we also incorporated a range of new features for Yellow Pages® advertisers, including text descriptors, business logo and image gallery capabilities.

More recently, we launched a new social networking feature to White Pages® Online. ‘Save and Share’ lets you save interesting White Pages® listings or share them on Twitter or Facebook. Save and Share is already proving popular, with thousands of shares and a large number of resultant click backs from social networks to White Pages® Online. That, of course, means more potential leads for White Pages® advertisers.

Another exciting online announcement was the launch of an upgraded Bing search engine, which can now include Yellow Pages® listings (in the form of a ‘5-pack’) as part of its search results. This means Yellow Pages® advertisers can now be searched for on both Bing and Bing Maps.

We’ve loaded Citysearch® restaurant listings into Whereis.com. This has the joint benefit of improving the richness of the Whereis® experience, while helping to drive more potential customers to Citysearch® advertisers.

And we’ve launched online behavioural targeting for MediaSmart advertisers®. This gives advertisers the ability to deliver more relevant advertising to people using the MediaSmart® online network, which includes Sensis and Telstra sites and an extensive roster of third party sites.

Finally, we’re seeing great advertiser uptake of our bundled advertising products. Over the last year or so, we’ve released a strong range of new multi-product, multi-channel advertiser bundles such as the Yellow Pages® print and digital bundles and the priority advertiser bundle that spans 1234, Citysearch® and Whereis®. These bundles combine different advertising products into a single package, making it easier for advertisers to broaden their reach and create advertising solutions that meet their specific needs.

A beautiful set of numbers
Recently, there have been some great votes of confidence for what we’re doing at Sensis.

I mentioned in a previous update that Sensis looked like receiving great results on the 2010 Corporate Responsibility Index. The CRI, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is run by the St James Ethics Centre and is used by many major Australian businesses to benchmark their sustainability performance. Well, the results are now in. Our first year entrant score of 79.44% (bronze) last year has grown substantially to 92.51% (gold) this year. This result includes platinum scores (a new rating for benchmark performance) in three of the total six areas: sustainability strategy; integration; and assurance and disclosure. This achievement is a real source of pride and is the result of a strong commitment to sustainability from everyone in the business.

Meanwhile, we continue to see fantastic growth in mobile usage. In June, Whereis® Mobile officially became our first mobile site to hit a million visits in a month². Our other mobile sites – like Yellow Pages® and White Pages® – are also doing well. In fact, the whole portfolio is now being visited more than 3 million times a month², which represents high double digit growth over last June and potentially a huge amount of new ROI for our advertisers.

And on a totally different topic, we’ve been working with Mission Australia on the ‘1234 Project’. For every person who clicks ‘like’ on the 1234 Project Facebook home page, Mission Australia will give a pair of socks to a person in need. Our initial target was 12,340 socks and, in less than a month, we’ve already reached it!

The Human Yellow Pages®
Finally, if you think this update is a long read, spare a thought for Tansel Ali. To prepare for the upcoming World Memory Championships, Tansel, who is our own Australian Memory Champion, has turned himself into something of a human Yellow Pages®. Tansel is attempting to memorise every display advertisement (business card size or larger) in the Sydney Yellow Pages® so that he can recite any business name or number. For the record, that’s 2,306 pages, more than 16,000 numbers and a hell of a lot of reading!

That’s an incredible feat Tansel. All the best for the Championships in China later this year.

Best wishes,

Bruce Akhurst

1: Roy Morgan Single Source Australia, April 2009 to March 2010. Base: Australians 14+
2: Omniture SiteCatalyst. June 2010

In 2007 they morphed. Android was rumoured (wrongly) to be Google’s first mobile handset. Launched soon thereafter, we found out that Android was in fact Google’s mobile operating system and the marketing collateral featured little green robots. But calling Android a mobile operating system is not doing it justice. It is so much more than that. And this is why the Whereis® Navigator team worked furiously to launch its turn-by-turn GPS navigation app alongside Telstra’s recent market launches of the HTC Desire and Sony Ericsson Xperia Android powered smartphones.

So do all the motherhood statements around Android like its “open source” accessibility and its ability to deliver “seamless integration” between apps and the native operating system really stack up?

We think so.

The ultimate test is always (and always will be) the increased usability and enhanced experiences delivered to customers. Ultimately, functions that are “native” to the device, Telstra and Sensis apps and third party applications may all interact and “mash” together in one big happy family.

That brave new world is all in the future but here are a few examples of what Whereis® Navigator is doing with Android right here, right now …

Firstly, Whereis® Navigator integrates with Android’s voice recognition software, allowing customers to perform voice searches for Yellow Pages® listings and nearby points of interest. It can even be used to bring up a list of traffic events and search for fuel prices nearby! It might sound simple, but there is actually a lot happening underneath the hood here – seamlessly and in the blink of an eye!

This functionality takes advantage of Google’s multilingual voice to text conversion capability converting words like “pizza” to text and then Yellow Pages’ ability to take the result and return pizza results back to the user based on relevancy and/or proximity.

It’s not totally hands free yet (the user needs to initiate the voice function), but it’s getting close.

From there, Whereis® Navigator picks up the baton and provides multiple options to the hungry customer to get to their selected pizza restaurant with options such as “click to call”, “navigate” and “SMS location to a friend”.

And if a user chooses to “navigate”, then not only is Whereis® Navigator launched but in the near future a user initiated “event” such as a click will be captured client side and reported back to the Yellow Pages® team.

The last point isn’t that exciting to the customer – but it is to the Yellow Pages® advertiser who wants demonstrated ROI and evidence that users were actually directed to their business.

Users can also launch Whereis® Navigator from the Android phone’s address book – no weaving in and out of applications and yet another example of the Whereis® application working with and integrating directly within the mobile operating system itself.

There are other things like creating shortcuts, selecting events and addresses from calendar and saving links to the mobile home screen that, when selected, launch Whereis® Navigator and automatically direct them to a favourite destination.

Stay tuned for more news on Whereis® Navigator including what else is on our future roadmap.

The number of people searching Yellow Pages® for plumbers and gasfitters, heating appliances and systems, heating repairs and service and firewood hit an all-time high last month.

Seasonally, heating related searches on yellowpages.com.au are at their peak in June. But this year, the sudden drop in temperatures has seen the numbers of searches in some categories more than triple last year’s the monthly average.

In June, searches on yellowpages.com.au in New South Wales for heating appliances and systems were up 200 per cent, searches for heating appliances and systems-repairs and service were up 216 per cent and searches for firewood were up 225 per cent, when compared to the monthly average for 2009.

Similarly, in Victoria, all time highs were experienced with a 95 per cent increase in searches for heating appliances and systems, a 234 per cent increase in searches for heating appliances and systems-repairs and service and a 262 increase in searches for firewood.

South Australian residents haven’t been spared from the cold. yellowpages.com.au recorded a 260 per cent increase in searches for heating appliances and systems, a 257 per cent increase in heating appliances and systems-repairs and service and a 247 increase in searches for firewood, when compared to the monthly average for 2009.

Even Western Australians have felt the chill with searches for heating appliances and systems up 203 per cent, heating appliances and systems-repairs and service searches were up 209 per cent and searches for firewood were up 232 per cent, when compared to the monthly average for 2009.

With the weather warming marginally over the weekend, Australians still have another 8.5 weeks of winter to go.

However, the search traffic to yellowpages.com.au indicates that should the mercury fail to rise over July and August, a good number of households in the south-east of the country will be ready!

Over 4.5 million people make over 13 million searches using the Yellow Pages® Book, yellowpages.com.au and Yellow Pages® Mobile each week.*

* Roy Morgan, Single Source Australia, 14 years and above, last 7 day average, July 2008 – June 2009

At Sensis we have been “doing” for some time and there’s a good summary of our sustainability commitments and achievements on our website if you’re keen to take a look.

Sensis’ Group Manager Brand and Marketing Communications Geraldine Davys presented a case study on our recent carbon neutrality announcement for our Yellow Pages® and White Pages® print and online directories.

The carbon neutrality announcement, which involves offsetting the carbon emissions of the directories through accredited providers and projects in Australia, was a big milestone for us. In fact, Sensis is the first major directory company in the world to have had its print and online directories certified carbon neutral.

Following this, Geraldine spoke about sustainability and why it is part of our brand architecture.

Using the examples of the Cupid and Hidden Pizza campaigns, Geraldine explained how they were produced with sustainability in mind.

For instance, with our Yellow Pages® Cupid television commercial, during the shoot we were very conscious of water wastage so we used recycled water for every take an included a ‘recycled water’ sign on the set being mindful of the water restrictions in Melbourne at the time.

With the Yellow Pages® Hidden Pizza restaurant campaign, almost everything inside the restaurant was made of recycled materials from the lights, to the pizza boxes to the rubbish bins.  All produce was sourced from local businesses and after the restaurant closed all leftover items were donated to local charities.  

At Sensis, we don’t just talk about sustainability, we do it.

They may sound like little things, but I get really excited by them. It shows that ‘sustainability’ is filtering its way through our business and is no longer something driven by the sustainability team and our green office champions alone. People in our business don’t make decisions based solely on quality and cost; we also look at the environmental and social impact as well.

The “Australians Creating a Better Future” theme will run for the next six months as it searches for Australians to grace the covers of the 2011/12 Yellow Pages® and White Pages® books across regional and metro Australia.

The theme allows Sensis to demonstrate its commitment to sustainability and compliments the recent carbon neutral certification of our print and online Yellow Pages® and White Pages® directories under the Australian Government’s Greenhouse Friendly™ program. The carbon emissions created through these directories will be offset through the Greenhouse Friendly™ accredited providers and projects in Australia.

Anyone can nominate and this year, it couldn’t be easier. All you need to do is visit the new White Pages® Community site by clicking here.

Remember, we are searching for people who are thinking beyond themselves and making positive contributions to their local and wider communities from an economic, social and environmental standpoint.

So, if you feel you know someone who fits the bill, feel free to put them forward.

Sensis CEO Bruce Akhurst addresses Australia Isreal Chamber of Commerce. Picture: Dean Schmideg.

Bruce Akhurst spoke this week at the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce luncheon. His speech to approximately 350 guests looked at the future for marketing and media, with Bruce conveying two key messages: Firstly, we’re on the verge of a ‘big bang’ in digital advertising. The next digital decade will make the last one look like sleepy hollow. And secondly, this decade could revolutionise the value of marketing and media to businesses, consumers and society in general. But this will only happen if we re-think the role of marketing: evolving it from targeting markets to helping people.  Positive feedback was received from event organisers and delegates regarding Bruce’s speech. For a look at ABC’s Lateline Business coverage, click here.

Last week I had the pleasure of talking with 300 passionate business owners in Brisbane as part of two seminars sponsored by Yellow Pages®, the Queensland Government’s Small Business Solutions and TNS Research. The focus of those seminars was online advertising and search engine marketing. The theme of the morning was how to tap into the latest online trends to help promote your business.

I prepared a 30 minute walk through of what I thought were the hottest topics of the moment, social media, mobility, applications and content. While I am sure these topics were interesting and entertaining, I came away with a very clear message from those in attendance.

As much as these business owners are interested in what’s new, many are still coming to terms with what the internet means to their business. They spend hours working in their businesses, from self-storage to pest removal and they are the best at what they do. They all reflect on how advertising their business was once a fairly straight forward activity – and then along came the internet with new opportunities and, of course, challenges.

It’s clear when speaking to the attendees that they strongly believed that in investing in their own website gave them access to new business sales and leads. They also believe that if their websites are constructed correctly, they can get “free advertising” through a presence on search engines. Rightly or wrongly the feel that the more time they invest, the bigger the reward will be.

But many spoke of the challenges they faced in getting their websites right.

Everyone has an opinion on how to manipulate websites. And in essence the way you lay out your physical web pages and the words you use on those pages goes some way to helping you get found. And to complicate things further, there are the paid listings on search engines.

One thing that was clear when I spoke to some of the attendees was that they started online they did it in a small way and things seemed pretty cheap.

But then they got hooked.

One business owner mentioned to me that they now spend as much each month on their online keywords as they do for some of their traditional methods of advertising. Interestingly that doesn’t include all the time they spend managing it each week!

When it came to questions, the one I was asked the most was who to trust.

The question seems to evolve from increasing numbers of people knocking on their door making all kinds of promises. And the best answer came from one of my co-presenters, Peter Baldwin from the Queensland Government-sponsored Small Business Solutions Team.

According to Peter, listen, learn and leave your credit card at home. And I agree. Meeting with people is a good way to develop your understanding while not burning a hole in your pocket.

The other question I was repeatedly asked was is what to stop doing if adding the internet to the marketing mix. You need to do it all.

While it is clear that new forms of online usage mean that there are new ways in which  people will search for and discover your business, not everyone has dropped traditional media. 

Despite the hype around mobile, a recent report from research agency Nielsen suggested that while 43 per cent of all Australians own an internet enabled phone only one third of them regularly use it to access the web.

Reasons provided include bill shock that comes with a fear of how much it will cost and the fact the early generation phone are hard to use.

It’s these sorts of stats that remind you that we need to remind ourselves that not everyone is at the bleeding edge of technology.

To illustrate this point, I’d like to leave you with a comment made by one of the delegates in attendance.

“All these new technologies are complimentary. When email first arrived in my business, I didn’t throw away my fax machine. In fact I still use my fax machine every day. I know that there are alternate ways to communicate now with emails etc, but lots of my customers still fax through orders.”