Speaking Sensis

It’s been a busy year so far for the international directories industry and this was evidenced at Kelsey’s annual Directional Media Strategies (DMS) Conference in Dallas, Texas and the European Association of Directories Publishers (EADP) 2010 Congress in Venice, Italy. 

Sensis Chief Operating Officer Gerry Sutton and GM Strategy Geoff Avard were in Venice to steer the Sensis gondola while our GM Product Thomas Arthur and GM Marketing, Michelle Sherwood donned the spurs in Texas. 

Now back on Aussie turf, Gerry commented that it was exciting to see the shift in overall industry sentiment since he attended the Yellow Pages Association conference in the US in April. The vibe’s more buoyant and upbeat as many organisations have set clear strategies for the future and new shoots of growth are appearing.

As part of a panel session discussing Transformational Experiences alongside Mark Cannon of Yell and Olivier Vincent of Ziplocal, Gerry provided the EADP Congress delegates with a high-level view of the key improvements Sensis is making to customer experience.

Two themes consistently came through at the event. The first is that Yellow Pages® is in a very strong position to act as a trusted advisor to small to medium enterprises and help them manage their multi-channel advertising presence and performance in a changing world. The second is the need to provide advertisers with sophisticated reporting on the leads that we generate in order to demonstrate accountability and return on investment to our customers. 

What are some of the other trends being adopted by our European counterparts? There’s a strong emphasis on offering customers multi-channel directories products while also partnering or acting as a reseller for performance networks like Google, website companies and social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. Product portfolios are being expanded to mini websites and landing pages. These strategies are paying off with some businesses expanding digital penetration by 20-30 per cent in a short timeframe, with plans to grow paying digital customers to up 80 per cent. The structure of print books is also being constantly improved and new content is being added to enhance usability. And there’s still an unwavering belief that salesforces continue to be a critical strength and training and investing in people is paramount.

Across the Atlantic at Kelsey DMS, there was a similar focus on managing the digital presence of small to medium enterprises. Michelle Sherwood observed that directories companies around the world are busy building large digital product pipelines whilst continuing to innovate and re-format print products.  

The growth being experienced in mobile traffic was another hot topic at Kelsey DMS, with many businesses quoting around 20 per cent of traffic to directories sites coming from mobile. We’re already exceeding this at Sensis, reflecting Australia’s high adoption rates for mobile search.

NSW Small Business Month is a big a highlight of the year for the Sydney Yellow Pages crew. We work hard to better understand what businesses need from their media services providers in a changing world, so we love having the opportunity to hear first-hand from the hundreds of business owners who attend these events about what’s keeping them up at night on the marketing front.

A lot of the discussions I was privy to during Small Business Month this year centered around the basics: Who’s your audience? Where are they looking?  What kind of tribes and communities are they a part of? How do I communicate and interact with them? How do I set up my website, leverage search engines or other media such as online and mobile directories to get them to buy my products and services? And there were questions about where digital marketing fits in – online, mobile, social…

One of the presenters that Yellow Pages® put forward during Small Business Month was our resident economist and small business analyst, Christena Singh. Christena’s the author of the Sensis® e-business Report which is based on interviews with 1,800 small and medium businesses (up to 199 employees) across Australia. The latest Sensis® e-business Report released on 22 September explored how SMEs use and purchase digital technology. It found that while Australian small businesses are embracing new technology and gaining good results, most don’t have a digital strategy to align activities with the business’ objectives and market plans. And without a plan, small businesses are possibly not getting the best return on their digital investment. 

Of those businesses that did have a digital plan, the report found that most have not integrated all the digital components. It was most likely to include online (80%) and internet (80%) strategies. Mobile and social media strategies were only incorporated in one third of digital plan. For anyone who runs a small business or works with small businesses, this report is a fascinating read and is free to download: http://about.sensis.com.au/small-business/sensis-ebusiness-report/

At Yellow Pages®, we see it as our job to get businesses as many leads as possible via our multi-channel platform – print and digital. When a business takes out a
Yellow Pages® ad, their details can be searched for via major search engines like Google Maps and Bing, as well as www.yellowpages.com.au and www.whitepages.com.au. Online optimisation campaigns are available using our Click Manager product. And we now have links to social media sites Twitter and Facebook through some of our media solutions. The details are also available via our mobile applications and the 1234 voice service (think 1234 sock puppet!). 

We want to make digital marketing easier for businesses by looking at the various options and developing a plan that’s suitable to their business model, industry and perhaps most importantly, their need to maximise their time by optimising all the solutions available. We can also help businesses track the success of their investment through our various measurement programs.

Hopefully the sessions that we led at events like Digital Day cut through some of the noise for small business owners. If you’re in business and you missed the sessions, visit the NSW Small Business Month website or contact Yellow Pages® for advice on a cost effective solution for your business.