Sensis CEO Update, March 2011
Bruce Akhurst | 29 March 2011
Hi.
It’s been a while since my last update. You might be forgiven for thinking I went into hibernation after the Saints lost the Grand Final back in October. But the truth is we’ve been head down putting the finishing touches on a Yellow Pages® transformation that has been more than two years in the making.
Today, I’m really proud to announce the results of that transformation to you. I’m particularly excited to say that today’s announcement isn’t just a wish list of future actions. The more than a dozen new services and countless improvements I’m announcing are all ready to roll. So is the total re-invention of our go to market strategy and stark re-focus on the needs of our customers we’re also announcing.
And I think this evolution of our strategy ticks all the boxes for our customers and shareholders. It:
• Puts SMEs in the drivers seat by taking the complexity out of building sophisticated multi-platform marketing strategies
• Makes marketing more accountable than it’s ever been
• Puts Sensis in a competitive position no-one else can match
• Helps to drive and monetise the continual growth of digital media
• Creates new revenue streams from existing customers and adjacent markets
THE DIGITAL DILEMMA
This strategy has been developed to specifically meet the needs of Australia’s SME sector.
As we all know, the Internet has created a new world of opportunity for advertisers. You only have to look at the rapid growth of search, local search, social media, video and group buying sites to know that.
But digital media has created some serious challenges as well – particularly for SMEs. What sort of marketing is right for me? How do I manage a vast range of marketing from a long list of vendors? How can I measure the impact in a clean clear way?
These challenges – which we call ‘the digital dilemma’ – are seriously holding back the SME sector’s ability to leverage digital media. For example, 55% of businesses who have the Internet say they have a lack of expertise or knowledge, and 62% say they don’t measure advertising ROI, with over half of them saying it’s either too time consuming, too hard or they don’t know how [1].
Clearly, these businesses need help to get the most out of today’s advertising environment. They need a 360 degree service that will let them reach out wherever they need to be and tailor campaigns that reach their customers no matter where they search. And that’s where Yellow Pages® steps in.
YELLOW PAGES®: MARKETING MADE EASY
Today, we’re taking the next step in our digital journey with an exciting new 360 degree local search program from Yellow Pages®. Its designed to help SMEs find more customers more easily in this rapidly changing marketing environment.
As our posters say… its Yellow Pages®, but not as you know it.
The strategy focuses on three key areas of service – Presence, Performance and Empowerment.
Presence involves a rapid expansion of our network to drive digital usage growth (Yellow Pages® digital usage grew by 50% over the last year) and the advertiser ROI that usage generates.
Presence begins with strengthening our Yellow Pages® Online site. We have significant deepened the content base of our business profile pages. This includes the ability to publish more of your business information, enhanced new Purely Mobile Business and Platinum advertiser products and a new video production facility. Your profile page can now also include social media feeds. For the first time, you can update your Yellow Pages® profile page real time, simply by updating your social media pages.
On top of this, we’re announcing an eye-catching new series of services that are designed to extend the reach of your Yellow Pages network even further. These include:
Yellow Pages® iPad: A ground-breaking new iPad app that combines online, print and map-based business search all in one application.
SPA Network: SPA stands for Sensis Priority Advertiser. For the first time, Yellow Pages customers can gain priority on Whereis®, Citysearch®, Voice and a range of other Sensis services which, combined, drive over 10m visits a month. We’re also expanding the reach SPA can offer with new voice products, such as IQ, the 1234 iPhone app and Sock Assist, as well as the exciting new CitySearch® iPhone app.
API: Our agreements with Google and Bing have delivered incredible value to advertisers by channeling even more leads to them. Our new applications program interface will expand on this by making it easy for developers to create new sites and apps using Yellow Pages® content.
SEO and SEM: Speaking of search engines, we’re also ramping up our SEM and SEO programs to drive even more traffic through search engines to our Yellow Pages advertisers.
Beyond this, we’re releasing a new series of products for companies focused on marketing their web sites. Today, less than 10% use search marketing. Our new ClickManager and Yellow Pages® Digital Plus services will help these businesses optimise their digital profiles.
For those businesses that want a web site, we can now offer the new SiteSmart web site creation and management service. And through our recent acquisition of Quotify we can now offer quotation services to businesses all around Australia. Already, Quotify serves buyers and sellers in 12 different product categories across its 40 sites.
Finally, we’ve also launched a new group buying site Yellow Pages® Offers. This site will give SMEs in a growing number of regions the ability to offer special deals to potential buyers.
Performance talks about the way we’re going to wrap all of these products up into a single, detailed ROI report that helps businesses makes sense of their marketing investment. Customers will be able to see how their advertising is performing… not just counting clicks, but tracking real sales leads all the way to their business. To facilitate this, we are expanding our successful metered ad program from 7,000 ads to half a million!
EMPOWERMENT
Empowerment involves the total re-invention of our go to market strategy. Customers will benefit from:
• A simplified product ladder that reduces our product range from seven to just two;
• A wide range of simple options made accessible through value bundles that help marketers personalise their marketing to meet their needs.
• A stronger focus on customer satisfaction which includes the establishment of a Customer Satisfaction Council and a focus on easy order management and a single bill.
• New sales and customer tools to make life easier, including the iPad based PrepSmart prepping tool for our people, enhanced collateral, and online Advertiser and Customer Service centres
• And all of these initiatives will be backed by a total re-alignment of our business to meet customer needs. We’ve developed a greater understanding of our customers through deeper segmentation and research and we’ve aligned everything from sales to marketing to collateral to service to the needs of our customer base.
RIGHT TIME, RIGHT PLACE
So that’s our strategy, Marketing Made Easy, in a nutshell and it’s ready to roll. I must say that the enhanced customer value and differentiation this strategy offers, together with the exceptional commitment our people have shown, has made this one of the most satisfying programs I’ve ever worked on.
But I don’t want you to think this announcement is an ‘overnight sensation’. In fact, it is the culmination more than two years of work and planning. It began with the roll-out of our iGen system, which has made many of the initiatives we are announcing – such as pricing, bundling and improved product development – possible. And there have been a range of other initiatives, such as our growing focus on industry partnerships and the progressive rollout of our mobile services, that have laid the foundations on which today’s new program is built.
That’s what I mean by ‘right time’. The time is right to now take this step.
But what about ‘right place’? By that I simply mean that there is no-one in a better position to bring a totally holistic, 360 degree advertising service like this to market than Sensis. Sensis is already Australia’s largest locally owned online advertising company and we have more business customers than just about any other local media company. Furthermore, we have the capabilities, such as multi-platform publishing, sales relationships, brands and content to bring this incredibly diverse, but simple, marketing program to life.
And, of course, we also have the print directories which you might note haven’t been mentioned so far. Our print directories continue to deliver millions of real leads to Australian businesses every day. As such, they remain a powerful source of advertiser ROI and competitive differentiation for Sensis. We’ll be working to maintain that position into the future.
CONCLUSION
So, that’s it. A comprehensive and exciting new commitment to our customers. Powerful, but simple, new ways to help Australia’s SMEs make the most of today’s changing marketing world. A bold new long term growth strategy for shareholders.
That’s what we mean by Marketing Made Easy.
See you next time.
[1] Sensis eBusiness Report, August 2010
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As a self-professed iPad convert, not only is this week exciting for me personally but it also marks a milestone for the team here at Sensis as we’ve just launched the much anticipated Yellow Pages iPad app.
