Speaking Sensis

Sensis’ and Yelp partner to create new opportunities for Australia’s local searchers.

Today is an exciting day for Sensis as we announce our latest ground-breaking partnership between Yellow Pages® and Yelp, the global leader in local reviews and ratings. Together we’ll work with Yelp to launch an Australian version of the Yelp website, where Aussie’s will be invited to rate their dealings with local businesses and write reviews about their experiences.

Ratings and reviews are growing in popularity in the Australian market place. Did you know that, according to the recent Sensis Social Media Report, almost two thirds of social network users (63 per cent) read online reviews before they make buying decisions? Or that they read an average of six reviews each time? Given this enormous interest, we believe this partnership will be a huge win for the Australian community.

When Yelp launches in Australia they will integrate Sensis’ Yellow Pages® local business listing data into yelp.com.au.and, tap into our leading local sales force to launch and embed yelp.com.au in the Australian market. 

Not only does this mean the launch of a leading new ratings and review website in Australia, but through the partnership, Sensis will syndicate Yelp content, ratings and reviews to yellowpages.com.au, Yellow Pages® Mobile and the Yellow Pages® iPhone application.

So our advertisers can be really excited about the opportunities this partnership presents to them in the form of a deeper way to engage with potential customers online.

Yelp is a really exciting business to work with and I’m personally looking forward to the next couple of months as we work together to bring this leading product to market.

Yelp launched in 2004 and has rapidly expanded its user-generated ratings and reviews websites across North America and Europe. In fact, in June 2011, Yelp had more than 53 million unique visitors worldwide and to date more than 20 million local reviews of businesses have been posted to Yelp sites.

We anticipate yelp.com.au will be fully operational by the end of 2011 with Sensis’ Yellow Pages® media advisors offering Yelp advertising options to customers in 2012.

Simon B

Today my team cut the ribbon on the latest addition to our growing portfolio of digital marketing products and services with the launch of our new iPhone app: Sock Assist.

What’s exciting about Sock Assist, among other things – is that it’s one of the first apps in Australia which gives all iPhone users access to a world leading voice concierge information service.

Why have we produced the Sock Assist app? Because it’s another way we can help our advertisers connect with customers. The app helps to make it easy for potential customers to find advertisers’ businesses – wherever their customers are and however their customers prefer to search for information.

iPhone apps are one channel we are using to expand our increasingly diverse network of products that spans  print, online, voice, mobile, Telstra’s T-Hub and satellite navigation devices. Our network has an average of 23.6 million visits per month for the last 12 months .

You can download the app for free and it comes with three free calls to start you off (mobile charges apply (legal: tick)) and you can then purchase call credits . It provides users with business searches and need-to-know-now content such as directions, sports scores, movie times and find-a fact-searches.

Sock Assist joins a successful family of apps at Sensis, including: the Yellow Pages iPhone app (667,871 total downloads), the White Pages iPhone app (443,261 total downloads) and the Citysearch iPhone app (74,274 total downloads) .

So our latest addition has a lot to live up to but we think people are going to like the idea of having a personal assistant on their phone. In two taps of your iPhone screen, you will be in touch with someone who can search for the information you’re looking.

We’re constantly reviewing ways to ensure our advertisers can be found where their customers are looking. Our product development pipeline is influenced by customer trends, both within Australian and from monitoring the overseas advertising market. We make it our business to ensure we stay ahead of the game in terms of what we can offer our advertisers. 

So, download the Sock Assist app and let me know what you think.