Speaking Sensis

Charles Wright recently wrote in The Age how the benefits of search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) for one small business provided a far better return on investment (ROI) than advertising in the Yellow Pages®.

It’s easy to find one example of a business that’s been successful with any sort of advertising. The challenge is to find lots of them. Yellow Pages® has hundreds of examples of advertisers who get a majority of their business through Yellow Pages®. We even put some in our TV ad earlier this year.

Charles’ article was based on a simple assessment of ROI: cost of SEM outlay and the return in website traffic compared to the cost of advertising with Yellow Pages® Online and the subsequent website.

Where his case fell down is that it left out a number of costs a small business faces when gearing up for effective SEM and SEO activity.

These include the costs of building, hosting and maintaining a decent website, and possibly the cost of an SEO/SEM consultancy (or a significant time cost if you are able to do it yourself).

Sure there are online businesses that can manage all this and find customers. But there are a lot of businesses that can’t. Which is where the Yellow Pages® network can deliver real value.

Through its network, Yellow Pages® provides an effective multi-channel solution. With one Yellow Pages® ad, a business goes in the Yellow Pages® Book, Yellow Pages® Mobile, and the 1234 and Call Connect phone services.

In addition, Yellow Pages® also gives businesses a significant online presence by putting them in yellowpages.com.au, whereis.com and by making Yellow Pages® listings available to be searched on Google Maps and Bing Maps.

In fact, if you add up all these print, online, voice and mobile services, you find that Yellow Pages® advertiser content can be searched for through services used by almost 65% of Australians every month.

And that doesn’t include search engines. Recognising their significant value, we’ve made Yellow Pages® content not only searchable through the major search sites but we’ve optimised the content for search engines as well. That’s why over 2.5 million referrals come from search engines to Yellow Pages® Online every month.

People searching Yellow Pages® are buyers, not browsers. And they are often serious buyers who are ready to make a major purchase such as buying tyres for their car, booking an appointment with a dentist, booking a function at a restaurant or hiring a tradesman for work on their house.

The Yellow Pages® network helps puts businesses in more places customers are looking – including major online sites – with ease and convenience, leaving them to get on with running their business.

Sometimes the numbers just talk for themselves. Take Yellow Pages® Mobile usage data…

As you all become devoted (hopefully) readers of the Crunch! column, you’ll begin to notice that my articles all take on roughly the same formula.

Obviously, there’ll be stats… a no-brainer considering this column is meant to be about stats.

But those stats will be surrounded by witty (hopefully) witticisms and insightful (hopefully) insights as well.

There’s a simple reason for that. To the vast majority of the world (i.e. the majority of people who aren’t bone fide pen-holder-carrying geeks), staring at a bunch of numbers is like watching grass grow.

But, every now and then, you come across a set of stats that just talk for themselves – no frilly additions necessary.

Here’s an example.

1.    In October, the Yellow Pages® Mobile audience hit half a million unique visitors for the first time¹.

2.    All up, it’s taken Yellow Pages® Mobile a touch over 18 months to reach half a million unique visitors¹. By comparison, it took Yellow Pages® Online more than five years to reach that mark².

Still think mobile marketing’s sitting on the runway?

Think again.

1.  Omniture. July to October 2009
2.  RedSheriff 2004/2005 data

The AIMIA Digital Summit in Sydney last week included presentations from the likes of BBC, Facebook, Viocorp and Microsoft, research presentations from the Internet Advertising Bureau, Nielsen Online and Research International and case studies from Aussie, Witchery Holdings and Tourism Queensland. To sum up some of the key themes that emerged over the two days… online usage is flattening out but continuing to grow and mobile internet usage is on the up. Companies like Aussie and Witchery Holdings now attribute a significant proportion of their revenue to online retailing.

But, 97% of Australian retail sales are still occurring offline. This highlights the importance of local search services like Yellow Pages, which provide the link between online purchase research and the bricks and mortar supplier.

Jonathon Stinton from Research International explained that with so many channels at the disposal of the consumer and the advertiser, it’s getting harder and harder to determine what the key influencers are over a purchase decision. He calls this the “Twilight Zone of information”. So what are influencers as far as we can tell? Consumers are strongly relying on the web to research retail buying decisions and social media is having a minor but growing impact on this phase of the purchase cycle. With the phenomenal rise in social media traffic, brands want a piece of the action and are exploring ways to tap into this and develop relationships with consumers.

So what should an advertising and media company take away from this? We need to be focused on providing choice to both buyers and sellers – and hence our multichannel strategy. With digital such a major part of many Australians’ search repertoire, Sensis needs to provide the most relevant online and mobile local search experiences possible to bring buyers and sellers together. Speaking on the closing panel, Sensis’ GM of Digital Development Cheryl Vize said this is why Sensis is so proud of innovations like the Yellow iPhone app and why we’re absolutely determined to keep “raising the digital bar”.

One thing seems clearer than ever: there may be no crystal ball, but it’s never been as important as it is now for a business to get the magnifying glass out and really examine the DNA of its target market and what media they are consuming where, when and for what purpose in order to determine how to get the best cut-through.

Ahh, what fun. The phrase “not happy, Jan” of the Yellow Pages® ad of the very same name was voted as Australia’s number one catchphrase on Channel 10’s The Spearman Experiment tonight.

Sensis’ Michelle Sherwood talks to small and medium sized businesses about how to get the most bang for their advertising buck.

Sensis’ General Manager of Marketing, Michelle Sherwood presented to a room of more than 900 small and medium sized businesses at the Small Business BIG Marketing event on Thursday 27 August.

Held at Central Pier in the Docklands, the event was a part of Small Business Victoria’s month long small business festival Energise Enterprise 09, of which Yellow Pages® is a platinum sponsor.

Michelle’s presentation, ‘Making your advertising work for you’ gave the businesses in the room practical insights and advice about effectively marketing and advertising.

Michelle Sherwood on the dais

“With consumer confidence on the increase, it’s more important than ever for your business to be seen by customers when they’re looking to buy.

“Our job at Yellow Pages® is to bring buyers and sellers together, whether that be through print, online or mobile directories, search and mapping websites or telephone information services,” she said.

The Yellow Pages® and White Pages® face to face sales representatives were also out in force, with small business owners flocking to the stands to find out how Yellow Pages and White Pages can help to grow their business.

Luke and Deepak at the Yellow Pages® stand

Visit www.yellowadvertising.com.au or www.whywhitepages.com.au for more information.

Some great commentary was generated by the recent Sensis® e-Business Report. As a small sample of the many discussions occurring in both main and social media, here’s a couple of articles published over the last day or so.

Peter Switzer… “Don’t get left behind online”

Claire Heaney of the Herald Sun… “Businesses flocking to technology“

This year Sensis is sponsoring a series of lunches for members of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce. After two of these lunches, it’s really pleasing to get feedback from this diverse audience that we’ve shared a few things about consumers, small businesses and advertising that they didn’t already know…and actually wanted to know!

I mean, let’s face it, how many times have you turned up to a seminar or lunch only to walk away thinking, I’ve just been robbed of two precious hours in my life and I should demand a refund! I’m not saying Sensis hasn’t been guilty of this in the past… we’ve had our moments like any large business given the opportunity to put someone on the soapbox. But we’re starting to use opportunities like this to – and don’t gag here – help people.  So we asked the Chamber what their members wanted to know to about digital marketing.

And as the chicken and beef mains made their way around the room, our head of Yellow Pages® Digital, Sandeep Baruah, explained that the future of digital marketing in business will see a range of new applications at the disposal of the marketer. The question is what opportunities do they really present to increase brand equity and a company’s bottom line?

For some business, just knowing where to start is daunting in itself.

Sandeep unlocked some of the mystery around digital marketing tools such as:

• Social networking sites
• Search engine marketing
• Search engine optimisation
• Content syndication
• Mobile internet and
• Mobile codes

And he gave the audience a realistic check-list to help them make decisions about their digital marketing strategies:

• Who are my customers and where are they looking?
• What media are they accessing that influences their buying decisions?
• Which of these channels can I use to engage my customers?
• How can I use new technology to integrate campaigns and content across different media?
• Finally, what return am I actually going to see from this investment and how will I measure it?

Answering these questions will help any business go a long way to ensuring that they’re not simply swallowing the hype around new ways of reaching consumers, or putting all of their eggs in one basket.

According to Gerry Sutton, Sensis’ Chief Operating Officer, the Yellow Pages® and White Pages® directories are winning for buyers, sellers, investors and the Australian community.

WA:    Gerry, thanks for your time. You must have been busy since taking over the Yellow Pages® and White Pages® in May.

GS:    You bet. We’re right in the middle of the Yellow Pages® metro sales campaign, and the White Pages® has just kicked off its new campaign. So I’ve been all over Australia… meeting our people and our customers.

WA:    What are your initial observations about the Yellow Pages® and White Pages®?

GS:    Well, as you know, I’ve been very close to these businesses for a long time now. So I can’t give you a true ‘outsiders’ view. But I would say there are three things that have always struck me about our directories.

First up, this is a significant business. Yellow Pages® and White Pages® earns about $1.75bn in revenue and meets the needs of millions of buyers and almost 600,000 advertisers. The bulk of those advertiser customers are Australian small and medium businesses.

Secondly, it’s a real people business. Most advertising connects brands and markets. We’re bringing real people – buyers and sellers – together. Two people at a time. We’re about generating phone calls and store visits from people who are ready to buy right now.

And the way we work with our customers. It’s all person to person. Managing this business is about working with thousands of people to meet the very specific needs of millions… every day.

Thirdly, it’s a very sophisticated business. Yellow Pages® advertisers now reach out to potential buyers not only through the print directories, but an extensive online, voice and mobile network that includes brands like Yellow Pages® Online, Yellow Pages® Mobile, 1234 and Whereis®. And, now, Yellow Pages® listings can also be searched for through third party sites like Bing Maps, Google Maps and Yahoo! OneSearch, which is Yahoo!’s mobile search application.

There are few other media businesses that have broken down the barriers in the way Yellow Pages® has.

WA:    Gerry, you’ve talked about a back to basics approach. What do you mean?

GS:    As I’ve said, this is a real people business. We’ll grow by constantly getting better at meeting our customers’ needs. For us that means more information more easily for buyers and more customers for our advertisers. Do that well and we’ll grow satisfaction, usage, advertiser uptake and, ultimately revenue. It’s that simple.

I’m a big fan of customer satisfaction metrics. They’re no-holds-barred feedback on whether you’re doing the right thing by the customer. And it’s been gratifying to see both buyer and seller satisfaction rise strongly in recent times.

We’ve achieved that by really focussing our attention on customer needs. From the info-rich ad program, which helps advertisers produce more effective advertising, to metered ads, which help them understand ad performance. We’ve launched new services like Yellow™ in the car in nine markets as well as White Pages® Mobile. We’ve added new content products to Yellow Pages® Online and White Pages® Online. These content products help buyers by giving them more information and advertisers by giving them a stronger presence.

And, you know what? These content products have taken off. Take the White Pages® Online Package product for advertisers. Advertiser uptake has gone way beyond our expectations. This one product is almost solely responsible for White Pages® Online revenue tripling in two years.

That’s what I mean by back to basics. Deliver what the customer wants. Do that well and everything else will pretty much look after itself.

WA:    What about usage – particularly print? It’s a pretty hotly debated topic in the industry.

GS:     The Yellow Pages® print directories are valued highly by many Australians. According to Roy Morgan, almost 7m Australians use them every month¹. About 4m of these print directory users are also daily Internet users². These are people who use the Internet all the time, and yet they still see value in using the print directory. After all, it can often be quicker to find and compare businesses in print. At the other end of the scale, about a third of Australian households don’t have Internet access, according to the ABS³. For them, print directories could be their only access to information on local people and businesses.

In saying all this, however, there’s two really important points I need to make.

Firstly, I think the advertising community needs to get beyond this print vs online discussion. We live in a multi-channel world now and the whole print vs online debate is pretty dated.

So we’re really focussed on the usage the combined network delivers our customers. As I’ve said, unique usage of Yellow Pages® print is almost 7m a month⁴. At the same time, usage of our digital network is about 4.8m a month⁵. And unique usage of the third party sites we have arrangements with is about 4.5m a month⁶.

And Yellow Pages® advertiser listings can be searched for through all these services.

Secondly, usage maybe the word on the industry’s lips, but it isn’t, on its own, the main game.

Our customers are interested in winning business – emails, phone calls, store visits and so on. So conversion becomes really important. How many of those users contacted me and how many of them buy? How many leads is my advertising generating for me?

We know from years of research that about 90% of buyers using the Yellow Pages® directory go on to contact a business and about 72% of them buy⁷.

There’s few, if any advertising businesses that can deliver the volume of users and high conversion – in short, the numbers of leads – that Yellow Pages® can.

But now we’re getting more granular with this. As I said, we’ve introduced the info rich advertising program to help our customers create more effective ads. This helps them convert more users into callers.

And we’ve introduced metered ads so our customers can get a really strong sense of not just usage but of the actual calls they’re receiving.

In the end, these numbers – unique usage across all the directories, sites and services, conversion, number of calls – all matter to our customers. Not how’s print doing against online.

WA:    So, Gerry, where do you see the future for directories?

GS:    That’s a good question. I couldn’t begin to answer it completely in a short interview. But here’s a few thoughts.

Directories advertising is traditionally about significant events in a person’s life… weddings, buying a house or car and so on, or unplanned events such as a breakdown of some sort.

And that’s still the major driver of usage. But I think that with the integration of directories content, maps and mobiles into local search, we’ve been able to create a more day to day whenever, wherever you are proposition. Something you use to find your way around every day.

That’s why I think local search and directories is such an exploding market. If you look at usage across all local search sites, it’s grown massively over the last few years.

And I think we can get much better at using our directories to make life easier every day. We can make the whole cross-channel experience much more seamless, with print, online, voice and mobile all talking to each other in different ways.

And we can add sat nav, point of sale scanning and so on.

It won’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, you’ll only ever be a few clicks away from whatever you need.

I guess the other thing I’d add is a comment about digital TV. As you know, I’ve been involved in the digital TV industry for many years. And I’m really interested in seeing how local search and digital TV come together.

But that’s a few years away yet.

WA:    Thanks a lot Gerry.

1: Roy Morgan, Single Source Australia. Average monthly unique users, Yellow Pages® print. April 2008 to March 2009. Base: Austalians 14+
2: ibid
3: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Household Use of Information Technology, Australia, 2007-08
4: Roy Morgan, Single Source Australia. Average monthly unique users, Yellow Pages® print. April 2008 to March 2009. Base: Austalians 14+
5: ibid.
6: ibid.
7: Percentage of serches conducted using the Yellow Pages® Directory that resulted in a business or supplier being contacted. Independent research of people aged 18-64, conducted by TNS in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaeide and Perth, January – March 2007 and July – December 2007.

Thomas Arthur, Sensis GM, Digital Marketing Services talks about the changing face of digital display advertising and how mobile advertising is now making its presence felt.

WA:    Hi Thomas. Before we talk mobiles, I wanted to focus on the digital display market if I could. Where do you think it’s headed?

TA:    Thanks Wayne. The digital display ad market continues to grow strongly, despite the downturn. Just as importantly, the fundamentals that underpin that financial growth are really healthy. Usage of our online network grew by 13% to 9.6m unique users¹. It’s the largest online display advertising network in Australia and it includes Sensis sites, Telstra sites and a growing portfolio of third party sites like Village, Weatherzone, IGA Worldwide, Swellnet and Bub Hub.

And customer growth has been strong. Marketers really see the importance of digital media now. Growth has been particularly strong in the new areas: in-game, video and, of course mobile, which has really hit the mainstream.

So I think digital display has got a really strong future. I personally think there is a lot of headroom for growth over the coming few years.

WA:    What do you mean by mobiles hitting the mainstream?

TA:    Let me give you a couple of stats. Usage of Sensis’ mobile sites – like Yellow Pages® Mobile, Whereis® Mobile, Sensis® Mobile and Citysearch® Mobile doubled in the last 12 months². And the number of campaigns we executed for mobile advertisers also doubled. Clearly, both mobile usage and advertising are growing at a rate of knots.

Later this week, we’ll be releasing the 14th Sensis® eBusiness Report. Based on some of the preliminary numbers I’ve seen, it looks like there’ll be an exciting mobile story in there.

WA:    So what’s the attraction of mobile marketing?

TA:    It’s an entirely new proposition for both the audience and marketers.

Network speed is now fast enough to view video and other forms of rich media, and the simple charging mechanisms mean that even paid content can be accessed easily.

And, through their mobiles, consumers can access the Internet from just about anywhere. If usage growth is anything to go by, consumers really value that.

Proximity is a powerful advantage for advertisers as well. Mobiles are the first personal medium we’ve ever had. You don’t need to be in front of a TV or a billboard. Mobile advertising reaches people wherever they are.

This gets really powerful when you start to consider the possibilities of location-based advertising. You can stream ads that are contextual to where a person is located at that moment. You might send a coupon for a store when an opted-in buyer is just around the corner. Or a video of a house for sale when they’re nearby during inspection times.

As a result, the mobile audience is really active. People who view display advertising on mobiles are ten to twenty times more likely to take further action, like contacting you or downloading content, than online. So that makes mobiles a real conversion engine for marketers – far more so than just about any other channel.

But there’s more to mobile advertising than display. Mobiles are also proving a boon for local search users – people searching for nearby businesses and places. It’s easy for them to track what’s around them and navigate their way there.

WA:    What about targeting? Are you able to target consumers more effectively through mobiles?

TA:    Absolutely. In fact, one of the real benefits of being a Telstra subsidiary is that we can utilise Telstra mobile segmentation data to really personalise the content we stream. This is a real plus for both users and advertisers, because it ensures more relevant advertising.

WA:    How has the emergence of smart phones impacted mobile marketing?

TA:    Oh, it’s been huge. Smart phone users have already shown themselves to be heavy adopters of online content. Already, well over 10% of all Sensis’ mobile traffic is coming from iPhones.

WA:    So what will be the big things in mobile advertising in the coming year?

TA:    A few things spring to mind. We expect consumer usage and advertiser activity to continue growing strongly. Location-based advertising, which I’ve already mentioned, will really grow, as will video advertising now that we have the bandwidth to enable it.

We’ll see a lot more integration between online and mobile. This will be an important step because mobiles can deliver acquisition capabilities much better than online. So mobile adds acquisition to the brand building strengths of online.

Mobile payments will become more widespread.

And, underpinning all of this, we should see real progress on common mobile advertising standards through the work Sensis and others in the industry are doing together.

WA:    That’s great Thomas. Thanks a lot.

1: Roy Morgan, Single Source Australia. Average monthly unique users, MediaSmart network. March qtr 2009 vs 2008
2: Omniture: Average monthly visits, May to June 2009 vs 2008.

Gerry Sutton, Sensis COO, and Robert Rath, CEO of Sensis China, talk about the achievement of a major milestone for Sensis.

WA:    Hi Gerry and Robert. This year’s financial results contain a real milestone for Sensis. On a reported basis, Internet advertising revenues, including online and mobile, grew by 47% to reach $502 million. So we’ve hit half a billion dollars in Internet advertising revenue – the first Australian owned and operated company to do so, I believe.

GS:    It’s a great achievement. Fourteen years ago we entered the online space with the first online directory in the world. Like everyone at the time, our people had high hopes, but no real idea where digital media would take us. To stand here now and see an audience of millions, well over 100,000 Australian online advertising customers and half a billion dollars in revenue is really satisfying.

RR:    I feel really privileged in a way. I’ve worked closely with the Yellow Pages® and White Pages® teams for a long time, so I’ve got to see that business grow. Now, I’ve had the chance to play a role in the birth of Sensis China. It’s fantastic.

WA:    How has Sensis achieved this result?

RR:    Gerry, I think we’ve achieved growth in China and Australia in two very different ways. One is pure start up while the other is extending a traditional media business. What do you think?

GS:    I agree. In Australia, we’ve integrated digital into the existing Yellow Pages® and White Pages® businesses. It’s been a way of adding value to an existing proposition for both buyers and sellers.

RR:    And, in China, it’s pure online start-up. I saw an interesting statistic the other day. In the USA, they have about 2,000 directories for every thousand people – a 2:1 ratio. In Australia, it’s more like 1:1. But in China, there are only about 20 directories for every thousand people. And, of course, we’re not in the directories market in China.

WA:    Can you point to any defining moments over the years?

GS:    A few years ago, we changed the business model for Yellow Pages® Online. In the beginning, it was a separate business to print with a different sales force. We then integrated the two businesses. If you advertised in print all your content went online. A simple tick the box solution. You could then sign up to enhanced content and position online if you chose to. The minute we did that, online customer numbers skyrocketed. And it was great for buyers too because it put more content into the online directory.

Once we’d integrated the print and online directories, we set about extending what we call the Yellow Pages® network even further. Firstly into our own services like Whereis® and 1234 and then into third party services like Google Maps and Bing Maps. This has added enormous reach for our advertisers and made cross-platform advertising simple for them.

The other thing that comes to mind is much more recent. In my other interview with you, I mentioned the White Pages® Online Platform and how that product led to a real growth spurt in customer uptake and revenue. Thanks to that one product White Pages® Online has tripled in two years and doubled in the last year.

Actually, White Pages® Online Platform flags another big milestone that hasn’t happened yet. This year we’ll complete our systems and process transformation. We actually turned part of it on for White Pages® last year. And the new systems meant we were able to produce the White Pages® Online Platform product in just a few days. Under our old legacy systems, it would have taken weeks.

WA:    So White Pages® Online Platform is a sign of things to come?

GS:    That’s right.

WA:    Robert, what have been the big moves for you?

RR:    Of course, our China investments are only about two years old, but there have been some big wins already. Clearly we’ve invested in the right businesses. We’ve integrated them well, which can be seen in the great way our people are working together: and the team has delivered on expansion plans, like the Soufun 100 cities program. As a result, these investments are delivering really exciting growth.

WA:    So, where to from here?

GS:    I’ve already mentioned our transformation. This will have a huge impact on the types of services we can deliver and the way we deliver them. On that score, I do want to acknowledge one thing. People forget that everything we’ve achieved in our online directories has been done on twenty to thirty year old legacy systems. To be honest, it’s been a real struggle at times and our people have done a fantastic job to deliver what they have. The future’s going to be very different.

RR:    In China’s case, we’ll keep doing what we’re doing. Looking for opportunities for geographic expansion and looking for new services we can deliver to our customers. We’ll also focus more and more on the mobile space, which is starting to emerge. It’s an exciting time.

WA:    Thanks Robert. Thanks Gerry.