The French directory publishers PagesJaunes has made a significant move by acquiring 100 percent of the Austrian people search site 123People, which has a global audience of more than 40 million unique visitors in 11 countries, according to the PagesJaunes announcement. Terms were not disclosed.

Here is how Pages Jaunes CEO Jean-Pierre Remy describes the deal.

“We are delighted to have acquired 123people, which fits perfectly with our growth strategy and reinforces our leadership in people search on the Internet. 123people is a genuine Internet success story and will enable us to accelerate the growth of our audiences and offer advertisers additional visibility and traffic. With this acquisition, PagesJaunes Groupe will significantly increase its total audience, strengthen its expertise in natural listing and benefit from new synergies between 123people and the Group’s sites in France and Spain.”

123People acts like a personal reputation management tool. It aggregates all the places where an individual appears online. I did a search on myself and found various photos of me, as well as of others who share my name, links to blogs I’ve written, videos I’ve posted, pages online where my name appears and so on.  It’s a useful site to find and learn about other people, and to track the various ways in which you appear online.

Quietly, SuperMedia is rolling out a new approach to online search. If you look on Swtichboard.com today, you’ll notice that search results are presented differently than before. Now, Switchboard’s top results based on relevancy are plotted on a map (this might look familiar), with the remaining results pushed further down the page.

This represents the beginning of a shift from inclusion-based results to relevancy results across SuperMedia’s properties.

SuperMedia’s Robyn Rose told us earlier this week that Switchboard and LocalSearch.com often act as test beds for the SuperPages IYP mothership, so we won’t see SuperMedia switch over to relevancy until any kinks are worked out on the secondary properties. Rose didn’t commit to a timetable for launching the new approach on SuperPages.

Here is how results used to look.

And here is how they appear now.

Just six months after it launched its SP411 Twitter integration, Superpages is at it again with an offer to Tweet any coupon that businesses upload to an online profile.

To do this it has created 72 city-specific Twitter accounts, which users in those cities can follow to get daily tweets for coupons and promotions happening around them. Businesses interested in taking part can register on Superpages and go through a process to create or upload coupons.

According to the press release, this includes:

• create up to three different coupons,
• set a start date and expiration date,
• add a disclaimer,
• apply coupons to multiple store locations,
• include a promotion code to track specific offers; and
• update coupons at any time.

Coupons are then automatically tweeted out by the geographically appropriate Twitter handle. Of course this is only as good as the number of followers of each of these city-specific accounts, but they should build followers quickly.

The growing interest for coupons on Twitter combined with Superpages ability to cross promote this, will make it happen. Meanwhile you can check out the aggregated feed of all of the 72 city promotions on Twitter (and link directly to your city’s account) at @superpages/superpages-cities.

Like SP411, this is a clever integration, utilizing only a standard Twitter account to communicate and create additional touch points with users looking for local business information. The coupon angle makes it that much more enticing.

As we said at the SP411 launch, media is fragmenting and Superpages is meeting users where they are going. This is an important paradigm that traditional media need to take to heart, as a once siloed world becomes more about presence across platforms and less about owning destinations.

I finally got around to viewing Yellowbook CEO Joe Walsh’s recent appearance on FoxBusinessNetwork. The line of questioning presumed the obsolescence of print, which Walsh certainly anticipated. He made a few assertions that one might expect — that people still use phone books, despite what you might think, and that Yellowbook has been responsive to environmental concerns, with smaller books and opt out and so on.

He also said a couple of things that were kind of interesting. He made a distinction not based on big versus small markets, but rather coastal versus heartland. Asked if phone books would still be around in five years, he said “Yes,” but added that in some coastal markets, the migration from print to digital usage might be completed within five years. In smaller markets in South Dakota, Mississippi and so on, print is strong today and will likely still be strong in five years. And when asked what his biggest seller is today, his answer without hesitation was “Web sites.” Click here or on the image below to watch the interview in its entirety.

It’s nearing the end of earnings season for the global Yellow Pages industry, and my program, The Kelsey Report, will soon issue a detailed roundup of 2009 results across all the companies that report publicly.

In general, the news has been grim for print Yellow Pages, though some publishers have given faint glimmers of hope that print will stabilize this year, meaning a slowing rate of decline. Others are projecting an accelerating decline.

A recent (unscientific) Kelsey Report online survey of global YP industry insiders suggests that most in the industry see a strong secular component in recent revenue performance. Probably the most telling messages that has come out of some recent conversations I have had with leaders in the industry is that the continuing, if waning, effectiveness of print is an increasingly irrelevant point. The energy it takes to overcome objections to print can be more effectively directed to selling digital or a product bundle that emphasizes digital.

Ironically, I am hearing more and more that print may be necessary to making the bundle effective because it still drives leads, but it is poisonous to the messaging because no one believes it works. I am hearing more and more about strategies that essentially engineer a faster print-to-online shift because the investment story for a company focused on the local online opportunity is so much more compelling than a traditional media story.

So the big question is, does the industry have a viable plan to become a growing, profitable business in a post-print world? And how will organizations need to change to make economic sense in a world where the product mix is substantially different from what it is today?

These are some of the questions we’ll take a whack at in a workshop we’ll be conducting at the Yellow Pages Association’s conference next month in Las Vegas, and in much greater depth at BIA/Kelsey’s Directional Media Strategies conference in Dallas, Sept. 14-16. The workshop at the YPA event is titled, perhaps hopefully, “Built to Last: The new Yellow Pages Organization.”

My colleague Mike Boland will also have a prominent role at the YPA event, moderating a panel on “Monetizing Mobile Yellow Pages,” which is also the topic of an upcoming joint report from BIA/Kelsey’s Mobile Local Media and Kelsey Report advisory services. Mobile is increasingly seen as key to the future of the business, and arguably, because of its inherent emphasis on calls over clicks as the currency of leads, a place where directories have a more level playing field.

Next week I will be traveling to the Association of Directory Publishers meeting in Houston, where I’ll be very interested in talking to smaller market publishers about the environment they are experiencing. At the last ADP event I attended, it was clear the economy had taken a toll on many publishers, but there wasn’t much talk of a secular decline. I’ll be interested in hearing how the mood and message have changed since the last gathering.

On Thursday’s earnings call, DexOne (ex-R.H. Donnelley) leaders cautiously projected that the rate of decline in ad sales would improve in 2010, from being down 20 percent in 2009 to down between 12 percent and 15 percent this year. The company made the case to financial analysts that its performance in 2009, while dire, was in line with the overall media landscape.

Most critically, DexOne leaders tried to sell the story line that it has emerged from bankruptcy as a stronger, healthier company that is well-positioned to succeed in the local marketplace. Along with other leading publishers, DexOne is offering its take on the “one stop” model where SMBs can go for a simplified solution that delivers leads from multiple channels, including a mix of proprietary and third-party sources. DexOne CEO Dave Swanson doesn’t even like to refer to the business as a Yellow Pages company, even though the core product remains the primary, if diminishing, source of revenues and leads.

“We have evolved far beyond our Yellow Pages roots,” Swanson said. “Yellow Pages is only one of seven platforms we are using today to drive leads for our customers and revenues for the company.”

For the full year 2009, DexOne posted net revenues of US$2.2 billion, down from US$2.6 billion in 2008, a 16 percent drop. Ad sales reflect the value of ads sold for books published during the year, while net revenues account for dollars amortized during the year, since directory revenues are recorded over a 12-month period to reflect the lifespan of a directory. Ad sales are generally considered a better indicator of how the business is performing.

DexOne CFO Steve Blondy, echoing other industry leaders, described the third and fourth quarters of 2009 as the “bottom” in terms of ad sales declines. Ad sales were down 21.9 percent in Q4 2009.

He added that the company is being cautious in its 2010 guidance because the small-business advertiser is not bouncing back as quickly as larger and national advertisers. And that recovery will continue to lag. “Small businesses are not participating in the recovery consistent with [advertisers in] major media.”

Some other earnings call highlights:

• Swanson described the company as following a “merchant centric strategy.” Essentially this means it is all about aggregating the kind of traffic that drives quality leads to advertisers.
• DexOne reported losing 110,000 advertisers in 2009. Blondy said about two-thirds of the loss was the result of companies going under or being locked out for credit reasons.
• Swanson reiterated the recent announcement that DexOne is aggregating Yelp reviews into its DexKnows platform. BIA/Kelsey originally reported this on the Local Media Blog on Feb. 1.
• There was some back and forth on EBITDA margins. DexOne reported a 52 percent 2009 margin, and margins are expected to decline further in 2010. Pressed on this, Blondy shot back that it is a “business decision” to invest in the customer value proposition. “We are getting a diminishing return from cost savings,” Blondy said. “We can’t save our way to success. Our focus is on growing the top line.”

We’ve been listening to earnings webcasts for the major global directory publishers over the past days, trying to pick up any clues for how publishers see 2010 developing. Most publishers have shortened their guidance horizon or have stopped giving it altogether. In many cases, the banks and hedge fund analysts on the calls are pressing CEOs and CFOs pretty hard for any indication absent of formal guidance of how the year is shaping up.

What we are hearing on these calls is a hint of cautious optimism that the rate of decline in print revenues has bottomed out and in some cases the rate of decline may be slowing.

For example, here is what SuperMedia CFO Dee Jones said on last week’s earnings call:

“From an ad sales perspective we feel that we are in the valley. Our ad sales for the fourth quarter, on top of what we did in the third quarter, indicate to us that we are in the valley. It is too early to tell when we get out of the valley.”

Jones later clarified that he was referring to the rate of decline in ad sales. For the full year 2009, SuperMedia’s ad sales were down by 18.7 percent. SuperMedia, which emerged from bankruptcy on December 31, has stopped breaking out its revenue performance by segment (print, online and other), which it had done through the third quarter of last year.

Here is what Yell Group CEO John Condron said on his company’s Feb. 4 call announcing its third quarter and year to date earnings (the company’s financial year ends March 31):

“We are still experiencing revenue pressure. However, the rate of decline is stabilizing, and there is a significant increase in confidence.”

Through three quarters, Yell Group posted a group revenue decline of 13.3 percent at a constant exchange rate.

Pressed on this point during the questions and answers session, Yell CFO John Davis conceded that “We have a Long way to go. The rates of decline are still in double digits.”

Still, both Condron and Davis continue to argue that the negative performance of directories, print in particular, is largely the result of the brutal 2008-2009 economic environment, and not a long-term secular shift. A recent (unscientific) BIA/Kelsey online survey of industry insiders suggests that many if not most in the industry believe the declines are the result of a combination of secular and cyclical forces.

At this stage of the year at most directory companies, the (calendar) first quarter and much of the second quarter revenue has already been sold.

These comments suggest essentially that the business is stabilizing and no further deterioration from the abyss that was 2009 is expected. Perhaps there may even be a modest improvement in the rate of decline as the year progresses.

BIA/Kelsey expects 2010 to be a year where the directories business stabilizes. The degree to which things improve in 2011 and beyond will be driven in part by the performance of the economy, but perhaps even more so by the directory companies themselves.

Following a significant court decision, Yellow and White Pages content is not entitled to copyright protection in Australia. Assuming the case is upheld, any entity can legally copy the content from a Sensis directory, even to build a competitive local search or directory product, according to Australian press reports.

The decision is the outcome of a lawsuit filed by Sensis and its parent company, Telstra, against Local Directories, a small independent Australian publisher that used Sensis data in building its product.

The presiding judge argued, in essence, that the effort involved in building the databases didn’t rise to the level of intellectual property worthy of protection.

Sensis also released a statement following the ruling, which said, “This decision raises fundamental issues about the score of copyright law in relation to complex compilations, with far reaching impact beyond the facts of this particular case. Sensis is presently considering its position in relation to an appeal.”

We spoke also on Tuesday with Sensis CEO Bruce Akhurst, who downplayed the impact of the ruling. He pointed out that while the decision was not welcome, it really only clarifies the legality of an already common practice, copying Sensis’s listings data and classification system. He notes out that the content of the actual ads within the Sensis directories is and will continue to be protected under copyright.

Canpages, the leading competitive directory publisher in Canada, appears to be making a play for the CanWest media properties, which would greatly expand and diversify Canpages’ operations. According to a story this week in the Globe and Mail, Canpages is one of two companies bidding on 46 newspapers owned by the financially troubled CanWest Global Communications. The report values the assets at C$1 billion. Canpages would make the bid along with its owner, Hicks Capital, and Paul Godfrey, president of CanWest’s National Post.

If successful, the deal would leapfrog Canpages into a leadership role in Canada’s media landscape, and make it an even more formidable competitor to Canada’s leading directory player, Yellow Pages Group, which announced its year-end earnings yesterday.

Canpages also recently announced its first foray south of the U.S.-Canadian border via its relationship with U.S. independent Phone Directories Corp., where PDC will rebrand its PDC Pages IYP as Ziplocal.com (which is owned by Canpages) and rebrand itself as Ziplocal. This move is similar to Hearst’s decision to rebrand its independent directory property White Directory Publishers as LocalEdge Media. Ziplocal was a Canadian local search platform acquired by Canpages in 2009. This arrangement certainly begs the question of whether some deeper connection between Canpages and PDC looms in the future. PDC once owned Canpages’ predecessor company in Canada and the two are both Hicks Capital (formerly Hicks Muse) portfolio companies.

On the year-end earnings call, YPG CEO Marc Tellier said the company plans to make changes to its brand to keep pace with the changing media environment. ”We’re going to look at repositioning our brand, repositioning the logo to be more representative of this new digital universe,” Tellier said.

For the full year 2009, YPG’s directories division grew .9 percent to C$1.4 billion. Fourth-quarter revenues were down 2.6 percent to C$345 million. The company’s vertical media division had a very tough year, dropping 22.8 percent to C$248 million.

Yell, the U.K.’s largest directory publisher, announced today that it will move 100 percent of its print directories onto a compact print format by the end of June this year. Yell bills the announcement as the “biggest design revamp for more than 40 years.”

Yell’s decision furthers a global trend to reduce the footprint of print directories, with the primary stated objective of increasing possession and usage, particularly in large markets. Reducing the size of the book also lowers costs and improves the environmental friendliness of the book, or at least enhances the product’s green image.

In the United States, Yellowbook (a division of Yell) has converted several of its directory titles to a compact format, with the tagline “new eco-friendly size.” While today’s announcement does not reference Yellowbook, BIA/Kelsey would expect that Yellowbook will soon follow Yell’s lead and covert most or all of its print directories to the smaller format.

Other publishers that are widely using the compact format for their main Yellow Pages directories include Eniro and PagesJaunes.

Having been in the trenches for the past year talking about multiproduct selling and how a consultative or collaborative sales process is a key component for selling multiple media, I keep hearing over and over again “I’ve been training on consultative selling for years so why should we rely on it to take us into the next era of selling?” Having been involved in local media sales for more than 10 years, I’m going to take the unpopular stand and say that the current local media sales process is transactional product selling in consultative selling clothes. In short, many sales organizations have embraced aspects of consultative selling but in large it is being used as a sales tacticto get in the door and keep the advertiser talking in order to sell specific media options.

BNET recently featured Harvard Business School professor Ranjay Gulati, who wrote a new book titled “Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business.” In his book, Gulati points out:

“In a marketplace like today, customers have more choices and more information, and services start to look like each other, in what we call a sea of sameness. If you don’t have an ability to transcend beyond the features and functionality of my product versus yours, then you have a problem.”

Gulati points out the fallacy of the notion that media companies are currently consultative and customer focused. Many media sales teams feel if they are asking a few questions about the business and their expected ROI from their marketing efforts that somehow this constitutes consultative selling. Put simply, salespeople are saying “I’ll talk about your needs so long as it leads to you only buying my portfolio of solutions.” Gulati’s point of view is “Most organizations believe they are customer centric when they are asking questions, but they’re communicating with customers through a product lens (with a pre-determined end in mind).” Instead, Gulati says “companies must ask deeper questions such as what problems they are dealing with and what issues are happening in the life of my customers regardless of the solutions the sales person is offering.” The goal in asking probing questions is to help the advertiser better articulate his or her needs so sales can get them met.

Consultative or collaborative selling is about transparency and building solutions that fit the customer’s needs and not necessarily the media company’s balance sheet. If a salesperson is aiming to sell a specific product set, and is willing to un-sell other potential solutions, then this version of consultative selling is merely disguised as the same transactional selling of old — all paths lead to a limited solution. Media consultants recognize there are many media options available to advertisers and that at times their portfolio of media offerings has to co-exist or complement other media and at other times they must fight to win budget from media that may not be as effective or is receiving too large of a share of an advertiser’s budget. Being able to counsel local advertisers on media strengths and weaknesses means salespeople must learn about all types of local media to be effective in selling their own portfolio of media options.

Local advertisers are much smarter about where they spend their marketing dollars because they have access to more information than ever before and have tighter ties to peers through social networks who can offer additional guidance. Salespeople used to be the source of information about what was happening in the local marketplace but now they are one of many sources available. If a salesperson cannot deliver value beyond what an advertiser can access on his or her own, then he or she has very little to offer. True media consultancy is the path where more peer-to-peer relationships are developed. Based on BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor study, 48 percent of SMBs want their media rep to help them understand their media options and make the best choice for their budget among the confusing array of new media choices.

While many media sales organizations are looking at incremental changes to their sales processes, those that are savvy and understand that local advertisers have changed and that the sales role must change are the ones that will thrive. The reality is the market has already changed and it is up to each media company to understand how to recraft its sales strategy and put together a consultative media sales team that understands local media and can be the media guide local advertisers are seeking. It’s time to stop making consultative selling a sales tactic for getting the advertiser to talk and use it as a means for building a relationship, creating value and developing media plans that work for the benefit of the advertiser and leverage their existing marketing activities. If consultative selling fantasy can be turned into reality, media outlets stand to make significant revenue gains and gain a larger, more loyal base of advertisers.

Yell.com has decided to forgo partnering on maps with Google, Microsoft or other potential competitors in favor of building its own propriety map product. The U.K.’s largest directory publisher unveiled a beta version of the Yell Maps product this week.

Yell is positioning its map product as designed for the specific purpose of finding local businesses. Here is a video that offers some color on the new product. Yell contends its new product is faster and easier to use than the previous incarnation, thanks in part to more up-to-date content and improved geocoding.

Yell used the French firm Tridoo to build the Yell Maps product. Tridoo already provides the maps on Yell’s mobile search products. The company is also using Navteq to provide quarterly updates to ensure that business location and directions are kept up to date. Yell describes Tridoo as a “small specialist company that has spent the last 10 years at the forefront of mapping and geospatial development.”

Yell “map master” Djamila Fernana-Ritchie says, “This is the first of a number of planned releases designed to make Yell Maps the premier mapping solution for local business search in the U.K.”

It seems clear that Yell, which had taken a more cooperative view toward Google in recent months, has decided that maps is a strategic piece of its future business, and owning its platform makes more sense that outsourcing it to a key competitor. The challenge for Yell will be making its maps compelling enough to divert usage from Google.

New Zealand’s Yellow Pages Group posted a net loss after tax of NZ$338 million for the financial year ended June 30, but much of the loss resulted from one-time items. The company actually managed to grow revenues 1.4 percent to NZ$297 million, with print dropping 1.6 percent (a modest decline to say the least compared with other global publishers), while growing online revenues a whopping 43.9 percent. Online still accounts for a comparatively small piece of YPG-NZ’s revenues at 9.5 percent.

One of YPG-NZ’s primary concerns is its debt. The company was acquired by a private equity consortium in May 2007 at the peak of selling multiples for directories firms, at 13 times EBITDA, leveraging it to 10X to make the deal. The company was worth about NZ$2.3 billion when it was bought and perhaps a billion less today.

In a breakfast I had with CEO Bruce Cotterill recently in Milan (where he was speaking at the Yellow Pages Today conference), he described his job as helping the owners earn back the money they’ve lost since the sale. To do this, Cotterill is focused on costs, execution and making his company more focused on customer satisfaction, among other things. He said in the nine months since he’s come on, he’s personally phoned every unhappy customer who has come to his attention.

He also understands that he needs to grow revenues. He believes much of the recent softness in print is related to the economy and poor execution, though he concedes a longer term trend away from print. He believes strongly that YPG-NZ can still benefit from investing in print, while the company also needs a new online platform as well as a new publishing platform.

In his presentation at YPT, Cotterill listed a set of nine areas of near-term focus for his company. They were: optimizing the sales force; meeting financial obligations and opportunities; becoming “content rich”; establishing brand leadership in NZ; re-enabling business systems; aggressively growing digital; providing outstanding customer service; attracting, developing and growing great people; and, finally, defending and growing print revenues.

Discovery is the most important step of the sales process since it is when the customer gives the salesperson a roadmap that helps him or her clearly understand the best products to present. Rather than being overwhelmed by the number of products in the portfolio, a good discovery process makes selection a more straightforward task. Discovery also builds trust that the salesperson is acting in the customer’s best interest and has a desire to understand the customer’s challenges and present the most suitable products. The four purposes of discovery are:  

1. Uncover the Dominant Buying Motives: What time-bound need or opportunity will be met (or not met) if the customer does not accept your solution. Without urgency, the motivation to buy is very low. 
2. Find the Problem: What is road blocking customers’ current success? What have they tried unsuccessfully in the past? What is their expectation of a reasonable ROI? What happens if they do not address their challenges or meet the new opportunities presented to them? 
3. Find Past Objections: A good discovery will uncover previous objections to sales efforts or past media solutions that did not work. This gives the salesperson the opportunity to address these issues before they can be raised later. 
4. Allow Self Discovery for the Customer: Many times prospects really do not know what they need, and it is in discovery that they will reveal to both the salesperson and themselves what they need and how best to position products and services. The discovery process may be the first time the business owner has organized his or her thoughts about business marketing needs.

The discovery approach should lead the customer through a logical process to capture these critical bits of information tied to value, ROI, business needs, previous approaches and urgency. Many times when salespeople struggle with poor closing rates, poor discovery is the cause. Lacking adequate discovery, the salesperson often struggles to present a logical solution to the customer. 

When a salesperson has multiple products he or she could be presenting, discovery provides a clear indicator of what products are most appropriate given the customer’s needs and budget. Deeper discovery gives salespeople more confidence in selecting appropriate products rather than reverting to presenting every product or “the latest new products” to see what draws the customer’s interests and attention. Discovery creates the roadmap for creating the recommendation and it gives the salespeople confidence that they are presenting the strongest case for why the customer should buy.  

If your sales team has given short shrift to the discovery process it may be time to go back to the basics of asking better questions and demonstrating how good discovery provides a great chance of satisfying the customer and closing the deal.

The Australian telecom Telstra plans to take public and then sell off its stake in its SouFun operation in China, which is operated as part of its Sensis directories and search business. SouFun is China’s largest real estate and home furnishings Web site.

There were no details available on the venue for the IPO nor its exact timing. Telstra had planned to float the business last year but scrapped those plans due to the global financial crisis. SouFun has been a successful growth story for Sensis, growing its earnings by more than 59 percent last year.

SouFun is not Telstra’s only operation in China. In 2008, the company acquired  55 percent of Autohome/PCPop, which runs Autohome.com.cn, a Chinese auto portal, and Norstar Mediatwo, a Chinese CNET-like tech site.

In May, BIA/Kelsey analyst Peter Krasilovsky profiled SouFun for the Marketplaces research program. In the Advisory, Krasilovsky noted that Sensis helped develop its investments by developing their sales capabilities. Sensis would bring Chinese managers to Australia for sales training sessions. However, Sensis also avoided overdoing it by limiting the number of Australians who were stationed in China, allowing local managers to run the show.

Here is a recap of posts from last week, in case you missed any. Click below to read each post in full.

Digital Newsstand: Food for Thought for YP Industry?

The New York Times reported yesterday that four leading magazine publishers — Time, Conde Nast, Hearst and Meredith — are jointly developing an “online newsstand.” The initiative has ambitions of becoming the “iTunes of magazines,” according to the article. (read more…)

Just in Time for Black Friday, Lucky Magazine Gets More ‘Actionable’

Fashion magazine Lucky has rolled out a new site that lets readers locate, get specs, and/or buy the products featured within its pages. Partnering with loyalty shopping network Mall Networks, the site will include 100,000 fashion items from 450 brands. They’ll be featured in daily picks from editors as well as searchable by category, designer, price range or specific stores. (read more…)

Philly CBS Broadcasters Team to Power 120 ‘Digital Newsstands’

Seven Philadelphia CBS-TV and radio stations have combined their news resources to create a new Digital Out of Home (DOOH) News Network utilizing 39  CBS Always On “Digital Newsstands.” The Newsstands include HDTVs and a 24 hour news ticker. (read more…)

OpenTable Goes Mobile; 1 Million Served

Online restaurant booking success story OpenTable has started to make moves into mobile — both building apps and distributing its reservation system to other app partners. This is a logical move, given that arts and entertainment is a big category of mobile content consumption, according to our recently released Mobile Market View study. Already, the company has served 1 million diners through its mobile apps (mostly iPhone). (read more…)

Local.com Reorgs Into 3 Business Units

Local.com has reorganized around three business units: “Owned & Operated,” “Sales & Advertiser Services,” and “Network.” The latter unit will consist of more than 700 regional media sites, formerly associated with PremierGuide and its successor, and the new Local Distribution Network. (read more…)

Geolocation Chatter Continues

The discussion volume for geolocation continues to be turned up. The latest example is the geolocation panel that took place at TechCrunch’s Real Time Crunchup on Friday. If you missed it, you can see the entire session here. (read more…)

WebVisible: SMBs Spent Average of $1,658 on Search in Q3; Google’s Share Drops a Little

Small businesses that buy search spent $1,658 on average in Q3 2009, a figure that was up 91 percent from 3Q 2008, according to a new report issued by WebVisible, a company that manages online marketing campaigns for SMBs. (read more…)

Here is a recap of posts from last week, in case you missed any. Click below to read each post in full.

Business Transformation Top of Mind for European Publishers

I’ve just spend two days attending the Yellow Pages Today event in Milan, Italy, where publishers engaged in a very compact program that focused on “Repositioning the Yellow Pages.” The event was really about how directory publishers have to transform their organizations in order to have viable businesses in five years and beyond. (read more…)

Mobilepeople to Power Trader Corp.’s Mobile Apps

Copenhagen-based mobilepeople has been making moves throughout North America over the past year, starting with its deal to power the DexKnows suite of mobile products for directory publisher R.H. Donnelley. (read more…)

Peace in the Sales Ranks: Selling Multiproduct Solutions

One of the often asked questions we receive regarding sales from all local media sectors is whether multiproduct selling by a single sales force is really possible. The natural follow-on question invariably is, what would be the benefit of a single sales force as opposed to specialized sales teams for each product area — traditional media products and online/digital products? (read more…)

Foursquare Ads, Photographed in the Wild

Mobile social app Foursquare is getting lots of attention and growing quickly into new cities throughout the U.S. and Europe. For those unfamiliar, the app lets you check in at local establishments to alert friends where you are. (read more…)

Public Radio: A Local Media Competitor?

National Public Radio has been recently getting more aggressive in promoting sponsorship packages in advertising industry trades. Indeed, NPR has positioned itself as an advertising alternative to other news outlets — positioning that hyperlocal sites such as Sacramento Press are also assuming. (read more…)

ShopSavvy Comes to the iPhone

One of our favorite mobile products is ShopSavvy, the Android-based app that essentially turns your phone into a bar code scanner. It now joins the 100,000-deep library of iPhone apps. Technically, what the app does is overlay a horizontal scanline on the camera’s viewfinder to scan an image and then scrape its product database and pull up pricing, specs and reviews. (read more…)

Comcast Beefs Up Local Sports Sites

Following in the footsteps of ESPN Local and CBS Sports, Comcast will develop local sports sites on the back of its existing TV properties. Comcast has already launched Comcast SportsNet New England, which it calls “the most comprehensive and dedicated online local sports destination.” The site features local media celebrities and has added 40 new positions — a remarkable investment. ESPN and CBS have only added a few new positions at this point. (read more…)

MMV: U.S. Adult Smartphone Penetration 29% (Yes, Really)

Following up on the previous post about BIA/Kelsey’s Mobile Market View study, the big jump in smartphone penetration deserves a closer look. Specifically the data show smartphone penetration to be 29 percent of U.S. adult mobile subscribers (up from 18 percent last year). This will immediately strike many as too high, as it did for me at first. (read more…)

Mobile Market View Survey: More Mobile, More Local

BIA/Kelsey’s Mobile Market View survey releases today, showing a big rise in smartphone use as well as corresponding mobile Web activity and data consumption. The annual U.S. consumer survey, currently in Wave III, indicates a surprisingly high jump in smartphone use to nearly a third of adult mobile subscribers (I’ll address in a separate post). (read more…)

BIA/Kelsey Podcast: The Week in Mobile News

The past week has seen a lot of action in the mobile space — Droid release, AdMob acquisition, new BIA/Kelsey mobile data, etc. On Friday, we sat down to record a podcast to bat around some of these events and what they could mean. This is something we’ve done periodically, but we hope to step it up to a more regimented and frequent schedule given the pace of things. (read more…)

One of the often asked questions we receive regarding sales from all local media sectors is whether multiproduct selling by a single sales force is really possible. The natural follow-on question invariably is, what would be the benefit of a single sales force as opposed to specialized sales teams for each product area — traditional media products and online/digital products?

I will go on record as saying I am a strong believer in the ability of a core sales team selling multiple products that combine both traditional media and online media. Solution selling is what is being demanded by the local business owner. Our Local Commerce Monitor survey has indicated over the past several waves that small and medium-sized businesses are trying desperately to figure out how all of their media choices fit together. Subdividing media choices into separate sales channels invariably confuses the customer and empowers individual sales forces to sell against each other.

PaidContent.org recently reported on this very scenario in a story about Hulu, the online partner of NBC Universal, Fox and ABC. “For Hulu, which is under increasing pressure to prove its value as a business in its own right, the battle over ad revenues [with its TV broadcast sales channel] has become more acute as [it] competes for ad revenue.”

Channel conflict is often the case when competing sales channels within the same organization compete for ad budgets. It is rare that an online rep will rein in his or her recommendation so the next internal sales force has the opportunity for budget. Every sales channel has an objective and every salesperson is paid on maximizing every selling situation. 

AdOperationsOnline.com revealed a recent IAB Bain & Co. study providing further support for an integrated sales approach saying, “Marketers want integrated campaigns instead of platform-specific media programs.”

While IAB/Bain focused primarily on brand advertisers, the same thinking certainly applies to the SMB marketplace. One of the key findings was, “Ultimately, marketers are looking for media companies to offer a true triple-play service model from direct response to awareness to high impact brand engagement.”

Advertisers are already multimedia buyers; it’s just that the sales process hasn’t caught up to where the advertiser is at the moment. Our ongoing survey of SMBs, Local Commerce Monitor, indicates that SMBs use on average three or more local media to market their business with much higher numbers in categories such as retail, restaurants and professional services.

Yes, it is easier to segment the sales force from a management standpoint, and it is more challenging to train a sales force in a new method of selling. But ultimately it comes down to what the advertiser wants and needs. Multiproduct selling is about providing a solution to support the advertiser’s business objectives, shows how media offerings support and relate to one another, and it demonstrates the value of the sales force to the advertiser by educating and demonstrating how the solution meets or exceeds their goals at a price that makes sense. For the organization it maximizes the investment in the core sales force, eliminates channel conflict and focuses on increasing the overall customer value. Let’s make peace with our advertisers and our sales operation. 

Here is a recap of posts from last week, in case you missed any. Click below to read each post in full.

New TKR Advisory: ‘The Multiple Layers of the European Directories-Skype Partnership’

We published a new Advisory today in The Kelsey Report that examines the recent deal between European Directories SA (which publishes print and online directories in eight European markets) and the VoIP giant Skype, with its 480 million worldwide users. (read more…)

Jeff Jarvis’ HyperCamp on New Business Models for News

A “hypercamp” dedicated to New Business Models for News was held yesterday in New York City by The CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, led by Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine. We weren’t there — wrong coast — and nothing is on the site yet. (read more…)

Deloitte Research Supports Mobile Holiday Shopping; NearbyNow Gears Up

Deloitte released a report indicating this holiday season will see a bump in shopping search performed on mobile devices (in addition to social and other online media). Specifically, 19 percent of survey respondents claim they’ll use mobile search for gift shopping. (read more…)

Recommended Reading: The Smartphone Blue Sky

The New York Times’ Bob Tedeschi has a neat column today (thanks for the link, Peter) that speculates what smartphone technology will look like in two years. This comes from his recent conversations with researchers at MIT, SRI, and the iconic Xerox PARC. (read more…)

Twitter Continues March Toward Local Relevance

Twitter is getting closer to the promise of bringing location into the equation as a key component to status updates. Its geolocation support is rolling out, and it recently announced a new local trending topics feature. (read more…)

Sacramento Press’ Model Blends Hyperlocal With Social Media Management

Hyperlocal models continue experimenting with ways to make it work on a standalone basis. Networks, e-commerce and other revenue streams have all been tested. Backfence vet Mark Potts has even set up GrowthSpur as a consulting firm and national network specifically to leverage the clout of hyperlocal sites. (read more…)

HelpHive Shifts: SMBs Must Opt-In to Have HelpHive Number

HelpHive, the new Seattle-based leads provider for service SMBs, had made some changes after running into real PR problems last week from Evan Conklin, an angry (and persistent) plumber. He was irate that the company was taking SMB phone numbers and trademark info, and funneling them through its own system so it could take credit for leads. (read more…)

More on Google/AdMob: A Big Deal

Following up on this morning’s “just the facts” post about Google’s AdMob acquisition, here’s a bit more commentary. First off, this is a big deal — both in size and in what it could mean for the two companies. Google is clearly keen on replicating its online dominance to the mobile world as growing smartphone penetration drives the growth of the mobile Web. (read more…)

‘Oodle Pro’ Launches: Tying the Self-Serve Sensibility of AdSense to Social

Its not just about advertising anymore. Social media is important too. Accordingly, a number of vendors and network providers have developed tools to help them see where there best placements are and how their reputations are unfolding online, and to simplify and automate their processes for listings and other information. (read more…)

Ad:Tech/New York: Digital Marketing Is Promising, Hard to Execute and Headed Toward Mobile

Ad:Tech/New York, “the event for digital marketing,” ran Nov 4-6 at the Javits Convention Center. This event was predominantly focused on national advertising. There was some attention to international advertising and even less on local advertising. (read more…)

We’ve learned that Yell Group veteran sales, marketing and product development executive Paul Plant has decided to accept a retirement package and will leave the company at year’s end. Plant tells us that he’ll take a short holiday, but almost immediately begin seeking new opportunities in the directories and local search industry.

I’ve known Paul for many years, and have always valued his knowledge, broad experience, insight and not least of all his hospitality on visits to the U.K. over the years. Talking shop over dinner with Paul has been among the great pleasures of my career. Paul combines a genuine love for the business with the ability to accept and embrace change. In fact he’s been an agent of change for many years within Yell.

Here is what Steve Chambers, Yell’s chief commercial officer, said in announcing Paul’s departure:

“On 31st December 2009, Paul Plant will be leaving the company to pursue new personal interests, after a career of almost 24 years with Yell, spanning a number of important Sales and Marketing roles.

Paul has made a substantial contribution to Yell’s achievements since joining as a Field Sales Representative in 1986. In the mid 1990’s he successfully led the London Sales Region for five years, & after joining the Marketing team in Reading was a member of the small team that brought about the acquisition of Yellowbook USA in 1999.

He played a key role in both our European Quality Award wins in 1999 & 2004, has contributed to the development & growth of our Yell.com & 118247 products, whilst also championing new printed product development & innovation. Always an agent for change, Paul has more recently been a key contributor to the current programme of business transformation, as a member of the specialist team responsible for delivering our new Sales Model.

Paul’s ‘larger than life’ personality will be missed by friends and colleagues throughout the company, and I am sure you will all join me in wishing him well for the future.”