New Print Yellow Pages Usage Stats from comScore-TMP Study
TMP Directional Marketing and comScore announced their annual joint “Local Search Usage Study” today, and there were some interesting statistics:
- Following online local searches, consumers most often contact a business over the telephone (39%), visit the business in-person (32%) or contact the business online (12%).
- 1 out of 5 local business searchers with an Internet-accessible cell phone have conducted a local search via the mobile Web.
- Those that own wifi devices (such as the iPhone) are the most likely to conduct local business search via the mobile Web, with more than half of these respondents reporting mobile local business searching.
- 30 percent of respondents still rely on directories as their primary local business research source, despite a 3 percent decline from 2007 to 2008.
- Traditional IYP sites such as Superpages.com, YELLOWPAGES.COM, Yahoo! Yellowpages.com, etc. account for 60 percent of local IYP business searches.
- Local Search sites such as Google Maps, MapQuest, Yahoo! Local, etc. account for 40 percent of local IYP business searches.
Now for the inevitable questions from me: how representative are these findings for overall consumers in the U.S.? As you recall, I recently questioned the accuracy of yellow pages usage statistics from a Yellow Pages Association (YPA) -sponsored study because it failed to include a major, growing demographic: cell phone users who have no landline phones at their residences.
First, this new TMP Directional Marketing & comScore study are possibly not any more representative of overall population than the YPA study, because it was only based upon an “…online survey of 3,000 respondents…” — so, it missed inclusion of stats involving people who do not have internet access — and, that’s likely still a significant percentage, I’d assume.
However, this new study is more believable to me than the earlier YPA study, because the findings fall more in line with what we might reasonably expect. The TMP-comScore study indicates that 30% of respondents rely on print YP for their local biz research sources (compare with the YPA study which states that 87% of the U.S. population used print YP last year). This doesn’t compare apples with apples, I know, but the figures are measuring somewhat similar things, and the TMP/comScore study also indicates that there was a 3% decline from 2007 to 2008, while the YPA study showed no major decline at all — something that seemed odd to me, considering the 7.6% downward slide the year previous.
While conventional wisdom holds that print YP can expect some percentage of usage decline with internet and mobile local search usage increasing, one cannot always trust conventional wisdom — one needs to check assumptions with actual research. In this case, though, the YPA study left out cellphone-only households which could reasonably be expected to use print YP less, and that might explain why that study showed no decrease in overall print YP usage from the year previous. In comparison, the TMP/comScore report likely does include both landlined and cell-only household respondents, and it shows a continued slide in print YP usage.
Do not get me wrong — I believe based on a wide comparison of statistics that print yellow pages remains a very important part of the local search marketing mix, and usage of yellow page directory phonebooks is statistically significant. I’ve mainly been questioning some industry statistics regarding how much overall usage of print YP there is, and it appears questionable when those stats don’t show some ongoing erosion of print usage.
Greg Sterling notes that print usage is going to vary by regional area and by business category:
In terms of the outlook for print usage, it’s going to be market by market and category by category. It will be very strong in some markets and categories and quite weak in others. Mobile’s impact is a bit of a wild card at this point: does it cannibalize print, Internet or is it largely “additive” to either or both.
I’d agree with that completely. Some business categories have seen a much more sudden shift from print to internet search as a referral source for their customer base. Variation by market is interesting to consider — I can see that there’s likely a more rapid shift in larger population areas than in small towns — small towns having far fewer businesses to select from and thus consumers there not needing greater research capabilities. There’s also likely difference by regional demographics as well, since more affluent markets might see greater shifts from print to home computers and mobile. Perhaps there’s also some side effect involving communities which are more internet-savvy as well.
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Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 10/09/2008 | Permalink | 
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Filed under: Local Search, Market Data, Yellow PagesPhone-Books, print-yellow-pages, yellow pages usage, YP
Chris:
I was looking up your blog to reference it with regard to expertise on IYP’s and YP’s relative to an piece I’m going to write with regard to a very recent 2 visits from IYP salespeople to one of my SMB’s.
I got a cold call visit from one person…listened to his sales pitch, told him I was interested in something else and got a return visit on the same day from the sales person and a manager.
I’m more aware of SEO then most business operators, with a series of sites that are highly ranked in their categories ( locally, regionally, and fortunately industry wise).
The pitches were intersting.
First the sales reps represented one of the 2 leading IYP’s (by traffic) (okay–that means superpages or yellowpages.com).
I asked a lot of questions, got to see stats on a competitor, though I didn’t get to keep them, saw other stats about other businesses in the region, and of course got their sales pitches. Along with that I got advise on “how to get my site ranked higher in the search engines.
Boiling it down I was told:
1. IYP’s represent 1/3 of all searches for local businesses.
2. In order to get my site ranked higher in organic searches I needed to:
1. Increase to the max the number of keywords in my meta section
2. Have videos
3. Get reviews
(that was for ranking higher in organic searches).
I tend not to believe the first point–the 1/3 of all business searches.
Traditional yp’s and I suspect IYP’s might work better in some consumer products and topics than others.
I hate that concept of traffic into the IYP’s.
Here is what I found 2 years ago and based on subsequent topics.
I hand searched a couple of topics off the AOL dump of data on some 20 million plus searches from 2006.
IYP traffic represented 2 types. Some people clicked on IYP’s because they were highly ranked. Some people went directly to IYP’s on topics.
The volume of quality IYP traffic is dramatically less than any of their statistics show. If the IYP’s aren’t highly ranked for a topic in organic search…there search traffic on that topic drops dramatically.
Alternatively, if the topic is sold to many competing SMB’s in a topic….and they have high organic listings within the topic….go to that IYP page….and cripes you are looking at another long list of vendors. Its a less than quality opportunity.
Pricing in my mind continues to stink. I’ve heard this from others in different markets. They take a metro region, slice and dice it…and if you want metro coverage…it means buying a variety of territories.
Finally, as an SMB…I hate those 1 year contracts. Its too long to test a medium. Its a long term investment in a very questionable service.
Finally….last observation from the sales pitch….and I found this somewhat ironic and funny…..
The IYP giants sell their strength in part on their networks of alternative on the web YP’s. Buy into yellowpages.com or superpages.com and with it you get a lot of other internet yps.
Well when we looked at some of the network, some clients from months ago….weren’t showing.
On others…it was sort of silly. They were buying networks from google, networks from something else….and you were seeing competitng “sponsored ads” from different networks for the same business. Horrible looking duplication.
Man, that is a crummy product, IMHO.
Dave
Comment by Dave Oremland — 10/15/2008 @ 10:43 am
I just completed a “Restaurant Yellow Page Usage & Trends” report. Over 215 restaurant owners responded and said they were dramatically reducing their advertising expenditures in the YP and opting for the free listing. The report is on my blog at http://www.RestaurantMarketingBlog.com.
Comment by Joel Cohen — 11/5/2008 @ 6:24 pm