It seems kind of strange to see a feature story in the Wall St. Journal entitled “Extinction Threatens Yellow-Pages Publishers”.
By strange, I mean that it’s not really a story for anyone who actively uses the Web. When was the last time you looked something up in the yellow or white pages? I would hazard to guess the answer is you can’t remember.
In my house, the Yellow Pages don’t even make it past the front porch. As soon as they’re delivered, they’re immediately thrown in the recycling bin. If I could figure out a way to stop them from being delivered, I’d gladly do it.
Of course, this new reality is terrible news for companies that publish the Yellow Pages given they’ve been high-margin entities for decades. For example, Yellow Pages Income Fund made an impressive $408.7-million on sales of $1.27-billion over the first nine months of 2008, giving its profit margins of about 33%.
Not surprisingly,Yellow Page publishers see the writing on the wall so they’ve been scrambling to embrace the Web. But like newspaper publishers, the Web is nowhere near as lucrative as paper.
Yellow Pages Income Trust, which owns yellowpages.ca, canada411.ca, canadaplus.ca and canadatollfree.ca, had online revenue of $62.4-million in the third-quarter, which accounted for 15% of total sales. That’s not bad but the Web isn’t going to replace revenue from the paper product any time soon.
If you’re a Yellow Pages publisher, you’re hanging on to the golden goose as long as you can – even if the goose isn’t as fat as it used to be.
Technorati Tags: Advertising, yellow pages
15 Comments
The Yellow Pages would be missed in our house. I use the Yellow Pages book to rest my monitor on so it is the perfect height for me. Otherwise I’d be looking down a bit at the monitor and that would mean a pain in the neck for me.
But as a “research tool” – I don’t think I’ve used one in years.
LOL! I forgot about the YP as a monitor adjustment tool.
LOL @ newmediaMike. I am 25 years old and have used the Yellow Pages once in my life, in high school right before the internet really took off. Now, I have used yellowpages.com multiple times. I think they could save lots of printing cash by letting people opt out of the printed version.
I had a party at my apartment a few years back, and someone asked where I kept the phone book to look up a friend’s address. I pointed at my laptop and said, right there.
I wonder what is the annual amount of wasted paper in tonnes, based on the conservative assumption that 5% of households throw the YP directly into the recycling bin.
I have customers that still use the yellow page to find my store. Not direction wise but service wise. Its still a well defined “search engine” for a local area. Internet searches can be too broad (even with specific parameters) and many smaller business that do not use the internet because they don’t need to reach a widespread audience will be left out if it is to disappear.
Personally I haven’t used it for a long time, but then I had to hunt down furnace repair guys and plumbers for the house, then I tried hard to find the Yellow Page book for comparison quotes
Still, I personally give preference to online presence
First I try to find one via Google
If not, I try yellowpages.ca
Else, I try Yellow Pages the book
I am certain YP still has a need for presence, just stop sending people those big books though!
However, as a Income Trust unit holder, I am happy with the yield and their expanding business (such as AutoTrader.ca)
Mark
Interesting the online properties you mentioned. You missed one of the most significant ….trader.ca…
hasnt trader gone belly up?
The phone book is a waste of resources – but companies will keep publishment them as their ad rates are based on the inflated circulation numbers – not counting the thousands of books that make a beeline for the dumpster upon arrival.
Also the NUMBER of companies making deliveries each year is insane. One would be ok – but I get 4-5 a year – plus the little neighborhood books too.
visit Yellowpagesgoesgreen.com for info on how to opt out – its a good site.
here’s my collection of articles ridiculing this ancient technology:
http://www.futuregringo.com/index.php/2008/11/08/the-life-of-a-phone-book/
We the technorati use the internet to find almost everything, from pizza to plumbers. But there’s a world out there that hasn’t realized the grand shift. Our customers at HomeStars are big Yellow Pages spenders, and they think that people are looking for them there. Some are successful, but many are not, and their audience they target through those pages tends to be an older, less tech savvy crowd. One of our customers told us recently that their company spends upwards of $600k on the YP in the GTA alone! So either he’s fully delusional (which he might be) or there is still good returns for advertising there.
Of course, we think HomeStars is a better form of advertising for the home improvement specialists, but we have a long way to go to convince this sector.
Clearly Yellow Pages must milk the golden goose for as long as possible. However to my mind that horse has been dead for some time.
The sad thing is that the Yellow Pages search function is so poor that it is usually much quicker to Google it straight away. All that Yellow Pages can do is make the most of its revenues from print, until they decide to kill this.
Undoubtedly there is a large section of the population, including many seniors, who do find the directory is useful. However the burden this is putting on the recycling of newsprint is a heavy price for society to pay. It will probably need to be put out of its misery earlier than Yellow Pages might wish from a purely profit point of view.
I agree in many respects, but you need to look beyond that big yellow tombe. What you fail to realize is that YP generates signficant revenue from the Internet outside of its own website. Much of the data you get from Google when you look up something or other is in fact provided to Google by YP, and for which they get paid.
YP has an army of sales people that extract lucrative listing fees from small businesses. That data eventually shows up in Google. And Google buys it coz they don’t have that salesforce.
YP has not done a great job with their own websites, but they’re doing a good job of monetizing their data.
85% of the u.s. Population reported using a print yellow pages in 2007.
Source:marketingcharts.com
Also, in reference to waste spending statements; the yellow pages is responsible for influencing over a trillion dollars in purchasing decisions that benefit economic health.
The yellow pages has been deceased for 20 years but I
am impressed with their after-life.
The yellow pages has been deceased since 1988 but I am impressed with their after-life.
While I appreciate opinions & assumptions there’s no doubt that some people do not use or care for the un-sexy bulky monitor shelf but it is still the most trusted medium by the u.s. consumer.
I don’t thing that Yellow Pages as a whole will disappear. It is evolving into something that is quite impressive from a small business owners point of view. I was amazed by their recent initiative of their multimedia package that includes Google Adwords in my print ad that result in sponsored links on Google for my service, The sponsored links connect back to my companies online ad that is also in print, and professional television style commercials across a wide spectrum of websites including google and youtube. I now get the best of both worlds.
ylo.un Seems a good place to invest for the future especially with a yield of around 15% compounded per annum.
Posted this on Google, and now i come across this…
I own an autoglass business. The Yellow Pages are the backbone of my
business and i cannot imagine what would happen to me – or my
competitors for that matter – with out them. People have been saying
that the directories are dead and noone uses them. Hogwash. I can tell
you for a fact that 75% – yes seventy five percent – of my new
customers find me because of my ad. My PRINTED ad. Not some seach
engine or Google or their technophone. The printed directory. Without
it I would be up a creek. They are a tad expensive, but its all about
VALUE. And i get back every YP advertising-dime in the first week of
the month.
I am tired of hearing that the printed book is old-fashioned and
worthless. I depend on it. A large amount of my customers use it and
just because some new high-tech gizmo or website does searches and
fancy digital-finds doesnt mean a large percent of the regular
population dont still use the good ol’ book. Its faster, more complete
and it works. As stated above 75% find me with their autoglass needs
because of the book. I can count on one hand the customers that say
they found me by my website or thru a search engine.
Also, there is an older population 50+ that still dont even HAVE a
computer. My parents dont and a large number of their friends dont.
Thats hard for anyone here to probably fathom, but they arent going to
show up on a webblog to state their case are they?
Using a printed directory lacks the new fangled “cachet” of an iphone
or blackberry or IMac2000 or whatever, but it still works, and my
business depends on it to continue to do so.
Its unfortunate their unit price doesnt reflect the value that the
company has. (especially on my bottom line)
But the traders are probably all part of the techno group and probably
share the misguided perception regarding YPs valuable – and still
viable – printed product.
Sorry for the rant, nothing personal, but i just wanted to get an advertiser’s point of view out there.
Thanks for my few minutes on my (yellow) soapbox.
One Trackback
[...] effort on the first of the 3R’s of recycling: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. In that vein, Mark Evans questioned whether anyone would miss the Yellow Pages. It seems kind of strange to see a feature story in the [...]