Thoughts from Kelsey Directional Media Strategies 2009
Since MerchantCircle's launch in June of 2006, we have been a regular at Kelsey Group events. Our attendance has led to business meetings, partnerships, and interesting insights. The recent Kelsey Conference: Directional Media Strategies was held in Orlando and was attended by our CEO, VP of Business Development, and Director of Business Development. Here are some of the random notes they sent me on their learnings and observations. - MerchantCircle is positioned to take advantage in a fundamental shift in the Yellow Pages business model. Examples include Web.com, CitySearch and others where they want their customers to get exposure on our platform. - Yellow Pages are moving towards a paid model where their sales teams establish direct relationships with customers and push product from a number of various sources – all based on what the advertisers demand – but with a bias towards performance based products. - Here’s a quote from the CEO of Local Insight Media that one of the presenters said embraces the way all YPs are beginning to think about this stuff. "My goal is to own the customer and provide a platform-agnostic solution set and track the results." - Scott Pomeroy, President and CEO, Local Insight Media - Kelsey says "their own research suggests that small businesses want to do this (advertising) as self serve." Yellow Pages guys like Dean Hodges of American Directory Systems: "I don’t have a comment on the internet. I don’t understand it, If you want to talk about print, I will talk about it all day." Like we've said many time before, here at MerchantCircle, the print Yellow Pages are a complete waste of money for the majority of businesses out there. The sheer number of sales people ensures that there is a premium markup on advertising products to turn a profit for everyone involved, except the business owner. Because MerchantCircle has no salesforce, and we're built for scale, we don't pass any costs off to the merchants. They can choose and execute online advertising campaigns with the simple click of a button at the lowest prices on the web. Here are some notes on a panel discussion between Steve Espinosa, Andrew Shotland, Todd Renard, and Sean Morrow from the Kelsey Blog. As always, we appreciate all the interesting perspectives and viewpoints discussed at Kelsey events. We look forward to the next one. Sincerely, Community Relations
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9/24/2009 04:35:00 PM
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4 Comments:
"I don’t have a comment on the internet. I don’t understand it, If you want to talk about print, I will talk about it all day." sounds like a dinosaur talking.
Ten years ago Yellow Pages was one of the best advertising deals around. Now it is hardly worth bothering with
@Michael - I think the sad part is the Yellow Pages was already in the door with numerous businesses around the country and could've easily crossed over to providing value online - but didn't.
They also overcharged and strong-armed merchants into long contracts that left a bad taste in the mind of our local business owners.
First of all please say hello to Walt D at corporate from a long time ebay TA. We miss him!
Second, I am not happy how hard it is to get an email address to ask a question.
Third, is my question: We share a zip code with another town. We are listed with the wrong town. When I search for my business with correct town, nothing shows up. If I try to change the town in my listing it changes back.
While I think MC is the best in the world, I have to wonder how many customers am I losing when they search for me in the town they know I am in?
Thank you for a great product otherwise, nothing else compares.
Thanx, Michael @ Charmingly Linda Quality Consignments
I decided to take a chance on Local Insight Yellow Pages. I was suppose to get on-line advertising as well as my company published in about 15 books. I am in the books but in 8 months absolutely noone has called me using the book. One day I was thinking about this driving to a job and called a friend and asked him to look up my company on the web. NOT THERE. I personally have looked for my company 4 times in their own website and I have been paying for absolutely nothing. I have not been in any hurry to pay them.
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