I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the Easter holiday talking with friends and family about the economy and how they are dealing with the budget crunch we are all experiencing. One of the common threads of all these conversations has been the need to stay close to home, combine shopping trips and call ahead so you don’t waste time and fuel going to multiple stores. 

More and more people are scaling back vacations and long car rides to try to save money. The next logical question is how people are adapting to this need to stay close to home and make every trip more efficient. Many of my friends and family admitted to using the print and online Yellow Pages more frequently as well as local search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Citysearch because of the mapping features and more detailed information about the stores they were searching for. One friend admitted that if the ad or online profile page content was not specific enough, they moved on, which shows how valuable content is in driving leads. 

Almost everyone I spoke with was calling stores more often to check on availability, price and specific location before they left the house so they had a better plan of where to shop and how best to combine trips. One family member was even reserving merchandise on the phone so they could just pick it up to save even more time. Mapping, it turns out, is becoming a key advantage for online sites as was location specific information and maps in print. 

What does all this mean to Yellow Pages? If the trend is toward more local shopping and the need for directions, local business information and local contact information, then directional media such as Yellow Pages and local search are best suited to address these changing consumer behaviors. These suspicions were confirmed by a more scientific study conducted by Vertis Communications that focused on changing buying habits of grocery shoppers. The study echoes my less than scientific conclusions.

“Economic factors, such as gas prices and the housing market, are changing shoppers’ habits drastically,” says Scott Marden, director of marketing research at the Baltimore-based Vertis. “More than 90% are affected, and many are shopping closer to home, stocking up more and combining shopping trips.” 

Perhaps there is a silver lining for Yellow Pages and other local media in this new economic environment if they can get their reps tuned into this new phenomenon and effectively communicate the opportunity to local business owners.

S&MM online columnist Robert Grede shared some interesting insights in a recent article on how local advertisers can survive in a down economy and what local media sales reps should be communicating to their advertisers and prospects. While many of these items are not surprising, it is surprising how local media reps can get so focused on the troubling aspects of a down economy rather than being truly consultative salespeople who can maximize the opportunity for local small and medium-sized businesses and provide real guidance. Some of the key points Grede shared include: 

You need to keep your customers and prospects informed of changes in your business. The business environment changes quickly, and advertising, besides its power of persuasion, is your information tool. It provides information about those products and services to customers and potential customers. There’s an old adage that says, “Without advertising, you wouldn’t know.” If given the right information, your customers will become more likely to buy—even in a poor economy.

Your competitors are probably trimming their budgets, so you will stand out and gain market share at their expense. If your competition suddenly becomes invisible, whom do you think the marketplace will turn to when it needs to buy? That’s right, the one they keep hearing about. By advertising in a slow economy, you may minimize your decline in sales—or even increase sales—as you pick up your competitors’ customers.

Conversely, if your competitors don’t trim their advertising budget, you could lose market share to them. Makes sense. You trim your ad budget, and you suddenly become invisible in the marketplace. Meanwhile, your competitor has maintained his promotion and advertising spending. Your customers learn more about your competitors’ products. They decide now might be a good time to try them.

Your customers and prospects will remember you when the economy picks up again. You know the economy will rebound. It always does. You need to be positioned as a survivor. If you have maintained your promotion spending, your company will have the image of a leader—the one to depend on in your industry—when the rebound comes. 

During the advertising downturn of 2001-2002, sales organizations focused their efforts on communicating the positive aspects of a down economy. The key was promoting the fact that Yellow Pages advertising provides a solid ROI, a consistent base of ready-to-buy prospects and, combined with other media, a means to survive or establish a leadership position in the market place. 

It is a tough marketplace for local media; all the signs point to this fact. What this article suggests is that we should not make it any worse by feeding off the defeatist attitude in the marketplace particularly when it comes to Yellow Pages. The sales role should be the evangelizer, demonstrating the value of the Yellow Pages product and the value of the leads it creates to help local companies survive, maintain or grow.      

It was interesting to see the Yellow Pages Association release its usage data showing print usage was stable at 13.4 billion and IYP usage had increased to 3.8 billion in 2007. While the overall usage figure is a 3 percent increase from 2006, which is encouraging, zeroing in solely on usage may be taking away from stronger measures of value. Just as online has shifted from a focus purely on clicks to a broader definition of value based on calls and leads, the Yellow Pages industry should follow this lead in marketing the medium.

The value of a Yellow Pages ad to a local small-business owner is not the movement in the usage number but in the number of consistent leads its advertising program delivers. Keeping this in mind, Yellow Pages continues to have a strong story to tell. Recent research by the YPA reveals significant local display ROI for some of its higher usage headings, which has remained relatively stable in most cases over the past three years.

Source: Yellow Pages Association (2008)

Building on the ROI figures, the number of calls generated by both print and IYP continues to support the health of a massive number of small and medium-sized businesses. According to CRM Associates, a typical business receives more than 800 calls per year per display ad with a cost per buyer influenced figure of $10. These are the numbers SMBs really care about, and arguably these are the metrics the industry and its investors should be focusing on.

If the industry continues to enhance the value of the leads it generates on behalf of its advertisers and focuses on ways to demonstrate the value of what the Yellow Pages medium delivers to consumers, it will continue to be a valuable and relevant medium for local advertisers. In a down economy, SMBs tend to stay with their most stable lead generation source if they are to weather the economic storm.

Smart SMB advertisers already understand this and also understand that this is a time when they can advance their position versus their competitors, which may choose to cut back on advertising. Smart Yellow Pages companies will work to promote the value of ready-to-buy leads, train their salespeople to consistently present this message, and support the value the Yellow Pages product delivers to consumers. Those Yellow Pages companies that follow this route will also be in a stronger position to weather the advertising downturn already well under way.

At the end of the day, all a small-business advertiser wants is a consistent source of quality leads from its advertising investment, and all consumers want is a medium that provides a comprehensive database of local content to make buying decisions easier. It’s all about influencing leads to come to the medium and delivering quality leads to help SMB businesses remain successful.

When a local team headed by ad agency and PR veteran Brian Tierney bought The Philadelphia Inquirer and related holdings 18 months ago, it was seen as a possible model for how “new thinking” could transform the newspaper industry.

Since then, Tierney and his team have had a tumultuous time, with major union problems, declining circulation and advertising shortfalls. But appearing at the Newspaper Association of America’s Marketing Conference in Orlando this week, Tierney laid out how he is righting the ship, bolstered in part by solid results from Philly.com, the online site headed by MediaNews Group veteran Eric Grilly.

Freed from corporate-wide deals made by Knight Ridder, Philly.com, which is “anything and everything Philly,” has been able to go its own way, signing with Monster.com for recruitment and building out community services. The site has doubled its page views and boosted unique visitors by 7 percent, says Tierney.

The goal is to attract new audiences online, and be realistic about print readership, which isn’t about young people. “We’re targeting women 35+,” says Tierney. “We’re being very, very tactical” with beach promotions, etc.

One of the biggest challenges faced by the company is that ads are bought by “32-year-old” account reps. “We know we’re a little bit uncool,” says Tierney. To counter such perceptions, Tierney is investing heavily in a media lab concept. “Agencies want to do TV,” he says. With broadband, Philly.com will counter that by creating TV shows, along with magazine-style stories and radio content.

For instance, the site has Philly Uncorked, a “wacky wine show” produced by the Philadelphia Wine School and sponsored by The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. Looking forward, Tierney sees real opportunities in e-commerce via Zeppy, an Amazon-like site that hopes to provide more of a local look and feel.

But first he needs his team to appreciate the economic challenges that lie ahead. “There will be economic literacy courses for everyone,” he says.

‘Tis the season for shopping and at times endless aggravation finding stores that actually have the items you want in stock. I’m all about anything that can help ease the stress of the shopping experience. And one thing I rediscovered as an essential shopping tool is the Yellow Pages (thanks to, of all things, a MySpace blog).

The thing that continues to make the Yellow Pages relevant and valuable in the lives of myself and others is that it helps at the end of the buying process. While this point was driven home in the recent TMP research (here and here), several recent shopping experiences gave the numbers and research findings real-life meaning. My wife and I are close to another family in our town of Kettering, Ohio. Their son, Sam, is a big fan of Wii and the game Guitar Legend. Needless to say, the latest version of this game is popular and hard to find. After going to a few stores only to find the game out of stock it dawned on me I should be using my trusty Yellow Pages directory. After going to the main game store heading and coming up empty, I branched out to department stores, electronic stores and toy stores that also carry video games and — bingo — I found one in stock and requested that the clerk hold the item.

Directory publisher marketing continues to focus primarily on the reoccurring theme of completeness in most advertising campaigns and I’m wondering why points like time savings, alternate ways of finding items, and the ability to call and hold an item aren’t being promoted to make the relevance of the product real to shoppers and in training people why print and Internet Yellow Pages products are useful in their lives. If people don’t know why they should use the Yellow Pages, will they actually use it? The answer seems obvious.

The Yellow Pages product is becoming more of a “find it vehicle” after people have done their research and are looking locally to find the product at the best price. What better time saving and stress reducing way to shop than at home on the phone to be sure the item you want is available, at a cost you want, and waiting for you at the store?

Taking a look at real-life shopping situations and promoting the time saving abilities afforded by using the Yellow Pages would be terrific campaign themes either for publishers or the Yellow Pages industry. Usage will only be supported by education and opening people’s eyes to the benefits of the product.

Perhaps personalizing the use of the Yellow Pages and educating people on benefits they might not think the product would offer would be great New Year’s resolutions for every directory publisher.

MerchantCircle has apparently changed its tact for getting small businesses to sign up. In the past, there have been numerous reports that it autodialed SMBs and notified them they had to check out the company’s Web site to see their “bad review.” Now, the message is much more positive.

An acquaintance in New York City transcribed a message his business received last Sunday at 4 p.m. Here is the text of the message:

“Hello, we are calling to let you know that after searching Google a satisfied customer found your website on MerchantCircle.com and gave you a positive rating for being a good local business. To see your rating go to MerchantCircle.com and enter your business telephone number into the blue box. Again, that’s MerchantCircle.com.”

The problem, of course, is that there were no reviews.

It is difficult to tell how widespread the new campaign is. VP of Business Development Doug Kilponen, speaking at ILM:07 a couple of weeks ago, indicated that such efforts did not account for the majority of the company’s 300,000 registrations. Nor did they come from auto spam efforts that hit all the businesses in the proximity of a registrant –something else we have heard about. Instead, Kilponen said, the vast majority come from more viral efforts. Many businesses recommend the service to their neighbors.

Kilponen also said that with companies such as IAC coming on board to cross-promote MerchantCircle and brands such as Citysearch and ServiceMagic, it projects that 1 million SMBs will be signed up by the end of 2008. IAC was part of a $10 million round for MerchantCircle that was recently announced.

At ILM:07, Kilponen indirectly acknowledged the telemarketing and spam issues. He said the company has been entrepreneurial and has launched 100 ideas. “Four or five” of them have been bad ideas, he said, seemingly putting them in the past tense.

It is hard for me to comprehend, but we are finally finished with ILM:07. We were grateful to have had 650 interesting and enthusiastic attendees from all over the world, 72 stimulating speakers, a full load of sponsors and an excellent partnership with SES.

Our next conference, April 30-May 2 at the Westin in Seattle, will be a highly differentiated affair. Stay tuned for what we are doing with that (but not for a couple of months, OK?).

For those of you who can’t get enough coverage, a virtual conference will be up with all the PPTs in a couple of weeks (but only for attendees). You can also order the DVD.

For immediate gratification, however, check out the posts from my talented colleagues on the Kelsey Blog.

I especially liked Michael Taylor’s write-up of our discussion with Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis. Michael is totally correct: “The long and short of Calacanis’ comments go to several of the key themes heard over and over again at ILM:07 — relevant content, deep content and engaging, passionate people are all needed to make a highly relevant and personalized search experience.”

In addition to the Kelsey write-ups, Mike Boland has captured links from the press and bloggers who attended our event. It was good to have them aboard. And Mel Taylor took some great pictures.

Here are easy links to Kelsey ILM:07 posts:

1. TKG Analysts Lay the Groundwork (Michael Boland)

2. Winebaum Provides a Fresh Look at Local Search (Michael Taylor)

3. Cash Is King for Local Search Investors (Charles Laughlin)

4. Herratti’s Citysearch: Social Media Video Partnerships (Bobbi Loy-Luster)

5. NCI: ‘We Can Work with Zillow’ (John Kelsey)

6. ILM:07 Spotlights mobilePeople (Stephen Marshall)

7. Stubbs Discusses AT&T’s Post-InGenio Vision (Michael Taylor)

8. TMP’s McKelvey Discusses Online/Offline Research Data (Michael Taylor, Michael Boland)

9. New West’s Weber and Independent Local Media (John Kelsey)

10. Marchex’s Horowitz: Bet on People Already Winning (Charles Laughlin)

11. Google’s Hanke: Maps, Mobile and Mashups (Michael Boland)

12. An Intuit-ive Approach to SMB Marketing (Stephen Marshall)

13. Injecting Social into Local Media (Michael Boland)

14. Taking It Home: The Final Panel at ILM:07 (Stephen Marshall)

Last week Bebo, the global social network, announced its new OpenMedia platform partnerships. The network has partnered with major media brands to deliver premium content to its 40 million users.

Partnerships include CBS, MTV Networks, ESPN, the BBC, Channel Four, ITN, Yahoo! and BSkyB, as well as emerging media companies like Music Nation, Next New Networks, Crackle, Ustream, Last.fm and JibJab.

The launch of OpenMedia allows users to create libraries of their favorite content. Users can then rate, post and forward it to friends.

As audiences have started to demand higher quality programming online, this move will satisfy the crowds while providing partners with an opportunity to reclaim their fragmented audiences.

With regard to advertising, many brands look to align themselves with premium content especially when trying to reach the elusive teen (Bebo attracts the 13- to 24-year-old target audience). This move will make it easier for major national brands to make the leap toward advertising on the social network.

Interestingly, the partners will not be charged for access to the platform and are able to distribute their content using their own video players, which can carry their own advertising and allow them to retain 100 percent of the related ad revenues.

Interactive Local Media: 07 is ready to roll Nov. 28-30 in L.A. That’s next Wednesday through Friday!

The show, which is being produced in partnership with SES Local, has attendees from all over the world. One exec told me he is coming on Wednesday, taking the red eye to New York that night due to a prior commitment, and flying back on Thursday night for the final day.

Attendance-wise, we have the biggest sign-up list for a Kelsey event since the mid-1990s. Almost everyone that we have slotted will actually be there. While the agenda has been tight for some time, with 70-plus speakers, here are some last minute adds:

• Christophe Maire, a cofounder of Nokia’s Location-Based Experience Development, is set for Day 3. HOT DISCUSSION TOPIC: Nokia’s $8.1 Billion purchase of NavTeq.

• Laurel Gilbert, from Microsoft’s Atlas division, is speaking on our localizing national advertising panel. HOT DISCUSSION TOPIC: How Microsoft will use Aquantative to transform itself into a true Web advertising giant.

• Doug Kilponen from MerchantCircle is speaking on the localized shopping panel. MerchantCircle just received a $10 million cash infusion from IAC and others. HOT DISCUSSION TOPIC: Best Practices for Signing up Small Businesses.

• Claudia Poepperl from mobilePeople is set to provide a demo of the London-based company’s cutting-edge social mobile technology.

We are also expecting a drop-in from a top executive of a company that’s been in the news, but we can’t say much more about it. And speaking of news, there are lots of interesting news announcements that will drop around the show as well. So, will we see you in L.A.? Here is the registration page.

The numbers are looking very, very good for the Interactive Local Media:07 conference in L.A. Nov. 28-30. Internally, we think this one is a record breaker. Register and book the hotel while you can. The latter tends to sell out.

In recent weeks, we’ve been putting the final touches on the program. For instance, we’ve added Facebook’s Chamath Palihapitiya, who is VP of product marketing. Here’s a snippet about Chamath from Fast Company’s cover story this month:

“Palihapitiya, 31, is tall and whippet thin, with elegant manners and a ready smile. A former electrical engineer, born in Sri Lanka and raised in Canada, he ran AOL’s instant-message group, then jumped to the venture fund Mayfield. He is part Sand Hill Roadster and part freethinker.”

Other notable adds include ShopLocal CMO Bob Armour, Scott Ferris from Microsoft’s Atlas division, LA Times.com’s Robertson Barrett, and City Voter’s Josh Walker. There is also a brand-new Local Mobile panel, featuring Gary Roshak, who has migrated from Marchex to Yahoo!, Jeff Torgerson at InfoSpace, and Collin Holmes at V-Enable.

Also, take a look at the SES side of the show. Google Local head Eric Stein, Zorik Gordon from Reach Local, and Topix head Chris Tolles are just some of the great execs SES is bringing in. Kevin Heisler and Kevin Newcomb are moderating the SES panels.

The Kelsey Group also has its LinkedIn networking set up for the show. We’ve got dozens participating already. Once you register, you should sign in for that, too (even if you haven’t used LinkedIn for a while). See you in L.A.?