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Posted By:
jkielmeyer
381 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://searchengineland.com)
Category: Local & Maps
Considering that the majority of baby boomers were raised using the offline vehicle, usage will likely continue within that group, particularly at such times that they are not actively using the computer. 'The Yellow Pages Association, while certainly biased to some extent, reports offline usage is holding strong within all demographics - even those that are under 30.
In my own personal research, I have found that customers indicating they were referred by the yellow pages has held steady in weekly measurements over the past year. While it is important to reach users online, keep in mind that in this case a marketing mix including both channels may be the most effective use of your ad dollars.
3 Comments
Comments
You're right - we kept the headline trimmed to be slightly shorter, and that resulted in it being a bit confusing. I wasn't intending to suggest that Google searches for "yellow pages" should be taken as any sort of pulse for offline usage. The story was really intended to focus only on internet yellow pages usage.
I mentioned print directories near the begining, mainly because a number of analysts have opined that print references are on the decline as well, and the Google Trend graphs seemed to indicate that the online version of the traditional books could also be declining.
Some industry wags (and even Bill Gates) have said that the print yellow pages might go the way of the dinosaur within a decade. So, the forecasted demise of print is even further away than what the Google trendline indicates for online "yellow pages" at the moment.
I will say one thing about the YPA's reports on offline references holding strong: I'm thinking it quite possible that the surveying methodology could skew the numbers considerably in favor of strong print usage. I think some of that surveying is done by phone calls, and I think the phone numbers called are pulled from white pages directories. Many consumers have switched from landlines to cellphones, and when they did, they dropped landline service and dropped out of white pages directory listings. If that series of assumptions is correct, then the group being surveyed is comprised more of people who are slower adopters of technology rather than being representative samples of the overall population.
Regardless of surveying/accounting methodology, the offline, printed yellow pages directories are still used by a great many people, and are still highly valuable as a promotion vehicle for local businesses. Just as you recommend, I also believe that businesses should use a mix of offline and online channels.
Unfortunately, this is a duplicate post on Sphinn probably caused by the new commenting system going into place this morning.
I sphunn this yesterday and there is more conversation over here:
http://sphinn.com/story/6766
It's caused by the other post using the www prefix which we don't use on Search Engine Land. Not sure how that got through the dupe filter, especially when we 301 www attempts. We'll have to look at it.