I received an interested an interesting email this morning from Yelp entitled "Your Yelp Updates for the Week of May 2". The email was dedicated to a survey they had conducted with Yelp BUSINESSES and their interaction with the Yellow Pages.
Below in an excerpt from the email:
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Most Business Owners Agree: Yellow Books are Irrelevant
"Internet directories have led to a dramatic decrease in the number of business owners and consumers who use phone books."
Last week, we presented a survey to gauge how business owners feel about yellow page phone books in the digital age. Only 24% of our 3,500+ respondents said "Yes" to the question, “Are yellow page phone books still relevant?”
That's quite a find. Here are some others:
1) Most business owners don't think yellow page phone books are useful to them:
“Yellow page phone books are useful to me as a business owner.”
Agree - 11%
Somewhat Agree - 17%
Somewhat Disagree - 19%
Disagree - 52%
2) Only about 10% of business owners use yellow page phone books more than once per month; 3 out of 4 don't use it at all:
How many times per month do you rely on a yellow page phone book to find a local business?
“Zero” - 75%
“Once” - 14%
“Between two and four times” - 8%
“Five or more times” - 3%
3) Very few business owners believe customers find them using a yellow page phone book.
Estimated percentage of customers who find me using a yellow page phone book.
“0%” - 43%
“1-25%” - 47%
“26-50%” - 5%
“51-75%” - 3%
“76-99%” - 1%
“100%” - 0.1%
The conclusion: Business owners have clearly observed the shrinking relevance of yellow page phone books. As we continue to move away from printed phone books, online and mobile directories will continue to grow as the customer's choice for local business information.
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Our personal experience with business owners would match these results. In fact here in Vancouver the numbers are even more definitive in the uselessness of Yellow Pages (and CanPages). So where are all these consumers going? Google indicated there are almost 2 BILLION local searches PER MONTH in Google alone ... its crystal clear that the search engines have replaced the Yellow Pages (and have for YEARS). Its only recently that business owners seem to have caught on to this. Call us today to learn more about how Local Trifecta can help you leverage the internet to GROW your business!
About the Author:
Samuel Araki is the founder of LocalTrifecta Internet Marketing. He believes SME’s need to regain control of their digital marketing - which has become a muddled landscape, filled with fast talking, budget sucking, wannabe Internet Marketing leeches. He is clear that online marketing is not an overnight process, but is a commitment to furthering an upward trending marketing channel. Follow Samuel’s musings on Twitter and Google+
