2008-08-12 16:57:27 - Report Buyer, the online destination for business intelligence for major industry sectors, has added a new report which predicts that over the next five years, 39 per cent of the ad spending on print yellow pages revenues will vanish.

‘Say Goodbye to Yellow Pages', which is available at www.reportbuyer.com/go/BAI00009 finds that as the economic recession continues, small businesses will shift marketing budgets online. It says that while print directory revenues have shown stability throughout most of this decade despite the rise of the search engines, the economic trigger - a recession - is now forcing

small-business advertisers to be more careful with their ad budgets.

The report finds that after 12 years as an advertising medium, the Internet has finally reached small-business owners with viable marketing opportunities in the form of keyword advertising, interactive directories and low-priced online video commercials.

Authors of the report say that until now, the key beneficiaries of this shift have been the search engines. But legacy media companies - yellow pages publishers included - have unleashed a newly trained army of local sales people to hunt down this migrating money.

Analysts say that online products are being peddled by 34,100 trained local sales reps - more sales people than any other local medium. They find that reps hawking banners, paid search, interactive directory listings and online video has resulted in local online advertising increasing at a rate of 61 percent this year, to $14.1 billion.

The study, published by Borrell Associates ( www.reportbuyer.com/publishers/1842/borrell_associates.html) , finds that yellow pages publishers have spent the past three years transforming their massive on-the-ground sales forces into marketing consultants who can meet their customers' demands both in print and online. Their combined print/online packages are simple, low-priced, one-stop solutions to small-business advertising needs.

The publication states that yellow pages publishers have been the most successful in moving toward digital sales, averaging about 14 percent of their gross revenues from online sales this year. By contrast, the online contribution for most local newspaper, radio, cable and TV competitors is less than 5 percent of gross revenues, it finds.

‘Say Goodbye to Yellow Pages' is available from Report Buyer.
For more information, see:
www.reportbuyer.com/business_services/advertising_marketing/say_ ..

Report Buyer product ID: BAI00009

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