Forum Moderators: anallawalla & bakedjake
So, at the local search and marketing level who holds the advantage?
I think I hear Chicago saying something like "It IS the salesforce - the people with the connections to the local SMEs - that ARE making the difference, that give companies like YB an advantage".
A footsoldier salesforce costs real money. What happens once the local business owner - or his kid - realizes he can get by without the services of the local ad rep? How long will this learning curve last, until the local SME realizes the ad rep is unnecessary, a luxury?
I'd like to spend more time developing the point but the premise is simple enough: An salesforce of footsoldiers is expensive to maintain. IMHO, having a salesforce is, at best, a turniquet applied to a severed artery. Yes, the local yellowpages has an advantage in selling online local ads to local businesses, but in the era when people are increasingly getting the information they need online an educational or selling footsoldier is a) an anachronism; b) who's income is based upon selling ad space; c) which ad space can be pitched and sold online, with a little training; d) which footsoldier - if they're acutally helping the SME - will spend time training the SME how they can manage their campaign online ("You really don't need me"); e) Which means that, by doing the right thing, either the ad rep is cutting his/her own throat OR the ad rep has (believes he has) a contract that guarantees residual income on ad renewals by the same SME; f) which means that IF an ad rep has a residual income agreement THAT COST becomes one of the inefficiencies that will eventually drag down the local YP's competitive advantage AS people become increasingly aware of options and able to manage local search marketing efforts (What does it take to email an inquiry to a local site?).
I say the perceived advantage of having a footsoldier salesforce will prove to be the next big disadvantage to the YP gang. To effectively move to an online advertising model they need a call center staff, not a commissioned (or salaried) footsoldier salesforce.
Am I wrong?
I wouldn't want to expand too much, but I'll suggest you go an find out the difference between "active" an "passive" selling.
The guys an gals who Knock on doors, smiling bravely an speaking to absolute strangers, still have a place in our brave new world :) :)
I say your footsoldiers who are in the business of selling online ads for any 1 company are scheduled for extinction in about 5 years. Ya, there will be clueless souls who will be victim to the needless overhead of the footsoldiers, but the SME's kids will wake them up to the issues.
[edited by: Webwork at 7:58 pm (utc) on Aug. 3, 2006]
The essense of a sales person lies not necessarily in how they do their work, nor in their tools,,
Its a mental thing , do you dig :) :)
The key issue here isn't foot-soldiers vs call-centers; it's whether the ads remain productive enough to be worth what they cost.
A week later I had samples at my door. Another week passed and he had a sale, and a satisfied customer. It's probably rare, but in this case I needed his expertise.
As an add-on, I wanted to consider the possibility of customizing his product (think branding). He offered a couple of names. I looked them up, and was just as clueless after looking over their site info as I was before I looked. Calls to a couple of them left me feeling as empty. I don't understand the terminology, so how can I make an intelligent decision? When they decide to send over a rep, I might consider spending some money.
OTOH, I would NEVER consider a salesforce for my product. It isn't needed. People already know about my product, so it's a simple matter to look around and pick from any number of vendors/web sites.
The key issue here isn't foot-soldiers vs call-centers; it's whether the ads remain productive enough to be worth what they cost.
The inverse might also be true: Can I develop leads at 1/100th of the cost by beating my competition in the internet marketing sphere by advancing my knowledge of internet marketing?
You know that those lawyers and doctors - the one's who the YP used to profit so nicely from - they're a bit "technical". An incresing number have their minds wrapped around the role of non-traditional local marketing, i.e., online.
The local rags - the microperiodicals - appear to be in constant pain as they a) shrink in size; and, b) perpetually advertise in prominent places for sales staff. Where are those advertisers going? I think I noticed that some of them now have websites.
Those insurance agents who might have taken out full page YP ads? Can anyone spell GEICO.com? Big billboards. Big TV. Lot's of Geico DOT COM.
The latest gimmick, to fill the YP book is to list restaurant menus. Doh! "Son, can you whip me up a .pdf file and provide a link to it on our website? Do you think we can buy links from about a dozen popular local websites too?" Waaaaay to complex for all those non-technical types to figure out.
The signs of the impending morbidity of the footsoldier salesforce are all over the place.
Active selling? Ya, to the inactive brain. The dinosaur is your best market. The problem with the inactive brain dinosaur is that the active brain competitive species soon eats their business.
Footsoldier sales are all about the overhead and the big business selling advertising and marketing to local SMEs has just a bit too much overhead. Too many mouths attempting to feed out of the bucket. The YP may be around for awhile longer than 5 years, but during that time they will continue to shrink and shrink.
The notion of footsoldier salesmen selling online ads to SMEs is a peculiar oxymoron in search of a name. The value proposition of the service being sold is consistent with the inevitable decline of the service provider himself.
"Hi. I'm Bob. I'm here to tell you that the future of advertising and marketing, and controlling your advertising and marketing, is online and in the air, it's wireless and the WWW. People will sit at their computers and find all the information they need. Why even our company has a website that tells you all about our ad program and we give you the tools for managing your online ad campaign right there . . online . . at the website . . "
Doh!
[edited by: Webwork at 10:34 pm (utc) on Aug. 3, 2006]
I know, we are all convinced dat we know everything, an everything will work out just the way we predict, this is even easier when circumstanses lead us to believe that we know what we're talking about :) :)
But,,,
i say, keep an open mind,,,
We were a traditional YP advertiser for years.
I'm surprised local ad agencies haven't attacked this universe. Their aggregate sales forces would outnumber the sales forces of the different YP's.
Gotta figure out ways to produce ranking and ppc results with quick efforts/sort of mcdonalds versions of fancy food.
And I also am surprised that local newspapers haven't tried to become aggressive yps in their own areas.
Sales forces still work in my mind. So many small business owners have no clue about this stuff and are ripe to be sold. At least the YP sales forces have a level of brand name credibility even if what they are selling can be done better in different ways.
Dave
Foot-soldiers, which have been the life-line of a high-margin print search business, are ALL selling Internet (and let's us not forget the newspapers). Their sales efforts, through their traditional sales channels, dwarf all other forms of internet search sales in the marketplace, while blanketing the US with coverage.
Today, IYP ad usage amongst SMEs is substantially higher than SE search ads. This is due to the fluid nature of an YP to IYP upsell. Today, all YPs compliment their offerings with search ads on Google, etc. They are beginning to act like more like traditional agencies as it relates specifically to ad inventory. They are piecing inventory together in meaningful ways and moving it through their channels.
One can't argue the critical importance of this sales channel over the next 2-3 years. The key question is ad product integrity.
These companies are smart and they understand what is at stake and they will not sit by and just watch the obvious take shape.Currently every major YP is sinking an amazing amount of capital and resources into product development. Product development is coming in the form of outsourcing and more recently acquisition.
There are also forces that naturally aid their progress- like being able to negotiate inventory, bounties, preferred placement, feeds, and support directly with the engines.
The YPs also have inventory ~~ GOLD in high volume local search sales. When you combine inventory, with SE deals, with products, a century of tradition, and yea, a salesforce, one can easily predict who will be responsible for first bringing the masses of SMEs online.
But maybe most important and fundemental is the fact that this is a scale marketplace. It is low margin - high volume. Agencies and even webmasters curse most of the requirements of servicing SMEs who average totally monthly budget for ALL advertising is a little over $300 per month. And need us not forget half of the SMEs that simply do not market themselves at all ~ less go to Google and sign up for a good ole' adwords accounts.
To service high volume SME's one requires PRODUCTS, SALES and AUTOMATION. The YPs are looking to adapt everything that they have built to date - from ads, to salespeople, to systems to confirm to Internet search, to conform to the actualities of the obvious.
You see, it doesn't matter if the salesforces (namely unionized)are currently too expensive when in the end, the shareholders demand value. You just need to change.
YPs, more than anything else, are sales organizations. Currently it is the foot soldiers that are waging the battle. But if one looks beyond this battle they will find an opponent that is well fortified, both structurally and strategically to fight a war.
[edited by: Chicago at 1:29 am (utc) on Aug. 5, 2006]
They'd better be, or else
<edited for typo>
[edited by: RossWal at 8:26 pm (utc) on Aug. 15, 2006]
...BUT -- my YP rep serves as litle more than an order taker.
Then the YP companies whose reps dispense more forward-looking advice, products, and services will have an advantage, if they can sell these services for prices that work in the local marketplace.
I think they'll need to have a very holistic view of where local is going in order to succeed, as well as a sense of what kinds of businesses will thrive on the web and what a good product mesh will be for them.
