The Yellow Pages Industry, long ruled by an elite class, used to regular golf and 65% plus profit margins, needs to come to a new reality. The viability of the product is very much part of the new age but only if they listen to the needs of their customers, rather than driving them out of business in a recession. I mean if you are a carpet cleaner seeing a reduction in business, how well do you bond with your local yellow pages sales rep expounding the virtues of ROI under your heading?

While the facts cannot be ignored they can be addressed. The Yellow Pages Industry saw a reduction of 3% percent in usage this year. Next to other media that is not too bad. Newspapers saw a reduction of 5% last year and they are still available in the marketplace.

Search Engines by-passed the Yellow Pages this year as the #1 source in terms of local search when people are ready to buy. (33%) vs. (30%). This is a huge change for the industry. Let’s look at why.

According to the 2008 Local Search Usage Study conducted by Comscore and TMP Directional Marketing the online yellow pages is only consulted (19%) of the time. This industry does not translate well to the online environment as their hierarchal internal structures get in the way of the constant innovation required to sustain these properties.  

Too many businesses fail trying to be all things to all people. Yellow Pages will thrive when they go back to their roots and embrace the print environment in innovative ways that create customer value and drive sales.

In the meantime the opinions of bloggers will proliferate as I believe the decline in usage will continue until, from the ashes, an innovative (maybe independent directory  company) will appear who provides a value that will simply remove the yellow pages from its self-imposed extinction list.