Summary of YPA - Yellow Pages Association Conference

05/11/2006 - The following is a summary of the key events from the recent YPA Convention which took place in Orlando, FL, April 23-25.

Our Major Take Aways

The biggest discussion in sessions and the hallways was focused in several areas.

Internet & Print Can Co-Exist: Compared to recent years you could detect a change from "who will win the turf war over serving local advertisers" to "what partnerships publishers need to co-market print and Internet products." For those of you still overly concerned that Google is going to take over the Yellow Pages business and go direct to local advertisers, the Google representative on the Local Search Panel noted that Google views its local search offering as an "extension of its core mission. We don't have a 'go it alone' strategy; partnering with others in the industry is a critical component to our strategy."

Biggest Buzz Factor Goes to: The highest buzz factor at the conference revolved around Yellowpages.com and specifically when (not if) RHD would buy into Yellowpages.com (currently 100% owned by AT&T assuming the BellSouth merger closes). This move would certain solve many of RHD's online strategy concerns voiced at a recent industry analysis event. They currently have multiple brand URL's to deal with such as Dexonline.com and bestredyp.com.

It's All About Sales. Yellow Pages Group CEO Mark Tellier's presentation provided some solid evidence that YPG's focus on premise sales and sales productivity has helped jump YPG's organic revenue growth rate to 7.1% in 4Q05, its best growth in several years. Other publishers in attendance were taking plenty of notes during Tellier's presentation especially when he noted that YPG has increased the percentage of premise sales to over 80% of the sales force from 60% level the company had ......