Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs) are really moving fast to get videos onto their websites because they see it as major component of their growth (turnover but moreover also profit).

Over the past six months, all major US players launched a video offering: Yellowpages (US & Canada), Superpages, Citysearch… In Europe, the Italian IYP Pagine Gialle has also added videos to their client offering.

But for IYPs this huge opportunity also has some challenges…

First opportunity: With videos, they can offer website visitors an engaging and personal connection with their advertisers. Video positively influences users’ buying decisions because it gives them extra transparency and reassurance about the business they are about to buy a product/service from. Since an IYPs main goal (like any other media’s goal) is to deliver its clients with more sales leads, it makes sense to offer them videos.

Look at this video about a cool hair salon…

It gives me (the internet visitor) an invaluable insight into the business, more so than any text content could. They say that an image is worth a thousand words, but a video like this one really goes beyond that. It makes me want to find the same kind of hairdresser here in Paris!
Second opportunity: IYPs can offer their clients the possibility to insert the video on their own websites too. This makes the video a branding tool for the IYPs but also a valuable SEO tool, as it will provide them with many backlinks if all their clients embed their player on their websites. This is exactly what YellowPages.com are doing:

Third opportunity : $$$$$! Videos is a wonderful upselling tool and its benefits/value can be easily conveyed to the client (“you will be the star of the show”).In the meantime from the production side it represents big challenges:How do you roll-out a unique offer with a universal price across all territories? And how can you assure the same level of engaging content in all videos? (not all SMB owners are as cool and hip as the hairdresser in the above video). To solve this problem, most of the US IYPs are using TurnHere’s services. Why? Because TurnHere developed a unique network of filmmakers and manages all the production backend for them.

Again, TurnHere is definitely the kind of nexgen production company…and I think their sales orders are going to go up very fast!

If you want to know more about TurnHere check my last post (link)

Last but not least who owns the rights ? The IYPs, their advertisers? This is a key question because if, as an advertiser, I want to use my video as a marketing tool and display it everywhere, I have to control it or else pay for a video on every media I want to advertise on.

This is an exciting and unique moment in this ‘emerging’ market, as many rules are not yet defined…