If we can side-step the shocking waste of share-holders money as the once house-hold names across all age groups (Whitepages & Yellowpages) has disappeared to just us old timers (imagine such brands having to be Googled!), Sensis needs creativity. And it ain’t gonna get it from the top.

If it were to come from the top, it would need to be from people like the well-meaning but very dull head of Classifieds (Trading Post covers this broad area) who was formerly head of Strategy, the now head of Strategy who is a cold, newly corporatized (female – wince) ladder-climber, or knarly old Sol who must be readying for his golden handshake with the amount of time he spends dining with ‘mates’ back home in the US of A. It’s certainly not gonna come from Brucey A (Sensis Boss) who is still just a step away from his previous lawyer’s role as group Counsel on secondment from Mallesons! (Hasn’t he done well for a boring tit!). Next you’ll be telling me a farmer should be Chairman of the whole Telstra megolith – What? He is?! That’s right! Johnny Howard gave him the nod for fighting the unions on the docks, didn’t he. So, what do you expect from Telstra/Sensis – C’mon!
Karen (from Corp Affairs above), has to show more creativity than any of this mob to keep the company line flowing while the Oz operation sinks like Sol’s previous gig @ T West in the US. (Pity she actually believes what she is saying – who would lie about actually liking and respecting her boss, ‘fatboy Phil’(Burgess)).

So guys, feedback and input from r.e. agents would assist and show Telstra/Sensis/Trading Post has some interest in the real estate segment but guess what, the people that matter really don’t have a real interest in anything except themselves so don’t beat yourselves up over it. Sol understands all this. He knows the Oz operation is on a hiding to nothing so has turned the place into an investment house looking for investments OS otherwise his bonuses won’t be as rich as possible – altho, don’t forget his options were structured at a buy price set at the record low after he had been in the job many months!

Now, what was I doing? This Alzheimers is a bitch! Can’t remember a thing :)

Have they asked for help and assistance from our industry…not that I am aware of

Both REA and Domain are after our help and work with our businesses to develop what we want, need and will pay for….

and what of http://www.google.com.au

Its going to get interesting……and fun

Regards to all Craig Pontey Ray White Double Bay Group

Re: natural progression -
Sensis is a unique business, with interests in directories, mapping, classifieds, display advertising and voice services to name a few. As such, we set our own strategy and business models and have a proven track record of growth .

Re: 2 million visits
We share your frustration with the way online metrics are reported across the industry. However for Sensis and Trading Post, there is no conspiracy. Two million unique visitors go to http://www.tradingpost.com.au each month.

Re: “please explain”
This means that to find our http://www.yellow.com.au site, a lot of people go to Google and type in Yellow Pages as their search term.
Yellow also advertises with Google (paid search advertising) and receives a large number of referrals that way as well.

Re: mid single digit growth
For the first half of the 2008 financial year, Sensis revenue grew at 7.8%. Revenue in our directories business grew by 4.8%, with Yellow growing by 3.2%.

Re: meeting growth targets
Sensis has publicly stated that we will achieve our target through organic growth and M&A activity.

Re: Kelsey blog
This has been incorrectly reported. Sensis reports its performance by financial year, not calendar year. For the full 2007 financial year, Sensis revenue grew by 8%, with our directories business growing by 4%, and Yellow growing by 2.6%. For the first half of the 2008 financial year, Sensis grew by 7.8%, our directories business grew by 4.8%, with Yellow growing by 3.2%. This compares well with the first half of the 2007 financial year, where our directories business grew by 2.8%, with Yellow growing by 1.5%. All this information is available at http://www.about.sensis.com.au/news/media_releases.php

Something that only just twigged. I dug up that quote of your bosses saying 2007 representing a loss of -2.8%.

Now you are claiming for the first half of the 07/08 financial year ear we had mid single digit growth.

But those dates overlap. The first half of the financial year is the last half of the calendar year.

So you would have us believe that for the period 01/01/07 to 31/12/07 you had a loss of -2.8%

But for the last 6 months (01/07/07 to 31/12/07) you increased it by say 4% (mid single digits). I am no mathematician but for those numbers to work out you would have had to have been in the hole for -7% for the first half of 2007. In fact if your mid single digit growth was higher than 4%, then your first half of 2007 loss was also larger.

Is this rollercoaster ride what you suggested happened?

The best quote from your GM in April this years was that “customer satisfaction and value for the money are both up 12 percent, and employee satisfaction is +8 percent over last year.”

I would also love to hear your opinion on the study released by AustraliaSCAN in April which showed that Google has become a more effective brand than Yellow Pages for the first time.

This is reflected in the survey results that show more than 50 per cent of people now use the internet most days, while just over 40 per cent use the Yellow Pages monthly.

For me it is all about value for money for agents advertising and nothing that has been said here can alleviate the big problems you face in the future.

It just costs way too much for agents to advertise where the majority of their target audience is not going.

As for the directories, year after year they just sit outside our complex and end up in recycling bins.

The last lot, only 2 apartments out of 14 took them in and the rest got thrown.

I can still see some markets for this directory but the options are now too great and the cost per lead too significant.

The advertising campaigns warning us that our business could go under if we are not with these directories carries no weight in most industries today, particularly real estate.

Thanks for posting and I hope you can take the time to clear up some of the matters you raised.

I appreciate you advising that you work for Sensis but just so we all understand, you are Karen from Sensis Corporate Affairs, not an office manager, ad exec, office assistant or other rank and file?

You claim that online auctions is a natural progression. I dont understand how you can suggest that. Do you know of any other directory companies and yellow pages around the world that have evolved into online auctions? Do you know any other telcommunications companies that own an online auction site? What things about other online auction companies do you find similar to Sensis that you feel makes this is a natural progression?

2 million visits is not 2 million visitors which is not even 2 million unique visitors and that is certainly not 2 million Australian sites. Each one is unique and different metric and marketing departments often toss them around without understanding even what they are let alone the differences.

Also, if you are talking unique visitors, are they unique for the month, or are the simply daily uniques added together?

Just 20,000 people visiting 2 times a day every day for the month will rack up 2,000,000 visits.

67,000 people visiting every day will rack up 2,000,000 unique visitors if daily uniques are added together like is often done by marketing departments.

20,000 or 67,000 is hardly the same as 5 million subscribed and active accounts now is it?

So which column are you suggesting your 2 million belongs to. Your media release stated 2 million Australians, your post said 2 million visitors and some news articles claim its 2 million unique visitors for March. I reckon it would be hard pushed to go much futher than 2 million visits.

Yellow Pages is in the top 20 for Google Searches…!!! Google is your friend?!.. Your just name dropping now… :)

I just cant understand what you mean by this. In the words of Pauline Hanson, “Please Explain”. There are an endless number of search terms, billions and billions, and yes I am sure sensis, white pages and yellow pages will rank for some of them.

Of course one thing you will find lots of on Google is Sensis paid ads. Is that what you mean? Google is giving you lots of traffic?

But search on real estate as an example and combine it with a geographic area like the gold coast and I cant find a sensis website in the top 100 let alone the top 20. Have you just a few examples?

As to your “mid single digit growth?.. Was that growth in pages sold, individual ad numbers or revenue or something else entirely.

Will Sensis make its $3billion turnover target that Sol has announced with this mid single digit growth?

Your right about one comparing phone calls and web traffic. They are different but even so, do you really suggest that one site that delivers 63,000 visitors is even in the same league as another who delivers just 16? Even if you do provide a few calls here and there the overall exposure using any measurement is chalk and cheese. Turn both off and with only the opportunity to turn one back on, do you really think Sensis would even get a second thought calls or no calls?

and lastly, seeing as though you are no rank and file like another Sensis employee once on here in my research on this story I came across the name of Dr
Dennis R. Fromholzer who is the same one offered up once before as though his name would naturally be accepted as a credible source.

Now I thought this guy was going to be a marketing expert covering all facets of marketing. It turns out he only does work for the Yellow Pages industry through his company CRM Associates doesnt he? He is the expert rolled out by all Yellow Pages companies around the world.

In fact any Yellow Pages company can subscribe to his service to get “good news” articles and research to show Yellow Pages in a good light. In fact a quick browse of his reports on http://www.crmassoc.com and every single one is a positive review. Convenient ?! Sort of like the tobacco company doctors always said nicotine was not addictive or harmful in any way sort of convenient.

Besides somebody whose income is totally reliant on consulting fees and subscriptions to his publication with Yellow Pages companies, do you have any independent expert saying the same things positive upbeat things about Yellow Pages advertising.

I also found your mid single digit growth in this post http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2008/04/11/new-tools-new-world/
which interesting quotes for the few months when you are up 4.9% which is up from a loss for the whole of 2007 of -2.8%

Trading Post has been growing strongly (2 million is an accurate figure for visitors to the site) and there is a significant opportunity for more growth which is why we are venturing into auctions. Sensis has not changed tactics, this is a natural progression for the site and fits well with our strategy of helping Australians find buy and sell.

Yellow Directory does not think it has a “given right” to anyone’s marketing dollars. Our metered ads program (a trial) which gives advertisers monthly call data to show exactly how many calls they got from Yellow is proof we are prepared to be accountable to advertisers.

Yellow and White are very different to search engines. They’re designed to drive calls and visits to the business as well as some web traffic. You need to measure their value on this – not on clicks. Similarly, all data (e.g. MarketingSherpa) that looks to measure conversions to call or visits from search engine usage points to very low numbers (e.g. MarketingSherpa). The point here is that comparing them is false. One drives web traffic, one drives calls. The truth is that this shouldn’t be a discussion about one or the other, but about working the two together.

Interestingly both yellow and white pages are in the top 20 searches on google. Google is often our friend.

Sensis directories businesses are going strong – including the print business. In the first half of the 07/08 financial year we had mid single digit growth in print directories.

If you are looking to find a phone number for a business these days, what resources would you use and in what order would you use them. Not a website, not product information, not physical address or anything else… just a phone number to call them on.

Here is mine:

Google Online Search
Yahoo Online Search
Whitepages Online Search
Yellow Pages Online Search
(no hard copy versions included because we dont have them.. binned them the day they were delivered)
Phone Providers Directly Assistance

and thats were they lost the plot IMHO.

They are a company that end of the day specializes in delivering phone numbers to people who want them and they are not even in the top 2 points of call when looking for a phone number.

Instead of making the experience better so people used it first, they concentrated as having it as an addon to their print edition sales to justify the huge investment required. They lost the plot and technology has moved so far ahead of them and now the are scrambling to catch up.