TMP Directional Marketing, a local search and yellow pages agency, releasing results of a comScore-conducted study, said a third (33%) of consumers still consider print Yellow Pages to be their
primary source of local business information -- and more than 90% of all searchers believe print directories are "still a valuable source for shopping information."
Still, a
majority of users (60%) go to the Web first for their local searches--with 30% of all users tapping general search engines like Yahoo or Google, 17% choosing Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), and 13%
local search sites like Citysearch.
For the study, comScore combined custom survey responses during the first quarter of 2007 with the observed online behavior of more than 3,000 panelists.
"Print directory advertising is a $15 billion market and fairly static," said Stuart McKelvey, CEO, TMP Directional Marketing. "But online local search is a $9 billion market and growing. The consumer
is there, and the opportunities for marketers to capture a share of this growth are huge."
McKelvey said advertisers have been slow to embrace the Web for local marketing efforts due to factors
such as the cost of moving dollars from offline directories to IYPs, and the medium's perceived lack of value in driving purchases.
According to the study, some 61% of local online searchers went
on to make a purchase from a local business--but the majority of them (40%) visited the brick-and-mortar stores or picked up the phone, while only 6% made the purchases online. With no way to link
these in-store purchases directly to a previous Web search, advertisers don't see a proven benefit.
As such, they've fallen behind both consumers, who are becoming savvier about local online
search, and search engine providers like Local.com who are rapidly developing the technology and products for them to use.
"Anecdotally, some of our largest clients have gotten the highest ROI
from their investments in IYP," said McKelvey. "But there's not enough volume there to warrant a dramatic shift in local marketing dollars."
In related news, Local.com completed $13 million in
financing on Wednesday, and the company plans to use the gross proceeds for "acquisitions, to expand direct sales channel development, to protect the company's growing intellectual property portfolio,
and for general working capital," according to an official statement.