Pity the poor thumbs of the world. Once the recipients of a fairly leisurely existence (save for the odd tight lid on a peanut butter jar), our thumbs are now forced to endure ceaseless agony banging out messages, search terms, URLs and addresses at lightning speed on mobile phone keyboards so small you can barely read, let alone tap, them.

Recognising this tragic bi-product of the digital revolution, we at Whereis® are now doing our bit to lighten the load on Australia’s beleaguered thumbs.

The latest update of our incredibly popular Whereis® free sat nav app for iPhone begins by fixing a few bugs that emerged for some users after the first release (sorry about those, folks). On top of that, the update also provides a simple way to navigate to many of the most popular businesses and services without typing a single word.

Bliss for thumbs!

Let me give you an example.

I’m sitting in a park in Ocean Grove and I wouldn’t mind seeing a movie. I open the Whereis® sat nav app for iPhone and it immediately recognises where I am.

I tap the ‘cinemas’ tab on the popular searches bar and the location of all the nearby cinemas pops up.

I select the Village Gold Class in Geelong and up come its details. With one tap, I could phone them if I wanted to. Either that, or I just tap on the link to the Village website and that brings up the current sessions in a separate window.

Ooh. I’ve been wanting to see John Carter for ages and there’s a session soon. So I simply close the window, which takes me back to the Whereis® app. I could buy a ticket if I wanted, but… warning… that means using the keyboard.

Once back at Whereis®, I then just tap ‘Navigate’ and off I go – with turn by turn visual and voice directions to get me right where I want to be.

And, in a nice touch, I can even fire up my music from within the Whereis® app.

Now, with the latest update, finding a local business or service is easier than ever.

Which is probably why this latest Whereis® update is getting a resounding ‘thumbs up’ from AppStore users.

To download the Whereis® sat nav app for iPhone, just search for Whereis® in the Apple AppStore or follow this link http://www.whereis.com/iphone.

® Registered trade mark of Telstra Corporation Limited (ABN 33 051 775 556).

1. Why ratings and reviews are important to SMEs.
Because it’s another way for customers to find your business. You want your business to be found by potential customers, right? Well more and more, consumers are starting to rely on ratings and reviews to help them make their decision about which business to choose. And according to recent research, a one-star increase in Yelp rating can lead to a 5-9 per cent increase in revenue ! Engaging reviewers via Yelp’s free business tools provides an opportunity for Australian small businesses to develop much deeper relationships with their customers.

2. Ratings and reviews positively impact your search engine optimisation (SEO)
The more your business is mentioned online, the higher it appears in search engine results. Another shared desire among many small business owners is for their business to appear near the top of search engine results. Well, ratings and reviews are another avenue for businesses to improve their search engine ranking. The more a business is talked about online, the more chance it has of appearing earlier in search engine results.

3. Good reviews
Good reviews encourage more people to try your business. It’s always nice to receive a glowing review about your business online – it’s a money-can’t-buy, independent, thumbs-up from a customer for all to see. And when a consumer reads a positive review of a business, they’re more inclined to give it a go.

4. The opportunity that comes with bad reviews
The reality is that you can’t please 100% of your customers 100% of the time, and as such you should expect to see both positive and negative reviews. Should you pay close attention to the negative reviews? Only if you happen to see a trend, this type of information can prove extremely helpful for correcting something about your business that you didn’t think was wrong.

Once upon a time, (in the unlikely event that a customer had a poor experience with your business), they’d probably go home and tell their friends and family – maybe a total of 10 people would hear. Frustratingly, your business probably didn’t receive this feedback, which means you did not have an opportunity to review the situation, provide an explanation or make any changes to improve the experience this customer had. Now customers have the opportunity to share their feedback on ratings and review sites such as Yelp.com.au, businesses can hear straight from the people they’re most wanting to please: their customers.

5. How to respond to negative reviews
Efficiently, using simple and non-condescending language and share any changes that have been implemented in your business as a result of their feedback. The idea of having a negative review of your business for the world to see can be, well, frightening. However, think about it this way: you can’t change what you don’t know.

Stay calm. Allow yourself a 24 hour colloing off period if you need it. It’s important to start by thanking the reviewer for taking the time to provide feedback. Tone is hard to gauge online, so you need to ensure your response is sincere, simple and adding value to the initial comment. Has the feedback led you to make any changes to your business? If so – include this in your response. Are you sorry the customer had this experience? If so, tell them.

Use common sense and don’t be defensive or question the reviewer. You should write your response using the same language you would use if they were right in front of you and try and build a genuine connection. This can help to earn trust and a change in perspective, and if you get it right, could turn your greatest critic into an advocate for your business!  It’s amazing how an unhappy customer (and all the people reading the reviews) can be turned around by seeing some quality after sales care.

6. Growing positive online reviews
In the same way good businesses are rarely short of customers, positive reviews will follow good businesses. If your business is committed to providing a great experience for your customers, the positive reviews will follow. According to Myles Anderson, reliability, friendliness and value for money are the three most important business traits that lead recommendations. So keep doing what you’re doing!

So there you go, a few insights into ratings and reviews to help small business owners make the most of the opportunity. And if you’re a Yellow Pages advertiser, that means you’re already on Yelp, with ratings and reviews now also accessible on Yellow Pages® online, mobile and iPhone applications. The syndication provides Yellow Pages advertisers with the benefit of being able to connect consumers with user reviews and ratings on their Yellow Pages business profile page.

Visit www.yellowadvertising.com.au for more information.

Why rate and review? Aside from the fact that it’s the fun and easy way to talk about great (and not so great) local businesses, it’s sites like Yelp that are playing a big part in how we Aussies make purchasing decisions these days.

According to the Sensis® Social Media Report, social networkers read an average of six reviews before making a buying decision. So rather than waiting for a review of a business to be published online or in the local paper and then deciding whether or not to give the business a go, we are getting on the front foot and seeking these reviews out for ourselves. Yelp.com.au makes this very easy. 

Yelp first started in San Francisco in 2004 and today’s launch in Australia marks the 13th country it has opened its online doors in. In Q3 2011 the online ratings and reviews company received an average of 61 million visitors a month (up 63 per cent from the same time last year), has generated 22 million reviews on its global network as of September 2011 (an increase of 66 per cent over the same time in 2010) and saw an average of five million unique views a month on its mobile app. With results like these, it’s evident that ratings and reviews are becoming an increasingly important component of consumers’ pre-purchase behaviour.

While I’m personally excited about Yelp’s launch in Australia today, it’s also a big coup for Sensis®’ Yellow Pages®, after announcing our ground-breaking partnership with Yelp back in July. 

Yellow Pages® local business listing data has been integrated into Yelp.com.au (including mobile site and apps), which means our Yellow Pages® advertisers will be able to be found by more potential customers. And in a couple of weeks, Yelp Reviews and Ratings will be displayed on Yellow Pages® Online and Mobile. I’ll tell you more about that shortly. In the meantime, visit www.yelp.com.au to rate and review a local business near you.

Whether you consciously think about it or not, the life of a retailer, online or off, is steeped in behavioural psychology.  As we head towards Christmas, here’s a case study on how to move your customer from buying to owning.

Imagine you are a boutique fashion retailer. Time and again people come in to your store, start their walk around the perimeter, acknowledge your greeting with a strained smile and maybe a “just having a browse” mumble, and then exit without trying any of the clothes.  That’s me – I’m your nightmare. Money to spend, interest in buying, but inert when it comes to engaging with the purchase process.

How is it then that I happily and impulsively spent a few hundred dollars on a dress that I hadn’t imagined owning before I stepped into the store?

Great salespeople are a great experience. 

What got me into the store?
I’m pretty basic – it was a sale sign.  But I wouldn’t have bothered chasing a sale unless the window display was evocative.  Subtle lighting, natural tones, textured faux-stone display materials – the store fit out made me feel like a was entering a place of nature.  And what’s more pleasant than strolling around a place of natural beauty?  It felt special, the clothes were obviously cared for, and the warmth generated by the store rippled through me as I started my perimeter stroll. 

How did the sales assistant engage me? 
Catherine (yes I learnt her name through the exercise) greeted me from a non-encroaching distance. “Anything I was looking for?” “No just browsing.”  But then her genius move – “Can I try this jacket on you?”. And she did.  She effectively was asking a favour of me – and through so doing she won my trust because the jacket was great.  But then, “There’s a dress that would really suit you” – and off she skipped to the other side of the store, presenting the dress for my reaction.  She’d already managed to engage me through the jacket and I knew through this exercise she had expertly appraised my figure and gained my trust.  Most of all, it felt like she was truly interested in me not in making a sale. She had invested herself in the experience.

How did she make the sale?
The dress went on and was great. But then the show began. The other sales assistant tagged teamed as they demonstrated all the features – yes features – of this wonder dress. Tie it this way, tie it that way – multiple looks as a result of this beautifully, cleverly and practically designed dress.  Add a cummerbund and add another layer of versatility. 

Was I thinking price at this point…kind of. But by that stage it was a question of how much I would pay, not whether I would.  By that point I could have justified almost any price because I had moved way beyond ‘buying’ and was already in ‘owning’ land. And did I feel I was being sold to? No. I felt like they were helping me.

So what are the lessons for small business owners and operators?

Make the experience concrete not abstract – asking me if I was looking for something in particular would have been less effective than asking me to try on a jacket.  For online sites, telling me to click for the product catalogue is less effective than telling me to click to view details, availability and pricing for 23 skirts.

Create a consistent experience throughout the process – in this case, the store fit-out was consistent with both the clothes and the warm attitude of the staff.  Don’t set up a consumer campaign that celebrates fun, connection and happiness if you grind your customers down with a bureaucratic, boring and cumbersome purchase experience – you’ll confuse people about your brand integrity and savage your conversion rate.

Consider reciprocation – asking me for a favour was a way of making the relationship two way.  I was then prone to ask the sales assistant a “favour” ie I was more prone to ask for what I wanted – the ‘power balance’ was equalised.  Seems strange given I was the buyer with the purchasing power, but when dealing with an inert shopper like me, it was a great strategy to get me to act.  How can you create a two way relationship with your customers with the aim of making them more comfortable to do business with you?

No doubt retail is a tough gig so in the lead up to the Christmas season I’d encourage you to take a fresh look at the interactions you have with your customers and see whether some behavioural tweaking is in order. It might just make the difference.

Today we announced the expansion of our search engine marketing (SEM) product offering, with the launch of ClickManager Express – an affordable, entry level SEM product focusing on exclusively advertising through Google AdWords.

This is pretty exciting for small and medium sized businesses that want to give SEM a go but haven’t done so yet. Why? Because it’s cost-effective and we’re here to manage it all for you. We don’t expect you to be an expert on SEM – all you need is a website and we’ll take care of the rest.

We’ve noticed significant growth in the SEM industry within Australia over the last 12 months. While it’s still a relatively new area for many small businesses in Australia, as the number of businesses with websites grows, so does the need for SEM products. There are so many SEM suppliers that it can be a bit overwhelming for small businesses to know who to turn to.

We believe the combination of our partnership with Google and Yellow Pages being such an established and trusted brand provides businesses who want to give SEM a try with the confidence to do so.

The 2011 Sensis e-Business Report found the proportion of SMEs with a website continued to increase over the past year from 61 per cent to 67 per cent , while Frost & Sullivan found 32 per cent of small businesses and 43 per cent of medium businesses planned to increase their search engine marketing budget in 2011.

Furthermore, of the businesses that indicated an increase in their search advertising budget, 32 per cent indicated that the budget increased by more than 25 per cent – which shows that a significant portion of advertisers continue to make good increases to their search advertising budget allocations.

It’s really important that SMEs don’t miss out on the market opportunity available to them – having a website without SEM is like opening a shop and not putting any signage up – nobody knows you’re there. The ClickManager Express product starts from as little as $110 including GST a month and provides SMEs with an affordable, entry level solution.

The ClickManager Express product is sold by our Yellow Pages media advisors and requires the business to have a website. Sensis also offers a website solution called SiteSmart for businesses that are not currently online, so a business can go from no website and no SEM to having both in a very short period of time with Sensis.

For more information, visit www.clickmanager.com.au.

Last week, the Google AdWords Authorised Reseller program was rebranded to the Google AdWords Premier SME Partner Program (PSP). The reason for Google’s new AdWords program name is to reflect a more accurate picture to customers of companies like Sensis, who do far more than just resell AdWords, as well as reinforcing the program’s specific focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

As the team at Sensis is all about making marketing easy, especially for SMEs, we were very excited about the new branding.

Sensis entered into a strategic agreement with Google to become an Authorised Reseller of Google’s AdWords advertising program in Australia earlier this year. The agreement allows Sensis to sell Google AdWords to our SME advertisers and gives Google the opportunity to make its AdWords product more accessible through our sales force.

As a Premier SME Partner, Sensis is recognised in the market as meeting Google’s highest standards and criteria for qualification, transparency, and customer service. This includes completing extensive Google product and account management training.

The PSP connects Google’s trusted and experienced AdWords partners, such as us, with small and medium-sized businesses that want expert help in creating, managing and optimising their online advertising campaigns. This ensures we can provide small businesses with the most effective AdWords advertising solutions.

In addition to in-depth AdWords expertise, with Sensis’ ClickManager and Digital Plus products we provide full-service campaign management, detailed reporting, one-on-one customer support, and broad marketing guidance to help advertisers make the most of their campaigns. 

It was also great to hear what James Sanders, head of Google’s APAC channel sales partnerships, had to say about it: “We are excited to launch the Google AdWords Premier SME Partner program with hand-picked, highly qualified companies like Sensis. Small and medium-sized businesses will not only benefit from Sensis’ in-depth training, but from their years of experience in the local market.”

You can take a look at the Sensis Premier SME Partner page here, visit www.clickmanager.com.au for more information about our SEM products or contact me with any questions.

Whilst a paywall is somewhat particular to content providers, there are lessons for all businesses around why ‘free’ is such a powerful behavioural concept and what to do if you want to introduce a charge for something that was previously available for free.

So let’s start by looking at chocolate.

The persuasive power of ‘free’
In an experiment outlined in Dan Ariely’s “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions”¹, participants were given the choice of two chocolates; high quality Lindt or, the less expensive Hersheys. Through the course of various experiments, the price of each brand was manipulated to see how consumer rationality was affected. In other words, what was the point at which price changed our judgment of what we were willing to experience from our consumption of chocolate. When the Lindt was 15 cents and Hersheys 1 cent, 73% chose Lindt.  Makes sense. We are willing to pay more when we expect to receive a quality experience.

But then life got interesting.  Prices were dropped by 1 cent. Lindt was therefore 14 cents and Hersheys, free.  Suddenly Hersheys gobbled up 69% of the customers, reversing the earlier trend. Was it the one cent price drop? No. It was impact of ‘free’. The majority of participants were now willing to act in spite of the lower level of anticipated pleasure just because the chocolate was free. 

Based on the study, it seems that ‘free’ dramatically impacts our assessment of what we are willing to experience.
Ariely goes on to speculate that the reason we are so swayed by ‘free’ is that there is no downside. In most transactions, we weigh up the pros and cons, rewards and risks, but when something is ‘free’, there is only upside.

This is the behavioural principle of loss aversion, where we are wired to avoid loss more than seek gain.  In the case of chocolates, participants were unwilling to trade Hersheys for Lindt even when they had only to pay one cent for the lower quality brand.  The risk of a less enjoyable experience was still too great. Take away that risk by making Hersheys free, and the game changed.

Introducing a charge for a free service
That’s fine for chocolate, but what does it have to do with a paywall where News Limited are trying to introduce a fee?  After all, it’s a bit like charging for Hersheys when we are used to pigging out for free.  

It shows how difficult a task News Limited have ahead of them because ‘free’ is one of the most persuasive of forces.  So here are some thoughts on how to reverse engineer free in order to transition to a paid service:

Differentiate the product – if a brand wants to charge for something that they have previously given away for free, they need to change the product.  For chocolate, it may mean changing the ingredients or packaging, or emphasising something new about the product that people didn’t know (eg now from sustainably managed cocoa suppliers).  For News Limited, it could mean re-skinning the online experience, introducing new content and/or features, and new marquee journalists.

Reframe the pricing – News Limited customers will be paying between $2.95 and $7.95 instead of zero.  These are small amounts relative to most things, but not relative to free, so News Limited needs to contextualise the price for its customers.  For example, less than a gym membership, less than a zone two train ticket, less than what you spend on lunch per day to get 24/7 access to real-time Australian news.

Introduce decoys – Pricing decoys are a very effective behavioural technique because we assess prices relative to others.  At the moment on News Limited’s subscription page for The Australian are offering a digital pass for $2.95/week, digital plus weekend papers for $4.50 or digital plus Monday-Saturday papers for $7.95.  Here it would have been helpful for them to also offer a ‘decoy’ 7 day print subscription on the same sign up page. Why? It sets a value for the print subscription that makes the print and digital bundles look more attractive. (On The Australian’s offers page which is buried a few clicks in they have moved in this direction but made the mistake of making print look the better deal at $2/week).

Get it over quickly – the behavioural principle of adaptation means we get over bad news more quickly if we are not reminded of it.  News Limited will have to be careful how it treats its customers throughout the sign-up, sign-in and billing process, with the aim to have the pricing recede in the customer’s consciousness. 

Demarcate the process – Anyone who has used iTunes may have noticed that the payment by credit card is confirmed a few days after your purchase. The effect of this is a disconnection of the process (purchasing music) from the pain (payment), which means we are less likely to remember that our downloads have cost us. News Limited should likewise consider how it finalises the payment process with the customer.

Guilt – don’t under estimate how guilt can turn free-loaders into paying customers.  Of course there will always be some people who take without giving, but most of us are susceptible to contra-free loading.  This is our innate desire to work for reward rather than just get rewarded.  Don’t scoff.  A recent move by the Indiana Museum of Art to move to free entry resulted in a 3% increase in paid memberships.
 
The key lesson to take away from this discussion of chocolates and paywalls is this; offering something for ‘free’ changes the game.  It comes with significant behavioural implications that can work well for your business to stimulate volume, but can also change how your product is perceived.  Whilst not impossible to reengineer a free service as paid, it is extremely tricky and therefore should be used with due consideration to your longer term and competitive goals.
  
1. “Predictably Irrational;: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions”, Dan Ariely, HarperCollins; 2008

I’ve seen a lot of changes in our business over the years. We’ve launched websites, we’ve gone mobile and in Adelaide you’ll notice a significant change to the Yellow Pages book that’s currently being distributed.

Adelaide is the first city where the new compact-size Yellow Pages book will be distributed – the height and width of the book has been reduced by 15%.

The change to the new format is one of the biggest transformations in more than 80 years of the Yellow Pages. However, the most exciting thing is that it’s a win-win for people who use the Yellow Pages and people who advertise in the Yellow Pages – our customers.

The compact size book is easier to handle, it’s lighter and we’ve also made a number of new design and layout changes to help users find what their looking for. Things like:

• the use of colour to highlight the suburb names in each line listing;
• stronger and sharper heading blocks;
• improved Fast Find Index;
• colour highlights in the Teltales at the top of each page; and
• the inclusion of web and email listings. 

And, if we’re making it easier for users to search the Yellow Pages book, it means they’re looking for our advertisers’ content and will hopefully go on to purchase a product or service.

The transition to the new compact format Yellow Pages has involved a lot of research over the past 12-18 months. Last year, we trialled the compact-size Yellow Pages book with more than 25,000 users in Sydney and there was strong support for this format – moreso than the existing format.

This result was consistent with the feedback we received from several market surveys and focus groups that were held with our users.

Globally, compact directories, along with other book changes, are already being used by several companies including in the UK, where users and customers are responding more favourably to the new compact-size format directories.

Following Adelaide, the new format book will also be distributed in Brisbane, Perth, Sydney and Melbourne between November 2011 and February 2012.

It’s a fact that consumers don’t always do what you think they’ll do. That’s because they’re people… individuals… not robots. In this new series for Speaking Sensis, Bri Williams talks about Behavioural Economics, or how a real understanding of consumer decision making can benefit your business.

Some days it just seems too hard. You offer deals to your customers that should work but they just don’t fly.  And then other days, for no apparent reason, customers are beating down your door looking to do business.   How on earth can you get into the minds of your customers to find out what’s going on?

Welcome to Behavioural Economics.  An increasingly popular field, used by both UK and US governments to affect policy change and advertising agencies to improve marketing effectiveness, Behavioural Economics nestles in between economics and consumer psychology. The central mantra of Behavioural Economics is that we humans are irrational. Now, before you get outraged and debate the point, research from Behavioural Economics is about our economic irrationality. In other words, the decisions we make don’t always result in the best economic outcome for ourselves. 

That maybe true of others, you’re thinking, but not me!  Well, think about owning a car that you use only occasionally instead of renting one when required; paying for a 2GB data plan when your internet usage is nowhere near that level; driving an extra 10 minutes to get a 4c off a litre of petrol (the equivalent ‘discount’ you could have saved by spending a few dollars less at their supermarket),  saving your bonus pay money (in your mental bank account) to buy something special rather than using it on bills and buying something special later.  All of these simple, almost daily decisions are prime examples of economic irrationality.  

My favourite example is the TV show “Deal or No Deal”.  Seeing the contestants reject diminishing “bank offers” as their odds slip away in the hope of their fortune changing – despite the economic benefit of taking the deal – is both infuriating and hilarious.   But let us not get cocky.  We all are influenced by factors other than pure economics, your customers included.  And therein lies the opportunity.

There are tried and tested techniques in Behavioural Economics that will help you understand consumer irrationality and then use that knowledge to appeal to customers.  Behavioural Economics sheds light on what makes group buying compelling, how to structure sign-ups for marketing, the role of “free” and discounting, how to communicate a price rise, improvements to loyalty programs, what your customer service consultants should be saying…the list is expansive.

Sound good? Well, in the coming series of Speaking Sensis we will be examining these and other business tips from the field of Behavioural Economics, so look out for our next edition coming soon.

Like us at Yellow Pages in Australia, our US peers know that marketing for small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) has gone beyond simply making the phone ring. With consumers searching in more places across more platforms for products and services, SMBs need to rethink ‘set and forget’ advertising solutions and move towards a multichannel approach with more engagement opportunities. American SMBs are allocating approximately 40% of their advertising budget to digital.

With so many marketing options, this is a complex place for SMBs. Yellow Pages businesses are playing an increasingly important role in bringing these pportunities to the SMB. Insights from the conference can be found on BIA Kelsey’s blog.