I first heard of Yodle about 4 years ago, back when it was called NatPal, by Nathaniel Stevens out of UPenn, a friend of Brad Twohig, who is our joint friend.  Since then, I’ve seen the company grow from a few dozen clients to a reported 5,000, bring in a CEO (Court Cunningham), and a whole executive team.  Of anyone in the marketplace, I see these guys as the leaders so far, even though Webvisible and ReachLocal are far larger in terms of customer base, revenue, and staff.

The local advertising game is far from won—- the mainstream has yet to see a dominant player emerge, much less be able to recall any name brands.  As much as we’d like to believe the yellow pages will die an instant death, change occurs slowly.  And I see the most efficient player being able to win.  Yodle.com sells less on the force of sales and more on the performance basis of calls driven.  Call tracking is powerful, as clients can see a measurable impact.  But the game is early.  Nobody yet has figured out a true multi-channel marketing play that delivers pure ROI for locals, even though the search engines, yellow pages, newspapers, radio stations, agencies, and other guys are trying to build their own and partner with others.  Expect to see some consolidation as a result of the economic downturn.

The eventual winners (and I believe there is room for many large players) will be the ones that deliver great value to the clients (transparent results and a large share of the client dollar actually going to marketing spend), plus take great care of their sales, operations, and engineering teams.  Social media is increasingly important, for example, Facebook advertising for local. The trouble now is that building such a team realistically costs $5-10MM, depending on how it’s done.  It takes, by my estimate, a team of two dozen folks for two years to build this out.  The fully loaded cost of a person is about $125k in a major metro.  Add in some marketing and sales expense and you can see how the numbers shake out.

Kudos to Yodle.com for being able to raise another round in a difficult environment.

Dennis Yu

Dennis Yu is a former search engine engineer who has spent a billion dollars on Google and Facebook ads for Nike, Quiznos, Ashley Furniture, Red Bull, State Farm, and other organizations that have many locations. He has achieved 25% of his goal of creating a million digital marketing jobs because of his partnership with universities, professional organizations, and agencies. Companies like GoDaddy, Fiverr, onlinejobs.ph, 7 Figure Agency, and Vendasta partner with him to create training and certifications. Dennis created the Dollar a Day Strategy for local service businesses to enhance their existing local reputation and make the phone ring. He's coaching young adult agency owners who serve plumbers, AC technicians, landscapers, roofers, electricians in conjunction with leaders in these industries. Mr. Yu believes that there should be a standard in measuring local marketing efforts, much like doctors and plumbers need to be certified and licensed. His Content Factory training and dashboards are used by thousands of practitioners.

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