Who wants a premade list of businesses that want video ads on the internet?

I have found a way that you can learn which businesses in your area have already been pre-sold on video marketing on the internet. The only drawback I see to using this list is that they are being taken advantage of in my opinion.

The sources are yellowpages.com and yellowbook.com.

Each of these businesses has their own video marketing service. The service is no different than examples we have seen in here. We can do the same thing for business owners with pictures and a video making software. I've done the same thing they have done with Windows Moive Maker, and my quality is no different than theirs.

Now it is my opinion that they are taking advantage of their clients. I say that by looking at their YouTube videos. I have not looked at other sharing services, but I imagine the results will be the same. Here's what I'm talking about.

Here is the YouTube channel for the YellowPages and YellowBook:

YouTube - yellowpages's Channel

YouTube - yellowbook's Channel

Click one of the videos in their channel and look in the description of the video. The only link you will find is a link to the yellowpages listing, not to the business website. They include ZERO contact information for the business in the description.

YellowBook is only slightly better. They do not link to the website for the business in the description, but they do provide a telephone number to the business.

To find the link to the business website through either of their services you have to click the link in the description, which goes to the business listing in the online directory of each service. There you can find the link to the business website.

I can't find it now, but I was looking recently to find out how much yellowpages and yellowbook charge for a video, and it was $79.00 a month just for the video. I'm sure it's more than that when the business gets a listing in their online directory, which I'm sure is an upsell. Like I said I can't find that information now, but if someone else locates it, please share it with us.

So how is it that I think these services are taking advantage of the businesses who use this service? Each of these services is promoting themselves through the link in the description.

Further they are doing nothing to promote the video once they put it online. I'm not finding videos for most of the businesses in my area until page 4 or 5 of the search results.

I have not found an easy way to find out which businesses using the yellowpages have videos that were created by the yellowpages, except to search youtube for each business listed in the yellowpages online directory.

Now on the yellowbook, it's very easy to see who has a video from yellowbook.

I did a quick search on the YellowBook website for car repair in St. Louis. The picture below shows 3 results from that search. To the right I have circled in red visual indicators of those listings that have a video from YellowBook.


So using that information you know who has been pre-sold on the idea of using video for online marketing. You can look at their video on youtube and see how long they have had that video up, and how many views it has had.

Now you can talk to them about how YellowBook is not really promoting their business, but rather that of YellowBook. Explain how their link in the description area will serve them, and how it is currently serving YellowBook. You can even show them where the video is listed in the search results, if it is listed at all.

I have found several that I searched as far back as 15 pages deep and did not find the video for them. Some I have searched for on YouTube for the keywords of their business and did not find them on the first page, including searches for the business name.

My thought is, approach your local businesses in an effot to show them how to do it better, not by trying to sell them something. You can talk to them about how it could be better used to attract customers, maybe give them an example of a description. Maybe even tell them exactly how the description should be worded to achieve better rankings.

Point out how YellowBook is taking advantage of them, but it's not their fault because YellowBook does that to all their video marketing customers. You could ask for their business and see if they are interested in it. They might be hesitant at first, but you could offer to set something up for free to prove you know what you're doing with the understanding that once they see the results they will have to pay to keep it, or you will have to take the video down.