Following a discussion of its 2010 full-year results, Dex One’s leadership team outlined a new strategy today that it says will restore the company to positive revenue growth by the second half of 2012, with print stabilizing to single-digit declines.
One of the key elements will be the Dex Guaranteed Actions, a performance-based model tested beginning last year in Phoenix and recently launched in Seattle and Minneapolis, with a gradual rollout in other markets. The program essentially guarantees advertisers a predetermined number of business leads.
Dex leaders say the program succeeded in changing the sales conversation from price to performance, and is seen as a key element in the company’s efforts to stability print revenue declines from their current high double digits to mid-single digits within two years.
CEO Alfred Mockett and his team outlined a number of key objectives and supporting initiatives, among them:
* The company projects it will move from 10 percent digital to 30 percent digital revenues by 2012.
* DexOne is planning to convert its 2.2 million free business listings into paid. Mockett describes free listings as an “historical anachronism.” Converting to paid will generate revenues and also direct more leads to paid advertisers, Mockett said.
* The company is investing in its sales force, arming it with iPads and launching the Dex One Sales Academy to improve both initial and ongoing sales training.