[Advanced] Yelp Continues on Its Path of Success (2)

Going Local
Despite this daunting list, Stoppelman operates like someone who knows something nobody else does. Yelp has built a business that's the envy of its rivals.

To understand why Yelp is well positioned in the fight to digitize local advertising, first consider the prevailing attitude of the competition. "Local is the holy grail of the Internet," Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, told analysts in July. "The problem with local businesses is they are just not very tech savvy."

Her curious suggestion that local businesses are somehow to blame for failing, as she put it, to "adapt things... that we would think they would obviously adapt," doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Local businesses are, in fact, buying online ads--$19 billion worth in 2012, according to Gordon Borrell, whose eponymous research firm specializes in local media. They're just not buying much on Facebook or Google.

The Sales Force
Perhaps the most contrary move Stoppelman has made as Yelp's CEO has been to embrace what's been anathema to his web 2.0 contemporaries: He hired a sales force. Stoppelman has lifted his approach from the granddaddy of local advertising, the Yellow Pages. Yelp's advertising program is similar to the Yellow Pages, too: Businesses buy subscriptions for several hundred dollars a month in order to promote their reviews and to add special tweaks to their profiles.

While critics knock Facebook for its low advertising rates, which are about $1 for every thousand impressions in the United States, Yelp has the opposite problem: It gets accused of charging too much.

Thing is, the majority of Yelp's customers and advertisers don't seem to mind. In August, Yelp reported that it had 32,000 paying clients, more than double the total from last year. An additional 791,000 businesses have free accounts where they can post pictures and respond to users' reviews.

daunting adj.
frightening in a way that makes you feel less confident;
tending to make people afraid or less confident : very difficult to do or deal with  

prevailing adj.
usual, common, or popular;
existing or accepted in a particular place or at a particular time [= current]

holy grail n.
something that people want very much, but which is very difficult or impossible to achieve

savvy n.
practical understanding or knowledge of something;
practical knowledge and ability

eponymous adj.
/ɛˋpɑnəməs/
the eponymous character in a book, film, or play is the character whose name is in its title


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