Moving forward with digital. NTT Townpage's challenge: distributing 'Digitan' to all employees.

※Based on the book "Digitan: A Digital Marketing Vocabulary Guide - 365 Key Terms to Grasp Visually " by Ryota Murayama of Dentsu Inc. (published by Shoeisha). To commemorate its reprint, we spoke with Mr. Tomohiro Ihara of NTT Townpage's Planning Department, who reportedly purchased 2,000 copies of this book at once (!) and distributed them to employees nationwide.

<Table of Contents>
▼The President's Vision: "It is not the strongest who survive, but those who can adapt to change."
▼Leveraging Assets Accumulated in the Paper Business for Digital Ventures
▼ "We're Going Digital from Now On" – Employees' Mindsets Shift Digitally Too!

The President's Vision: "It is not the strongest that survive, but those who can adapt to change."

──NTT Townpage, which has long operated the "Hello Page" (phonetic telephone directory, discontinued in 2021) and "Town Page" (business-specific telephone directory) businesses, has established a new "Marketing Division" to advance digital business leveraging its unique assets. Mr. Ihara, you were involved from the preparatory stage. Could you tell us about your background?

NTT Townpage's primary business is the Townpage, familiar for its yellow cover. However, in recent years, it has launched a marketing department and is tackling DX.

Ihara: I joined NTT Townpage as a new graduate in 1998, making this my 24th year. I spent seven years in field sales for advertising, then moved into sales planning and corporate planning. Starting in February 2020, I began preparations to launch the Marketing Department and have been responsible for marketing ever since.

──These past 20 years must have coincided with the shift from analog to digital. How has the company's business scope evolved?

Ihara: Our core business has always been advertising in the printed phone book. Around the time I joined, the online phone directory "iTownpage" launched and grew significantly, becoming our second pillar.

Then in 2012, we merged with NTT Information Development, which sold the "Town Page Database" containing the Town Page listing information, adding database business as a third pillar. Furthermore, starting in 2019, we began selling a digital marketing product called "NTT Town Page Digital Lead" (hereafter Digital Lead), based on a website platform.

Though Town Page is known for its paper phone books, the internet-based " iTownPage " launched in 1998 when Mr. Ihara joined the company. It achieved significant growth and became another pillar.

──Was the shift from the phone book advertising business to digital marketing driven by changes in advertising revenue?

Ihara: That was part of it. There was a time when advertising revenue from paper phone books exceeded 100 billion yen, but it has been steadily declining. Even now, advertising revenue from paper phone books accounts for about 70% of sales. However, we have entered an era where companies are required to pursue DX (Digital Transformation). We are shifting our company's focus toward digital.

──So you concluded that a marketing department was essential to digitize the company's business?

Ihara: Yes. As we move to fully sell digital products going forward, maximizing operational efficiency hinges heavily on collaboration between departments and our nationwide sales offices. The marketing department plays a key role in building this internal cooperation framework. We're also starting to implement digital marketing strategies to increase customer inquiries, something we hadn't focused on before.

In particular, our president (Mr. Norio Sakai) emphasizes that

"It is not the strongest that survive, but those who can adapt to change."

in his messages to employees. I believe he had a strong conviction about establishing a marketing department responsive to the changing times.

Leveraging the "assets" accumulated in the paper business for digital ventures

──NTT Townpage, which has long focused on "selling advertising space through sales," has now launched a marketing department. This also signals the company's intent to "adapt its business to the times." Now, let's discuss the digital business. First, what kind of business is the "Townpage Database"?

Ihara: It's a database categorizing approximately 6.4 million entries listed in the Town Page by industry. It comprehensively covers a wide range of information, from large corporations to individual business owners nationwide, detailing what facilities and stores exist where.

──How is this database utilized, and by what kind of customers?

Ihara: Businesses and offices use it for direct mail campaigns, telemarketing, and market area analysis. Car navigation companies utilize it for setting destinations based on phone numbers to provide route guidance. A newer application combines it with NTT Docomo's real-time human movement data, which we sell to government agencies and municipalities. This enables visualization of information like "how tourists flow to specific stores" or "which evacuation routes are used during emergencies."

Furthermore, with over 1.8 billion data points accumulated over more than 20 years, we can observe the "rise and fall" of various industries across regions nationwide. For example, we can see which types of stores increased or decreased in Town A over a decade. Based on this, we can perform correlation analysis and future forecasting, which has also attracted attention from research institutions like universities.

Town Page Database
This database contains 6.33 million entries (as of the end of June 2020) from the monthly updated "Town Page" listings. It provides customers with registered information nationwide, categorized into 1,900 industries, filtered by specific industries or regions. It is one of the products that utilizes the "assets" accumulated over many years since NTT Town Page began its paper telephone directory service, now leveraged for digital services.

──Another digital product, "Digital Lead," is a service primarily targeting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and individual shops, right?

Ihara: Digital Lead is a compact digital marketing support service designed to be manageable even for small-scale stores. Many Town Page customers are small businesses or individual shops, so we position it as "one-stop support from attracting customers to closing deals, starting with your website." Researching overseas telephone directory companies revealed they were developing digital marketing businesses, which we referenced.

Previously, when we surveyed Town Page customers nationwide—meaning advertisers—nearly 60% of the roughly 7,000 responses came from businesses with five or fewer employees, and 60% of those didn't have a website.

When we spoke with them, many expressed feeling the need to "do something" in response to market changes, but also stated, "We're not familiar with digital, so we don't know what to do..." Furthermore, business owners running small operations often lack the time or resources to invest heavily in new initiatives. Digital Lead is the service we launched to help these long-standing clients improve their businesses through digitalization.

Specifically, we handle website creation and startup support. Based on your needs and business type, you can choose necessary features like SEM (search engine marketing) web ads, blogs, SNS integration for customer acquisition, e-commerce payment processing, reservations, or document downloads. Our basic package starts at just ¥12,100 per month (tax included), making it easy to get started.

Our regional sales staff leverage their expertise in listening to understand your website content and essential elements, while our design team utilizes skills honed through years of phone book editing to help create your ideal pages. For the first three months after implementation, your assigned staff member will stay in touch and provide follow-up support, ensuring even customers new to digital tools can use it with confidence.

──That sounds like a very customer-focused service. How has the reception been?

Ihara: We started sales in September 2019, and thanks to our customers, we've sold approximately 9,000 units (as of January 2021). We'll likely reach 10,000 units by February. However, the sales pace is so strong that we're sometimes causing delays for customers...

Our core marketing department role is to "develop digital marketing strategies and build systems that drive sales." Right now, though, we're focusing on optimizing internal coordination to ensure the smooth flow of orders—from sales to website launch—for the large volume of digital leads we're receiving.

Digital Lead
A service that handles website creation and operational support. Depending on the customer's business type and requirements, it also provides ancillary services such as attracting customers via SNS and email marketing, as well as e-commerce payment and reservation functions. NTT Townpage, with approximately 20 years of web operation experience through iTownpage, supports business owners who previously did not have a website, enabling them to start digital marketing without having to learn everything from scratch.

──I understand NTT Townpage itself has also begun actively pursuing DX to support your customers' digital transformation.

Ihara: Within our company, we are advancing general digitalization in the sense of "digitally streamlining conventional operations," such as introducing RPA (Robotic Process Automation) for simple internal tasks and promoting remote work. Simultaneously, we are also advancing "the digitalization of our business domains and the optimization that accompanies it."

When we established the marketing department, the president conveyed this message: "Let's use digitalization as an opportunity for all departments to collaborate and aim for company-wide optimization across organizational boundaries." Historically, many of our operations were self-contained within regional sales offices and individual units. However, advancing digital business requires company-wide coordination. This is precisely what the marketing department is tackling now.

"We're going digital from now on" – employees' mindset is shifting too!

──Our sales staff have long focused on "selling advertising space in phone books." However, to recommend databases and digital leads to customers, they need deep product knowledge. What initiatives are you taking to enhance sales staff's product understanding?

Ihara: The product management and sales departments collaborate to hold briefings and training sessions led by external instructors. We also encourage employees company-wide to obtain product-related certifications. Beyond briefings and training, we supported knowledge retention by sending staff from headquarters to accompany salespeople on visits to local offices.

After the pandemic, we reduced the number of staff sent for co-visits. Instead, we selected about 30 employees from across the country and gathered them at headquarters to form an elite database sales team. Through intensive OJT, we enhanced their knowledge and skills, aiming for them to eventually become core personnel nationwide.

To ensure all employees understand the latest digital marketing terminology, we distributed "Digital Terms" alongside lectures, creating a synergistic effect for knowledge acquisition.

──What led to the introduction of "Digitan"?

Ihara: I was personally looking for digital marketing books at a bookstore. I thought "Digitan," with its combination of illustrations and explanations, made even specialized terms easy to understand through its comical expressions. So, I bought it and showed it to colleagues and the president. It was well-received, so we purchased a bulk order and distributed one copy to every employee.

──To every employee!?

Ihara: Yes. We bought about 2,000 copies in bulk and distributed them to employees nationwide (laughs). While the goal was certainly to raise the company's overall digital literacy, another reason was that we're a company that's been doing paper phone books for decades. I thought some employees might feel confused, thinking, "But we're suddenly being told to sell digital products..." I wanted to instill the mindset that "From now on, NTT Townpage will operate digitally" in those employees too.

──Distributing one copy to everyone certainly conveys the company's seriousness and helps drive that mindset shift. How did employees react?

Ihara: We received feedback from the sales field that it actually helped with customer communication. Most people had been doing paper phone book advertising sales for so long that, until a few years ago, they probably never imagined they'd be supporting digital adoption. But even in this rapidly changing environment, having the "Digitan" on hand gives them a sense of security, like "I have a reliable reference if anything comes up."

──So "Digitan" is playing a role in both raising employees' digital literacy and supporting the challenge into new business areas. Finally, could you share NTT Townpage's future goals?

Ihara: More than goals, our immediate challenge is optimizing collaboration across internal departments for selling digital leads, as mentioned earlier. From fiscal 2021 onward, we'll focus on getting sales of digital products—digital leads and the Town Page database—fully on track. Our target is for these digital products to surpass telephone directory sales within a few years.

──I imagine there are competitors encouraging local mom-and-pop shops and SMEs to adopt digital tools. In that context, would you say NTT Townpage's strength lies in the trust built with long-standing advertisers?

Ihara: That is indeed a strength. We have approximately 200,000 customers. Through years of sales activities, our sales staff have built solid relationships of trust with the decision-makers at each company.

When clients themselves are unsure how to navigate this era, or when they haven't recognized challenges within their own company or store, we identify those issues and provide optimal solutions. We want to give back to our long-standing clients by leveraging the sales expertise honed through our telephone directory business in this way.

"Your Marketing Partner" is our corporate philosophy. We aim to be a marketing partner that continuously provides optimal value to our existing 200,000 clients and to new clients we will propose to in the future. Together with our clients, we want to adapt to changes in the business environment.

304 pages, ¥1,680 + tax, ISBN: 978-4-7981-6069-6