Woodbine, MD – June 1, 2004 – Imagine the familiar ease of your city’s local Yellow Pages directory now connected to the global information powerhouse of the Internet. Internet Yellow Pages, or IYP’s as they’re called, combine the convenience of the traditional “big yellow book” with the speed and power of the Internet.

Say goodbye to just letting your fingers do the walking. In today’s electronic marketplace, they’ll be clicking along, literally, at the speed of light.

But there is an important difference between having access to virtually limitless reservoirs of information, and the ability to access the kind of specific information that can spell marketing and sales success for your business. The solution is the vertical digital directory, but to comprehend the magnitude of its power as a sales and marketing tool, you have to first understand the limits of its older brother, the horizontal digital directory, better known by its various Internet names such as SuperPages.com, RealPages.com, YellowPages.com and Switchboard.com to name a few.

Say you wanted to find an auto dealer in Chicago that could sell you a bright red convertible with 60,000 miles or less? Or how about locating a bank in Atlanta that could give you the best rate for the mortgage on a new home? The horizontal IYP’s can’t answer these questions because they are too broad. They can tell you where to find an auto dealer or a bank, but that’s about it.

To answer these specific questions you need a specialized directory. These are the so called “vertical” directories. They also list categories and topics just like the horizontal IYP’s, but these categories are specific to an industry. For example, that bright red convertible could probably be found at Autotrader.com – a vertical directory for automotive classifieds. The bank you want might be found at Lendingtree.com – an online directory of banks and brokers for loans.

And now, the green goods industry has a vertical directory of its own. It’s called the Green Industry Yellow Pages (GIYP.com). Founded in 1999 as a resource to find plants and other products and services related to the green industry, they are currently leading the way in regional and local searches, connecting buyers to sellers and providing a wealth of gardening information.

“It’s been a real challenge due to the fragmentation of the industry,” says GIYP.com founder and CEO Steve Cissel. “The majority of horticultural companies in the United States are family owned and operated. But in this severe fragmentation lies the need for a robust database to locate products and services both wholesale and retail. “

Cissel says GIYP.com currently has over 150,000 business listings and 25,000 plants in its database, with firm plans to double those numbers over the next two years. The tangible benefits of tapping into such a vertically integrated database is evident in the successes of other verticals like AutoTrader.com and LendingTree.com.

According to Cissel, there is a movement in the IYP and search industry to meet the demands of the customer doing a local search. “This is where GIYP.com comes in,” explains Cissel. “The big IYP’s and search engines do not have the local relationships to provide good, well organized and dependable content in the green industry vertical space. This is precisely where we excel.”

Here’s how it works: Access your current favorite search engine, say, Google, and type in “Red Maple.” You’ll see that Google returns only the broadest of search results, including a Bed and Breakfast that happens to be named “Red Maple.”

“But it’s the ‘local search’ capability of today’s vertical digital directories such as GIYP.com, that makes for a more functional and valuable business tool,” Cissel notes.

Now take that same “Red Maple” example. Type it into the GIYP.com search and compare the results. With just a couple of mouse clicks, you find 26 specific varieties of red maple, with options to narrow the search locally, and even images with information contained on a typical garden center plant tag. (These Virtual Plant Tags are unique to the GIYP.com website.)

GIYP.com’s clients claim they have already reaped the financial rewards of a listing in the GIYP.com vertical directory:
"I was awarded a $44,000 contract by a contractor for the U.S. Government who found me on GIYP.com," says Glenn Fulbright of C & K Nurseries in Maiden, NC.

And Mike Fitzgerald, Jr. of M.J. Fitzgerald’s Nursery in Morganton, NC, adds: "I received an order from a new customer in Eastern NC for 200 2.5" maple trees that more than paid for my GIYP.com Enhanced Listing and web site they built for me. My company doesn't advertise in the Eastern NC area, but because of listing on GIYP.com, I received the sale."

Cissel says his goal for GIYP.com is to become the leading source of information and education that drives sales through the retail sector and the trade.

“GYIP.com represents the ‘walk-in’ trade of the future,” he says. “But a walk-in trade potential of millions of customers instead of just dozens.”

GIYP.com was founded in 1999 as a directory utility for the green industry to bridge the gap between the message and the target audience by influencing undecided buyers and driving decisive buyers to suppliers. It currently provides information on over 150,000 businesses and over 25,000 plants. Visit www.giyp.com or e-mail at inquire@giyp.com. Phone: 888-999-5133 or call the Garden Media Group at (610) 388-9330 for more information.