It’s no secret that most Search Engine Marketers really enjoy the challenges and rewards of Search Engine Marketing. It’s the thrill of the chase and the hunter instinct that motivates us to pursue customers or prospects online, learning from past efforts, and refining our strategies to increase our effectiveness over time.
We are internet fishermen.
The author fishing on Captiva Island, FL.
We sit just off the banks of the sea of information that is the internet. We cast a line out with a lure meant to attract our desired target. We hope to reel in “the big one” that we just KNOW is lurking out there somewhere.
Just like successful fishermen, we learn to think like our prey. We study them, figure out where they congregate, learn their habits, likes and dislikes. We understand what motivates them to take action. We know they are fickle creatures that will scatter at the first whiff of an artificial hook.
Just like successful fishermen, we obsessively check and re-check our tackle. Are we sending the right message at the right time in the right place? Is our target hungry for what we are serving or are they likely to pass in the hopes that something tastier comes along? Is our offer presented in an irresistible way? Are we simply splashing around or do we have a legitimate chance of hooking a lunker?
Just like successful fishermen, we have to BELIEVE that the next cast is going to land the fish of a lifetime, the stuff memories (and a few “fish tales”) are made of. If the lure comes back empty, we take note of the conditions that created an unsuccessful attempt and use that information to increase our chances of success on the next cast.
This metaphor could go on forever, but I think you get the point. Whether you are doing Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC), or both, Search Engine Marketing is about trial and error. It’s about being able to scan the seemingly endless ocean of opportunity and knowing where, when, and how you are going to present your message. It’s about learning how to adapt successful strategies and tactics from one industry or target market to another because just like lakes, no two are alike. Fish respond differently based on their geography, history, culture, species and other environmental factors.
Anybody can throw a line in the water and get lucky by waiting long enough. Good internet marketers know that enduring success is not random, but rather the byproduct of preparation and opportunity.
But hey, a bad day of fishing is still better than a good day at work. Are you sure you are fishing where the fish are, or are you merely bobbing around?
It’s been a busy couple of weeks, and a little too quiet on the blog front. Sorry about that. I was in Richmond last week for an extremely productive training session and on-site meeting with a client. I always enjoy heading back down south to get away from winter in Ann Arbor and visit friends and family, especially because the temperature topped 70 degrees for half the week.
While I was there I had the opportunity to give a presentation on Search Engine Marketing to the VCU Adcenter Brand Management class taught by Kelly Carson from DuPont. I teamed up with my former boss from CarMax and we set out to see if we could teach the students at the nation’s premier post-graduate advertising program a thing or two about SEM. It was like a reunion of sorts since all of us are veterans of The Martin Agency in Richmond, which both supports and benefits from the top-shelf school.
The challenge with this type of presentation is to balance higher-level marketing concepts with tactical information about Pay Per Clicks and Search Engine Optimization so that future Brand Managers will understand SEM’s capabilities when they are out in the real world of marketing and advertising. They probably won’t be the ones managing PPC campaigns or implementing SEO but they need to know how to work with the people that are.
Our presentation was a mix of internet marketing 101, SEM 101 and our experiences and results from years working on carmax.com SEO and PPC. I removed about 10 slides with carmax.com references and examples but the meat of the presentation is embedded here, thanks to Google Presentations. If anything seems incomplete or out of context, it’s probably because we voiced over most of the best stuff.
We were scheduled to speak for 90 minutes but ended up on stage for over 2 hours answering questions and drawing examples, charts and graphs on the whiteboard. The students seemed very engaged and asked extremely intelligent and targeted questions, all of which made us feel like they were picking up what we were laying down. I think this type of presentation is extremely valuable for marketers at every level. SEM is already a “must have” in any marketing plan and is on the verge of becoming a commodity service just like online media planning and buying is now. Don’t be surprised to see that theme explored in a future post.
You might be wondering what an advertising school looks like. Well, it looks a lot like an advertising agency. I didn’t have too much time to tour the entire building, but what I did see really impressed me. VCU just completed a new building for the Adcenter and it is very cool. Here are some highlights:
A giant poured concrete table in the cafeteria
A large open space with configurable ceilings, walls and furniture serves many purposes
A cool staircase is a space that used to be outdoors but is now a covered walkway
And of course, any ad agency needs table sports! This one is courtesy of Yahoo!
The Google Online Marketing Challenge is shaping up to be one of the season’s most anticipated spectator sports for the internet marketing community. Not only is it a great educational opportunity for the next generation of online marketing professionals, but it will help small and medium sized businesses learn more about utilizing Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising as part of their regular marketing mix. Google will undoubtedly come out ahead in the long run as a result of increased awareness and trials of its primary revenue generating operation. It’s a classic win-win-win.
I have already been approached by some friends and relatives in business school that are new to Adwords and PPC consulting that are looking for advice on how to pick the best small-to-medium sized business to partner with. This may be one of the more important decisions they will make, since their level of interaction with their “clients” will largely determine how successful the student “consultants” can be.
That being said, I would consider the following when choosing a business to partner with:
Flexibility: Choose a company that is open to making changes to their website quickly. Some small-to-medium companies don’t have the resources in-house to make rapid changes. This will be important when you have to ask them to add tracking code to the site and/or update various components of their landing pages and conversion pages to improve performance.
Short Purchase Cycle: You will want a company that has a quick turnaround time for conversion events. Think spontaneous purchases or conversions. Don’t go after car dealers, mortgage companies, real estate brokers or insurance companies since those types of transactions can take weeks or months to complete and you will only have 3 weeks. Find something easy. Look for sites that have a lot of opportunities for visitors to turn into customers (e-commerce sites, sites that offer free downloads, sites that try to generate leads for the company). This will give you a lot of conversion data from which you can quickly make decisions about how to optimize your campaign for better-performing keywords, ad text and CPC bids.
Online and Offline Metrics: If you want to go after the holy grail of internet marketing, take the conversion tracking one step farther and try to find a business where you can track customers that go offline to make a purchase. The majority of businesses sell their products or services offline. They don’t have shopping carts on their websites that allow them to easily track conversions automatically. The challenge for many businesses is to determine which part(s) of their marketing programs are actually generating a positive return on investment (ROI). Paid search is a very quantifiable marketing tool but if you can’t measure its contribution to an actual sale, you can’t determine if it is more or less effective than any other marketing channel.
Low-to-Moderate Competition: Certain industries are more exposed to internet marketing than others. For example, your local small business might be competing against much larger, more sophisticated national or international organizations with dedicated search engine marketing teams. Choose wisely. Look for companies that operate within a less competitive environment where you can stand out a little more. Travel, insurance, automotive and healthcare are good examples of highly competitive industries. Not to mention that industries (and keywords) with more competition will generally have higher minimum Cost-Per-Clicks, meaning you won’t be able to afford large enough quantities of clicks to make any statistically significant findings.
Strong Demand: Choose a company or industry that receives enough searches to allow you to collect a significant data sample within the allotted time frame. “Llama farmers in Ann Arbor, MI” might not generate enough impressions and clicks to give you any clear insights about whether your strategies and tactics are working or not.
You may have some trouble finding a willing company that meets all of these criteria, but the more of them you can satisfy, the better chance you will have of generating some valid results within the 3-week contest window.
I came across a great (and very common) question in the LinkedIn Q&A section this morning. I took the time to compose a response and liked it so much that I have pasted it here as well. Enjoy, and feel free to continue the conversation or contribute your thoughts here.
Asked by Jon:
Is it possible to only use online advertising (PPC, banner, e-mail) to support a traditional brick and mortar company? Or would you need a mix of traditional media to be successful?
My answer:
Hi Jon,
It is certainly possible to use online media exclusively to promote your physical locations, but is it the most effective media mix? Probably not. It all depends on your objectives and budget. I will assume that by “support” you mean “raise awareness for and traffic to” the physical location.
With proper planning and execution, traditional media is still the best way to generate awareness (some combination of reach and frequency against your target audience) for a product, service or business. Online marketing is a great complement to offline media in that it can capture the newly “aware” audience when they go online to seek what they need. Here are my thoughts on the online channels you listed, and a final suggestion on how to tie it all together.
PPC is not designed to build brands or raise awareness on a large scale. The advertiser is limited by the content (short text ads) and the context (the ads only appear next for keywords that the consumer explicitly searched for). Given that searchers have an implied intent when they enter keywords into a search bar, PPC is a “must have” for reaching the consumer when they are actively searching for your products or services. In addition to being in the right place at the right time, PPC’s impact is quantifiable.
Banner ads are slightly better at creating awareness by building reach and frequency, but consumers are increasingly suffering from “banner blindness”. Eye tracking studies have shown that over time, internet users learn to avoid banner ads that appear overly commercial and not relevant to the content they are viewing. To combat this, banner ads can be used as a point for interaction by using rich media and/or relevant, useful content rather than simply as a static billboard. Although they are the online equivalent of broadcast media, fragmentation within the online world makes it hard to effectively target your audience on a large scale. Behavioral and contextual targeting technologies are improving, but in my experience banner ads are still relatively inefficient and ineffective when used solely for building awareness and traffic to an offline location.
Email marketing presents different challenges. Namely, you have to have a list of email addresses that have explicitly granted you permission to market to them. Otherwise, you run the risk of violating the CAN-SPAM act of 2003. You can use lists of current or past customers that have opted in to your program, but this would imply that they are already aware of your business. Or, you can rent lists of prospective customers but again, you are limited by the accuracy of the data and the scalability of your campaign.
Of course, there are other online marketing tactics you can utilize (search engine optimization, online classifieds, local search marketing, social media marketing, etc) but the best campaigns are integrated across channels. This makes it easy for your prospective customers to “follow the scent” from the TV, radio or print ad to the internet. Once there, you should position your online media in the places they are most likely to go to find what you have to offer. The fun doesn’t stop there, because you still have to persuade them to visit your website, and because you are an offline business you have the added challenge of convincing them to get up from behind their computer and actually come visit you in the real world.
I hope this introductory overview was helpful. It takes some time to perfect your media mix, but most likely it will be some combination of offline and online strategies and tactics. Remember, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. So be sure to establish ways to analyze the results of your efforts against your pre-determined success metrics.
It seems like everybody is making predictions for the search space in 2008 so I thought I would take a moment to make some New Years resolutions related to Search Engine Marketing any my company. If you plan on making any resolutions or setting any new goals for the new year, leave a comment and tell us about it. Or, take the poll and see how you compare to the rest of the community.
1. I will spend more time doing what I know works and less time obsessively reading every piece of rumor, speculation and hearsay within the SEM blog world.
2. I will write more blog entries in an effort to contribute to the community without repeating what others have already said.
3. I will automate and/or outsource more of the repetitive, tedious tasks that take up valuable time and eat into my personal/family life.
4. I will pick a specific area of focus and become a subject matter expert in one (and only one) area of SEM.
The 
