Newsletter - Get the Search Engine Marketing You Deserve
Performance Marketing
Volume 1, Issue 3
March 2009
Search Marketing is a service, not a product.
Rather than a commodity with a one-time application, or a single approach that can be used by companies across any industry, search marketing is a service that improves over time and with experience. An experienced SEM agency will provide better, quicker assessments of your customer profile and site objectives; implement more effective optimizations; manage bids more efficiently; produce better results; and avoid mistakes and pitfalls that cost you time and money. Here are four things you should look for to get the search marketing you deserve.
Search Marketing is labor intensive.
With the advent of bid management products, many companies assumed that the bulk of time-consuming search marketing tasks could be automated. But until these products achieve the level of WALL-E’s love, the robot EVE, a successful search campaign still requires the human touch. Tasks such as testing and implementing keyword match types or defining negative keywords must be human driven and require the services of trained staff. They cannot be delegated to an automated tool. You always want to be reminded of the famous example of eBay bidding on Boeing 747 with the text ad: “Buy your Boeing 747 on eBay”! Find out how your campaign will be managed and insist on the skills of real people.
Search Marketing is personalized.
We all know how great it feels when the barista at the local coffee shop remembers our order from week to week. And that’s just how you take your coffee. Think how much more important it is for your SEM agency to understand your customers – not just their demographics or buying habits, but their media usage and online search habits. A good agency will take the time to learn your target market and design a specific campaign to reach and engage them, and not fit your business model into a “one-size-fits-all” approach that may have worked for a previous client. Be willing to share market data and historical search records that your agency needs to develop a personalized campaign.
Search Marketing requires expertise.
The tools and techniques of search marketing are continually evolving. Unless you’re in the business of search or have a dedicated search expert on staff, it’s incredibly challenging to stay up-to-the-minute on the changes in search, never mind be able to respond appropriately or develop campaigns to maximize new developments. Agencies that specialize in search have trained staff whose entire day job is to monitor and leverage changes in search engine algorithms. Show me the marketing director who can devote even a small percentage of her busy week to checking up on Google and I’ll show you someone who’s spending too much time on her blog.
Search Marketing is a partnership.
Now it’s up to you. Yes, you’re busy and you’re swimming upstream against a powerful economic tsunami. Yes, you want to outsource search marketing to a trusted service-oriented partner to save precious time to perfect your product offering, your packaging, your price positioning, and follow what your competitors are doing. But to fully engage with your SEM agency in order to demand the most from them, you need to know what to ask for. A good agency will help you help yourself by educating you on the pros and cons of various approaches. You can hold up your end of the bargain but using a carefully prepared RFP that isn’t the same as the one you’d use to get bids for a new copier. Before choosing an SEM agency, assess your in-house skills and liabilities and decide what type of outside firm is likely to complement these. Choose an SEM service-oriented agency that will become a true business partner. In this economy, that will make all the difference.
