Online Marketing Blog

A great thing about this business is that it’s pretty difficult to get boring. The industry is in a state of constant change and the roles of marketers and what they need to do to serve clients also changes. There’s a lot to think about so Online Marketing Blog is curious, what’s on your mind:

This week was my first MediaPost Search Insider Summit event and I was glad to have been able to participate. I’ve been a reader of MediaPost publications on and offline for several years and have been a big fan of the Search Insider, which is pretty much the only email format search marketing content that I’ll actually read outside of my ClickZ subscriptions.

Day two of the Search Insider Summit was full of great presentations and commentary, so be sure to read the frequently updated MediaPost Raw blog.

Since many of the attendees of the Summit are the kinds of companies, marketers and agencies that employ various types of marketing channels, both on and offline, the opportunity to present examples and case studies of integration with search was ideal.

Some of the high level takeaways from this session include the importance for company marketers to set expectations when enegaging in an integrated campaign as well as the importance of coordination. Larger agencies that are capable of managing multi channel programs including search may have an easier time than a situation where a company uses multiple agencies to manage their various marketing programs.

It’s been a while since we’ve done a Reader Poll Roundup, so today I’m listing a summary first and then the day’s poll in a separate post. With the polls we’ve been running just about every Wednesday on Online Marketing Blog, the voting turnouts and selections have been interesting but the commentary has been even better.

Whether it’s deciding what the best sources of information on search marketing are to the most important skills for practicing search engine optimization, these polls offer a glimpse of what’s on the minds of our appreciated readers and possibly the search marketing industry at large.

Believe it or not, there are a few things we do to avoid new project inquiries. But truth be told, I love talking to people about SEO. It’s really interesting to me, learning about the kinds of situations companies are in, their marketing goals and how they’re going about growing their business (or business unit) online. Search marketing is like solving puzzles in a way, except with the SEO industry, the picture on the puzzle changes every so often.

One of the most critical early achievements for a successful search marketing project is to gain company-wide support on the client side. Without buy-in from the team members that live and breathe the client’s industry, a successful campaign will be difficult.

In our experience, it’s the client staff that interact with customers that have the best idea of what those customers want. They know the pains and issues faced; they understand the solution that the customer is looking for.

A successful search marketing program taps into the needs of the customer. This is how to grab their attention. Without understanding those needs, engaging them can be problematic.

In yesterday’s interview with Andy Beal, I made reference to comments in a DM News article that cited SEO as on the way out and that SEO is “simple”, positioning PPC as “better” etc. Andy’s response, which I think was not entirely without a sense of humor, invited an interesting response from Richard Ball.

You don’t have to look far to find commentary about PPC vs SEO, some good humor and lively debate.

The DMA06 conference is getting rev’d up with pre conference sessions Satuday and Sunday. The new search engine marketing certification program started on Saturday with Jeannette Kocsis, VP of Digital Marketing at Harte-Hanks, presenting on “Introduction to Search Engine Marketing” and I followed up with “Search Engine Basics”.

Unfortunatley, I was not able to sit in on Jeannette’s session, but Amanda Watlington said there was great feedback. Here’s the description of the module:

The Branding and Search session started out with Barbara Coll moderating and the following cast of characters: Ron Belanger from Yahoo! Search Marketing, Jonathan Mendez from OTTO Digital, Chris Copeland from Outrider Search Marketing, Mike Margolin from Targeted Marketing, RPA and Jenny Howell American Honda Motor Co. who did not speak, but was the topic of Mark Margolin’s presentation.

Just before this session started I ran into a prominent search marketer and we talked about some of the common questions related to search and branding. How do you sell clients on search marketing for branding purposes? Also, how do you best measure it? These questions and more were answered by the panel.

As part of the ongoing coverage of ad:tech Chicago 2006 Online Marketing Blog is doing for the ad:tech blog, here is the first installment on the sessions about SEO that I was able to attend. Above is a photo of (L to R) Dana Todd, Bruce Clay and Fionn Downhill. Bruce is actually wearing a tie!
While there was no fireplace, there certainly was a good share of chatting in this session on organic search engine optimization. Introductions were handled by Fionn Downhill of Elixir Systems (I love her accent) to a room that was surprisingly 1/2 full. Perhaps search marketing is losing some of its luster with the ad:tech crowd? The need for SEO certainly hasn’t abated as Dana Todd of¬†SiteLab and Bruce Clay of BruceClay.com were able to attest in this mostly Q and A formatted session.

If you’re looking for sources of information on search marketing, conferences can be a great resource. Or. if you’re a conference junkie like me, then you’ll find the SEOBook “Must See SEO Events” calendar exceptionally useful.¬† Some disclosure here, I am editing the calendar along with Aaron.

Some of the conferences listed include:

• Search Engine Strategies
• WebmasterWorld Pubcon
• ad:tech
• DMA conferences
• MIMA
• eMetrics Summit
• eTail
• Shop.org Summit
• Search Insider Summit
• OMMA
• Affiliate Summit
• SEO Roadshow
• SEO Bash
• And more

DM News has announced the next edition of their Essentials Guide to Search Engine Marketing (pdf). Editor in Chief Mickey Alam Khan says:

“Packed within these pages are articles from executives at the nation‚Äôs leading search engine marketing firms, agencies and consultancies. Also inside is commentary from two of the top three search engines, Yahoo and Microsoft. These experts offer tips, best practices, case studies and research on almost every topic under the search sun.”