1. Over at Take it in-house, we just posted an audio interview with Philip Maher, founder of Intuitive Investments and former Director of Interactive Strategy at RH Donnelley.
2. Check out Li Evan’s latest article on Search Engine Watch, Can Social Media Be Measured?
3. And if you haven’t downloaded it yet, grab our newest white paper on measuring social media, Social Media Impact: Unicorn or Elephant?

Serengeti Communications is hosting a dinner featuring Charlene Li as the guest speaker during SES San Jose this year and you can have an opportunity to win 1 of 2 seats we are giving away for the dinner.

What’s the catch?

Well, we’re looking for two companies who manage the most vendors to help them get their online marketing strategies accomplished.  So if you have one company to do your PPC, another for SEO, someone else to handle your online PR and yet another company to do Social Media or Analytics, we want to hear from you!  The form is really simple to fill out, we just want to know how many vendors you work with and for what (not who they are).  We’re curious as to the average number of vendors that one company has to deal with to handle their online marketing initiatives.

The two companies with the most vendors will be our winners.  If there are several companies who have the same number, we’ll put them into a fishbowl and have a drawing.  We’ll be announcing the winners on Friday August 7th, so spread the word!  If you are coming to San Jose for Search Engine Strategies or even live in the area and run your business from around San Jose, let us know about how you manage your online marketing strategies!

Win A Seat at a Private Dinner Featuring Charlene Li

Head on over to takeitinhouse.com where we’ve got an interview with Mike Moran.  He’s Chief Strategist at Converseon while also being a celebrated author (Search Engine Marketing, Inc. and Do It Wrong Quickly: How the Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules) and a freelance consultant and public speaker.

Over at Takeitinhouse.com we have an interview with Melanie Mitchell, VP of Marketing at Folio Investments, Inc. She discusses her nearly nine years in search marketing, points out some great reasons for educating the entire company about SEO, and shares insights on in-house search marketing teams and their role in the company.

Well, maybe not a day, maybe 8 years.

When I was home for Thanksgiving this past week, I had a chance to enjoy one of my guilty pleasures.

Be Warned: The next few lines may contain the nerdiest thing you have read in a long while.

I’ve saved most all of my old issues of Fast Company and Business 2.0 and when I have spare time, I like to peruse the old issues. I know, I know, N-E-R-D-Y.

But, in my defense…marketing, like much of business, tends to be cyclical. So, I think it is interesting to look at the business trends and emerging business trends from the past, sort of a print version of the Wayback Machine. And, it’s not only the articles and ideas that I find interesting, but also the advertising.

In fact, here’s one of the best ads that I came across was in the October 24, 2000 issue of Business 2.0.

How great is this ad?
“Do you think a hunch about data relationships will improve browser-to-buyer conversion?”

But, here is the best part:
“Your disjointed and incomplete eMarketing data has had you playing the guessing game for too long.”

Back in 2000, way before the great analytics growth explosion, when (WebTrends) Executive
Summaries consisted of nothing more than a few (some meaningless) metrics…

…Coremetrics had the guts to call attention to the fact that eMarketing is trackable and that marketing decisions should not be made based on hunches or worse, bad data.

The fact is that analytics have improved by leaps and bounds in the past 8 years. But, the sad fact is that despite that, many marketers are still making important spending decisions based on their gut-feelings and bad data.

And maybe, some of that is caused by the overwhelming amount of analytic data that is available now. There is a big difference between data and information. Because data whether meaningful or meaningless, without context is really no help. But in this economy, in this recession, very few companies have the luxury of experimental marketing or, in words of Coremetrics, a ‘VP of Guesstimation.”

As the financial crisis in this country and abroad begins to dip its shifty fingers into our wallets, I wondered what you were doing both personally and professionally to cut costs in this economic downturn?

Cutting out (or down on) Starbucks?

Walking or taking public transportation to work?

Cutting marketing budgets?

Cutting other budgets?

Is there anything you’ve changed?

Anything that you won’t change?

Maybe you plan to buy fewer gifts for the holidays?

Or skimp on eating out at restaurants?

Let’s help each other get through this time –  which I believe can only be adequately described as “sucky”.  Leave your pennywise answers in the comments.

There are few places where I feel more stupid than in an auto parts store.  Because…when I am in an auto parts store that means that there is something that is VERY basic in my car that needs fixing.

I hate knowing that everyone in the store knows more about everything in the store than me.  And I hate not having any idea of how much things should cost.

As I stood at the counter of the NAPA auto parts store this morning, trying to figure out how to purchase a gas cap to replace the one I lost, it occurred to me that many people feel the same way about finding a digital agency as I do about buying auto parts.

SEO, PPC, Social Media, and Analytics are topics that are rich with jargon and self-proclaimed experts who want you to think that there is no way that ordinary people could be successful and that the only way to be successful is to hire someone to do all the work (e.g. outsource it to them).

After many years in the working in the industry, from traditional agencies, to consultancies, to an analytics provider, I know this is not the case.  So, just like a good auto part store will help you find the tools you need, take the intimidation out of a foreign situation, and explain what you need in plain English – so should a good digital agency.

So, if you need a gas cap, I can’t recommend NAPA auto parts highly enough.  Not only did the gas cap cost less than $7 (which I assume is a good price), but the salesperson did not even make fun of me when I asked the difference between the locking and the regular gas cap.  He kindly explained to me that, ‘Well, the locking gas cap….locks.’

If you need a good digital agency, contact us – we can explain to you how your current campaigns are doing and train you on how to do better.

Over the weekend I received an email and a phone call from my credit card company. They’d noticed suspicious activity on my card, and wanted me to resolve it. Since this was about the 3rd time in the last month I called them, expecting it to be the usual over-protectiveness. But no, my card had been used for several hundred dollars worth of purchases in the Florida area.

Naturally I won’t have to pay for any of this, but it’s good to know that the credit card company constantly analyzes their data looking for aberrations. Are you doing the same with your site?

• The most obvious way is to look at your analytics, see what’s going on, where your users are going, what they’re doing when they get there, and look for those aberrations. An example of this was when one of our clients suddenly discovered a great deal of traffic suddenly going to a ‘free sample’ page. A posting about their product had been made on a ‘free products’ site. Knowing this enabled them to know how to handle that traffic, and identify what changes they needed to make to that page to more qualify the traffic.
• Look at your source code. While certain hackers take delight in redirecting a site, or overwriting the code, there are those more insidious hackers, that merely insert links into your site, taking advantage of security holes in popular publishing platforms (i.e. an unpatched WordPress installation). This can easily be done (depending on the size of your site) by using an external link checking tool that will also validate any links found.
• Look at who is buying PPC ads for your company / product name. Are they attempting to confuse users by pretending to be the genuine company? Are there trademark violations?
• Look at where your PPC traffic is coming from, if your conversion rates drop, look for similarities in the clicks, are they all from the same foreign country / city? If 50% is coming from the same IP address, there’s a very good chance it’s fraudulent.

With all of these, the onus is on you to identify that you have a problem when you have it, because if you don’t… who will?

Following on from the previous session on Selling your Integrated Marketing Plan, this session deals with selling he topic of search to the C-suite, and handling their expectations. This session was once

Barbara Coll of WebMama.com was the first presenter, and started off by talking about a few CEO situations that you’re likely to encounter…

• CEO-ego #1 – We need to show up – Under some random PR industry that we want to own the category – but we are creating the category
• CEO-ego #2 – Why aren’t we showing up for my name?
• The Cool Factor: Everything Google does is cool, why aren’t we doing everything that Google offers?

You will also get push back from on-high, from those C-level people that don’t understand search;

• Search doesn’t convert for my products / services
• Why would people pay attention to those ads?
• How does it fit into the rest of our world?
• Why not do it through our other agency?

How to sell to all management. You need to address the following issues:

• Competition -Who is your real competition?
• Reputation Management
• ROI

How to talk to a CMO

• What do you want people to do after they see your TV spot?
• What is the expected behavior after someone sees a behavioral ad on Yahoo?

Introduce Universal / Blended search

• Praise marketing elements that have already been developed
• Show the value of optimization of those elements
• Tell them it isn’t all about text-based ad

Talk direct response

• Search is the deal closer
• The ROI is high
• Explain how all other online/offline can uplift search volume
• Praise the other programs and campaigns

There is a problem with volume: You just can’t spend enough on search!

Education and training:

• Bring in the engines for show and tell
• Talk to other agencies about integration of data and consistency of reporting
• Develop standards for the website style guide
• Act professional… don’t look like a hacker

What not to do:

• Don’t brag and say that you’re better than the ‘other agency’ because you produce better ROI with search
• Search is not all that company needs to do, ,especially for branding and selling and online
• Don’t say that search measurement is all that you need, it needs to be integrated with other corporate metrics.

Next up Andreas Stenzel of VMware (a client of the Barbara’s), to give the internal perspective. He walked through 3 different case studies to highlight the differences involved with each pitching internally within each company.

• Don’t sell search alone, highlight it’s place in the larger marketing mix, show the synergies that you can achieve.
• Identify the standalone ROI.
• Identify your targets up front – audience, channels, etc.
• Use seed deals – Proof of Concept to show that search really does work.

His most important takeaway is to define and validate your strategy early on, and stick to it

You have an integrated marketing plan all ready, all you need is the approval from the C-level crowd. How can you make them understand what it is that you’re trying to do, and why the tactics that you’re proposing are the best way forward? That’s the idea behind this session, moderated by Rebecca Lieb of Click Z.

The first presenter is Kevin Lee of Didit, he identified 5 C-Suite motivators \ emotional hot buttons:

1. Greed – Play on the opportunity cost of not implementing the plan, point out that Search is important for branding
2. Fear – CMO tenure is under 2 years on average. CMOs need a bright spot to point to regardless of overall macroeconomic factors.
3. Vanity – C level don’t really understand search (don’t use acronyms), so educate them (explaining the acronyms so you can then use them), not on tactics, but on the holistic approach to marketing, including search.
4. Loss – Failure to follow up other offline market with a search plan is a huge waste of the original media, and interest that you’ve generated.
5. Competitiveness -Compare your business to your competition, this is a huge motivator for your C-level executives (com-score provides data that you can use to generate this).

If working with multiple vendors, keep your eyes open, as they may not try to work together as well as they could, as they either are, or beieve that they are after the same budget. Push instead for information sharing, to shape the best integrated marketing plan as possible.

Next up Sage Lewis with a very energy filled presentation. He talked about a 6 month review that his had recently team performed, which concluded with a 30 minute presentation to the CMO. The CMO only wanted to know how many customers the project brought in, and how much it cost him, not a full blown presentation on the entire marketing plan. Sage’s mistake was to not identify the requirements for the CMO before the meeting.

6 reasons that people buy Search engine Marketing:

1. Profit and Gain – Talk conversion rates.
2. Fear of loss – What are competitors doing? Demonstrate the increasing cost of entry.
3. Pleasure – Offer complete solutions instead of package, hourly, etc.
4. Avoidance of Pain – Make everything easy and straightforward, under promise, over deliver.
5. Pride – Discuss the cutting edge part of your services.
6. Desire for Approval – Offer press releases featuring the executive’s online prowess.

Understand the person – think from their perspective.

C-level executives tend to have Dominant or Conscientious personalities, you should identify which of these personalities you’re working with, and adjust your pitch accordingly. Be aware that when presenting to multiple C level executives in a tribunal type system, you will most likely be pitching to each. In that case try to pitch to a single C level executive first, and get them to champion the integrated marketing plan.

The final presenter is Bill Parkes, he has 3 main points.

1. Make sure your strategy is aligned;

The alignment is between the business objectives and the appropriate KPIs, what are you trying to do? Creating brand awareness and lead generation require completely different strategies.

2. …your plan unbiased;

Use modeling and date to remain unbiased.

3. …and the website included;

Make your website an integral component of your plan.