More tips and techniques
on managing and getting the most success
out of search marketing campaigns,
continued from yesterday's
SEM Campaign & Project Management, Part
1.
Moderated by Michael Sack, the SVP and
Chief Product Officer of Inceptor, the panel featured
four executives from SEM agencies: David Williams, Chief
Strategist of 360i; Harrison Magun, VP and Managing
Director of Avenue A | Razorfish Search; Ani Kortikar,
Founder and CEO of Netramind; and Barbara C. Coll, CEO
of WebMama.com.
Ani spoke next about creating or becoming
a project manager.
William Shakespeare told us how, "Some
are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have
greatness thrust upon them." Ani agrees and said, "Some
are born project managers, some achieve the project
management capabilities, and some have project
management thrust upon them!"
While David had used quotations and
Harrison had used bullets, Ani used photos to illustrate
how to identify a born project manager. One photo
featured a juggler, another showed a juggler balancing a
pole on his forehead, a third showed a block of wood
supporting the pressure of an elephant, and a fourth
featured a lion tamer.
Ani then discussed the most common
roadblocks to the organic growth of a talented
specialist into a project manager:
-
Unsure of required skills
-
Unclear about what's expected
-
Unwilling to be in unknown territory
-
Uncommitted to taking on new
responsibility
The best way to avoid these roadblocks,
according to Ani, is "learning to unlearn." As Einstein
observed, "Education is what remains after one has
forgotten what one has learned in school."
However, "learning to unlearn" involves
key attitude adjustments for a talented specialist:
-
No longer a functional expert
-
Lack of specifics
-
Less flexibility with own time
-
No more instant gratification
Barbara asked, "Who is involved?" She
answered her rhetorical question with an animated slide
entitled "The team," that ended up listing: Marketing
manager, product manager, marcom, sales, IT, legal,
demand generation, content managers, inventory managers,
web producer, public relations, customer support,
copywriters, webmaster, executive management,
programmers, international, investor relations,
marketing, developers, and graphic designers.
Barbara then advised "watching, patience
and fine tuning." She presented a diagram showing a
timeline for deliverables. It started with
implementation, but before that was complete, monitoring
and fine tuning began. When that finished, maintenance
started.
Barbara also talked about integration of
online and offline marketing campaigns, from the team
and project management point of view.
Like David and Ani, Barbara said the key
is education. She recommended, "Come to a common
terminology. Talk about why you can't just do 'organic'
search optimization. Provide case studies and
suggestions as to how and why to integrate."
Since overlapping budgets are a chronic
problem, Barbara said it is important to tighten your
relationship with other agencies and talk about who owns
what budget.
Barbara also addressed the issue of
measurement. "Offline marketing affects online traffic,"
she said, and "online marketing affects offline sales."
So, she said it was important to "attempt to merge
multiple tracking systems and backend CRMs."
When it comes to "creative," Barbara said
consistency is not the same in online and offline
marketing. Text is not the same as images. Keywords are
not the same as the location of a page of advertising.
Pay-per-click (PPC) is not the same as cost-per-thousand
(CPM). And searchers are not the same as eyeballs.
Barbara said that online and offline
marketing share responsibility for the branding
experience, trademark protection, and reputation
monitoring. But, she added, "All bets are off as..."
-
Google moves to print ads
-
MSN goes to demographic targeting for
search
-
Local/city classifieds go online
-
Personalization takes off
-
Community based search catches on
-
Vertical search gets more popular
The sophisticated advice about SEM
campaign and project management provided by the
panelists is an excellent example of a new kind of
value-added services that SEM agencies can provide to
their clients. While many companies are trying to manage
their SEM campaign and projects in-house, some are
beginning to realize that this is both costly and
complicated. SEM agencies that can reduce complexity and
increase efficiency for their clients will be the ones
that capitalize on this opportunity.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Greg Jarboe is the co-founder of
SEO-PR,
a search engine optimization company and public
relations firm that specializes in news search, blog
search and vertical search.
