SMX West - Day 3 - Online and Offline
February 28th, 2008There’s a big realization when you’re seperated from the day-to-day that becomes somewhat rythmic and throw yourself into a large pool of professionals concentrated on the same industry. It’s not to be compared with throwing a wrench in the gears but really, it gives you the opportunity to broaden at such a pace that if you don’t take inventory of it, it might steam by without allowing you to take in how much can happen in a short amount of time.
To write a summary of everything presented to me, both new ideas and the affirmation of old ones, I’d most likely need to learn how to summarize better. The overlying themes that seemed to flow between every conversation I’ve had over the last three days, now that’s something I can attempt to convey in a summarized version. After all, with all this attention around being green, I’d hate to lay waste to the digital forests with reckless abandon.
Search Engine Marketing is not a magic potion
I think this point is something that is a rule of thumb for every marketing option available currently. Marketers and those in the industry of helping their brand sell things have long been cursed with tunnel vision. My own experience in the advertising market has always been that focusing all of your poultry products in one carrying case never lives up to the simplicity it alludes too. While it’s much easier to move your focus constantly from one sure-thing to the next, what you’ll soon find is that the only sure-thing you’re left with is being unsure. A strong marketing campaign relies on a strong strategy, and when your strategy relies entirely on one leg, you’re suddenly relying on odds rather than strategy.
It’s been said by us previously but there’s an incredible, monumental and imparative need to combine your Online and Offline strategies. SEM is like any other advertising medium, it works best when coupled with a complete marketing strategy. I could explain my thoughts on what makes a complete marketing strategy but I feel that’s too broad a topic for now. What is more important for this discussion is that you should never form your strategy after you start your campaigns. As much as that sounds like simple advice, it’s suprising how often that same topic has come up this week in my conversations with other professionals in the industry. And even more important than that is to understand that each medium has it’s own strengths and weakness and no matter what that well-groomed salesperson tells you with their charismatic smile, there is no single magic potion to cure what ails you. If that was true, I’m pretty sure some clever marketer would have made sure everyone already knew about it.
SEM is a powerful tool in any marketing portfolio, it has a very effective edge in the industry because it’s highly trackable, highly targetted and at current, caters to a very desireable demographic (18-34 year olds) that everyone from Newspapers to Financial markets have been clamoring to pin down for a long, long time. Unless your product only fits a very small demographic that only surfs the web and has no TV, cellphone, never drives to work with their radio on, pass a billboard, reads a printed piece or attends a sponsorable event. SEM should always be part of a whole and have it’s own specific objectives in terms of success or at least, a good level of your expectations you have for it. While these expectations may or may not be achievable once you begin to reveal trends, information and relizations, it’s much easier to change an existing strategy that you began with than to start without one completely and try and create one midway just to have one.
Wait…I was going to summarize. Farvegnugen!
Off to another Session.
