Kevin Lee: Agencies Need to Liberate Search Marketing From Its “Tactical” Silo

Didit Editorial

11 years ago

Kevin Lee

May 9, 2014: In his latest ClickZ column, Kevin Lee notes that “at many organizations, SEO and PPC search marketing tend to be thought of as “tactical” disciplines. Even social media – the new darling of the marketing ball – is often relegated to a tactical silo within some agencies or on the client side. For companies that aren’t currently able to simultaneously dominate both the paid and organic portions of the SERP, this situation has to change.”

Kevin goes on to recommend specific things that agencies engaged in Paid Search should do, among them being:

1) Develop a PPC and SEO data strategy. Keyword data informs the SEO, social, and even the broader marketing strategy of any modern integrated campaign. Understanding how keywords (and keyword themes) represent your brand’s storytelling efforts can provide valuable strategic insights for all of your marketing efforts.

2) Regard search as a metric, not just a form of advertising/media. Searchers are often prompted to begin query sessions because of exposure to some other marketing touch point (for example, a mention in a news story, an appearance in a TV drama, a remark of a friend, or other offline event). This fact makes search a valuable strategic tool.

3) Use PPC search marketing to get you the answer to a marketing question FAST. Have a new product idea, new positioning statement, new tagline, or new ad copy? There’s no better audience than the highly interested searcher. You can test these things not only at the landing page but even in the SERP. There can be extraordinary value in this kind of “virtual focus group” research; one can argue that results from this kind of consumer study.

4) Use PPC search to both harvest demand and create demand, depending on the mix of keywords and landing page messaging you select. While there are those who claim that there is no real brand lift on an unclicked ad, research from the IAB points otherwise. Plus, you only pay for the click, so any branding you get at the SERP is a bonus.

5) Realize that PPC listings in the SERP don’t only increase your revenue; they take revenue from the competition. In many businesses, customer acquisition results in a high lifetime customer value. Any time you miss an acquisition opportunity in search, chances are that opportunity is going to the competition. Search, in other words, is a strategic asset – both offensive and defensive – in the battle for market share.

6) Recognize that video search is a missing part of many marketing strategies. While you may not be able to sell immediately from sponsored video advertising (which isn’t generally PPC), it is an important part of educating consumers and prospects. YouTube, for example, has more than 1 billion users per month, watching 6 billion hours of video.

Read complete article at ClickZ.com:
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2343859/agencies-need-to-liberate-search-from-its-tactical-silo