Kevin Lee on SEMPO’s 10th Anniversary

Didit Editorial

11 years ago

August 20, 2013: If you work in the search business, you’re likely familiar with SEMPO – the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization – through its annually issued State of Search Marketing surveys, which provide macro and micro-level data on industry spending and other trends.

But SEMPO does a lot more than issue reports; it provides education, training, networking, and other resources for search professionals. In an industry in which people move around a lot, and whose skill sets require continual updating, this is obviously a very important job.SEMPO was formed exactly 10 years ago, on August 20, 2003, so we wanted to use this milestone to reach out to Kevin Lee, one of SEMPO’s founding board members, to inquire about SEMPO’s first decade and ask where the organization might be going in the years ahead.

Question: What’s been the biggest challenge for SEMPO in its first decade?

Kevin Lee: Education of all the players of the ecosystem as to the importance of search visibility to marketers was a challenge in the earlier years of SEMPO. While search is a foundation of many online campaigns, to this day many marketers who use awareness and brand preference as their primary KPIs don’t fully appreciate the power of search marketing to deliver visitors to an immersive branding and education experience.

Question: What’s the current state of SEO/SEM education?

Kevin Lee: The third party webinar and conference education market has exploded in the last 5 years. Many of the best minds in the business have put together training. Most of the training is tactical and most of those seeking training are in fact looking for that. There may in fact still be a need for CMO-level education on the strategic value of search in relation to social media marketing and content marketing.

Question: The industry is a lot more professional than it was in 2003, and SEMPO has been a part of this evolution. What else needs to be done?

Kevin Lee: There is still a need for local education through networking.

Question: What role do you see SEMPO playing in its next decade?

Kevin Lee: SEMPO will need to determine how best to bridge the intersection between social media and content marketing as it relates to search.