A couple of weeks ago The Search Works asked me to kick off their client summit – The Search Sessions – at the fabulous Vinopolis by the river in London.
Honoured as I was, I thought it both polite and in my interest to stay on for the rest of the day and hear the other speakers. Very often I learn a great deal from being at these kind of affairs as I pick up nuggets of information or different points of view that are both thought provoking and provide interesting content for this blog and articles I write elsewhere.
The Search Works content did not disappoint.
Jeff Revoy and Dominic Allon were there from Yahoo! & Google respectively and provided talks which were informative and entertaining to say the least.
My favourite session was addressed by Gary Reid, TSW’s new Director of Search Performance.
Now there’s something comforting about a northerner talking about online marketing. Maybe it’s the southern bar steward in me, but I find the accent so organic and at odds with the cut and thrust of agency-land in the big smoke that a new level of trust is surpassed. If anyone gets a chance to hear Dave Naylor speak you should. He’s from Ripon!
Anyway, Gary’s talk was: “On The Edge of Search – The New Economics of Organic Search” and in a nutshell was approaching the subject of online/offline marketing integration and suggesting many companies hadn’t quite cracked it yet.
Gary gave a couple of examples where TV taglines gave spurious and in some cases brand-damaging results in the organic search results pages.
I’ve mentioned recently about how brands are battling on the box for our online time and it’s a crucial thing to try and do seeing as TV and Online have proved to be Better Together.
Gary’s tips:
- Pass consumers between channels with clear calls to action
- Develop a cross media message that is suitable for search
Ensure the call to action is:
- Easy to remember
- A product feature or benefit
- A slogan or marketing message
- A top performing key term
- Built around a key term you can dominate in SERP’s
Things to avoid:
- Don’t use URL’s in traditional media
- Avoid new phrases/generic phrases
- Don’t assume you can easily get a good position for a generic key term
- Don’t forget to assess the search landscape for possible threats
- Don’t discount possible competition for key terms you make popular
Not sure about not using URLs in traditional media. This is pretty new stuff so surely two bites of the cherry would be better than the chance of no searches or direct visits at all?
Maybe Gary will chime in and clarify.....
I may be guilty of being a “search” guy through and through, but I cannot see how the channel cannot be at the heart of every marketing campaign helping drive consumers through from awareness to purchase.
Making sure your product or service can be easily found is the whole point of marketing surely?
