Query-based Marketing

It's been a while since I've gotten this question, but my dad and I were recently talking about my job again. He turned to me, like he's done in the past, and asked once again, "What exactly do you do?" So I tried to keep it simple and replied that my job is to put text ads on Google. And very practically, he responded, "Your job will probably become obsolete."

The more I tried to justify my job, the more I realized putting ads on Google or Bing is just a small fraction of what I do. Thus, I think it's time to ditch the name Search Engine Marketing (SEM). It's gotten to the point where this old title is too restrictive when compared to what search engine marketers actually do. In their never-ending quest for information, people are moving beyond the search engine for research. If you compare Google to all of the other ways people are searching out there rather than just the big three search engines, I'll be you'll find that Google has actually been losing market share.

Query-based Marketing (QBM) is a more appropriate name for the practice. The goal of query-based marketing is maintaining presence wherever people are searching, whether it's on a search engine or something else. Whenever someone is looking for information, a brand should be where it's relevant.

With a new name like Query-based Marketing, the marketer's goal is not just to optimize the most cost efficient ad on a search engine. It's much grander than that. I think the goal is to manage sponsored pull-marketing opportunities, where searchers are already requesting content about a product or service. This opens up the future for SEM, where marketers get better at predicting questions before someone even asks it. It looks like I'm about to get into the premonition business.

Perhaps this is one of those "a rose by any other name.." scenarios, but there have been times when a simple name change affected the whole goal of an operation. And if that's the only outcome of a name change, I'm already on board with it.