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.
Showing posts with label advertising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advertising. Show all posts
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
My Relationship with Brands
It just took me over 20 minutes to look up the name of my Management & Organizational Analysis professor, but I finally emerged victorious (working in search really hones your sleuthing skills). The reason I was Googling Reinhard Bachmann was because I wanted to admit that I finally understand the importance of his book Trust Within and Between Organizations. I never thought I'd actually be using information from my MOA class. It seemed like a colossal waste of time the whole time I was taking it (and long after), but I find myself thinking about the lessons more and more these days.
The personification of brands is not an uncommon practice. Ronald McDonald is the first example that comes to mind. But the difference between the brands of yore and the brands today is that today our information about brands come from a multitude of locations. Even though some people might find Ronald McDonald creepy, our image of him is still something carefully crafted by the wizards at McDonald's Corporation. And for the longest time, Ronald equaled McDonald's; when someone thought of McDonald's, Ronald was not far behind. Fast forward a couple of years, and Ronald is no longer the first thing people think of. With today's access to information, the customer service, the sustainability of the food, Supersize Me, and Ronald all hold keys to determining McDonald's brand in the minds of its stakeholders. Now if I were to personify McDonald's, Ron English's fat Ronald is more on target than the kind Ronald in charge of Ronald McDonald House Charities.
Which one is more on brand?
I believe that brand personification has a new meaning these days. It's not just about creating a character for your brand. Aunt Jemima, Mr. Clean, and Eddie from Accounting are no longer the sole brand reps. The new brand character is the imaginary person you invent in your head when you combine all of the information you've learned about a brand. BP might claim it's a green company, but in my mind BP is a woman who claims she has a compost heap but in reality just throws all her trash in her neighbor's yard.
This is where I start thinking about how trust plays into today's world of brand definition. If a corporation says one message through its marketing channels, but somehow consumers experience another message, trust in the brand decreases. In order to gain the consumers' trust, a company has to make sure that the brand message from all angles is consistent. That doesn't mean making sure advertising campaigns match what's in the corporate press releases. I mean taking the time to ensure that actions match the words. Would anybody ever trust a person who promised to help move furniture while running quickly in the opposite direction? No. Then why would anyone trust a company that does the same thing?
If a company manages to earn trust, consumers (aka the trusting party) will be more willing to allow the feeling of vulnerability and follow a company as it grows. I know that people make mistakes so I'm willing to forgive and forget if someone I trust fucks up occasionally. If someone I don't trust screws up, that just reinforces the belief that I shouldn't trust that person. I hold corporations to the same standard.
The role of search and social influence marketing is becoming more important in determining the brand character people build in their minds and in helping corporations maintain consistent brand messaging. Both of these channels are able to interact with people just as they're thinking about the brand. The power of search ads comes from their ability to address needs at the exact time someone wants answers. Twitter and the likes take that to the next level by allowing direct communication with the brand. JetBlue understands that. Zappos understands that. Intel sorta gets it but still mostly pushes corporate news.
So my one bit of advice is to be true to who you are. People will appreciate the honesty. Don't pretend to be someone you're not because you will always be found out in the end.
The personification of brands is not an uncommon practice. Ronald McDonald is the first example that comes to mind. But the difference between the brands of yore and the brands today is that today our information about brands come from a multitude of locations. Even though some people might find Ronald McDonald creepy, our image of him is still something carefully crafted by the wizards at McDonald's Corporation. And for the longest time, Ronald equaled McDonald's; when someone thought of McDonald's, Ronald was not far behind. Fast forward a couple of years, and Ronald is no longer the first thing people think of. With today's access to information, the customer service, the sustainability of the food, Supersize Me, and Ronald all hold keys to determining McDonald's brand in the minds of its stakeholders. Now if I were to personify McDonald's, Ron English's fat Ronald is more on target than the kind Ronald in charge of Ronald McDonald House Charities.
Which one is more on brand?
I believe that brand personification has a new meaning these days. It's not just about creating a character for your brand. Aunt Jemima, Mr. Clean, and Eddie from Accounting are no longer the sole brand reps. The new brand character is the imaginary person you invent in your head when you combine all of the information you've learned about a brand. BP might claim it's a green company, but in my mind BP is a woman who claims she has a compost heap but in reality just throws all her trash in her neighbor's yard.
This is where I start thinking about how trust plays into today's world of brand definition. If a corporation says one message through its marketing channels, but somehow consumers experience another message, trust in the brand decreases. In order to gain the consumers' trust, a company has to make sure that the brand message from all angles is consistent. That doesn't mean making sure advertising campaigns match what's in the corporate press releases. I mean taking the time to ensure that actions match the words. Would anybody ever trust a person who promised to help move furniture while running quickly in the opposite direction? No. Then why would anyone trust a company that does the same thing?
If a company manages to earn trust, consumers (aka the trusting party) will be more willing to allow the feeling of vulnerability and follow a company as it grows. I know that people make mistakes so I'm willing to forgive and forget if someone I trust fucks up occasionally. If someone I don't trust screws up, that just reinforces the belief that I shouldn't trust that person. I hold corporations to the same standard.
The role of search and social influence marketing is becoming more important in determining the brand character people build in their minds and in helping corporations maintain consistent brand messaging. Both of these channels are able to interact with people just as they're thinking about the brand. The power of search ads comes from their ability to address needs at the exact time someone wants answers. Twitter and the likes take that to the next level by allowing direct communication with the brand. JetBlue understands that. Zappos understands that. Intel sorta gets it but still mostly pushes corporate news.
So my one bit of advice is to be true to who you are. People will appreciate the honesty. Don't pretend to be someone you're not because you will always be found out in the end.
Friday, October 24, 2008
This is where I talk about work
It's hard to believe that I've already reached the 6 month anniversary at work. Time really goes by fast when there are mountains of things to do. But what is it that I do?
I have no clue who's reading this, but I'm going to bet that those who are don't fully comprehend what Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is. That's not me being elitist; that's me admitting that I work in a really niche field. But it's a really niche field that fully appeals to my love for marketing, advertising, and numbers.
There are many types of advertising. Commercials you see on TV, ones you hear on the radio, pop up ads, etc. I work with the most glamorous of them all... the ads that appear when you search for something on a search engine. Go ahead. Type something generic into Google. Say.. "dogs". Someone created those text ads you see across the top of the results and along the right hand side. I didn't create those, but I do something of the same ilk. I think of keywords that people might use to search for our product. All keywords are sold on an auction system. For example, having an ad show up for "dog" would be more expensive than using "little black labrador" because more people search for "dog" and will therefore see your ad more often. So once I have a list of keywords I want to use, I figure out how much I want to pay for each of them
Yet paying for keyword space is not even half of what I do. If it were as easy as throwing money at search engines, everybody would be doing it, and the richest companies would have the best positions all of the time. But the search engines are smarter than that. Yes, one way of getting your ad to show up is by spending the most money. However, your ad also needs to appeal to people using search engines. On a very basic level, appeal is calculated by the percentage of clicks on your ad for every time someone sees the ad (also called 'click-through rate'). That means that the most exciting part of the game is to try to find ways to get people to click on your ad more often than they click on your competitors' ads.
That's what I spend a good majority of my time doing. I'm constantly working with numbers to see what factors can be manipulated in order to get more people to click on our ads. Sometimes, changing just a single word in the ad gets it more clicks. It's often fascinating watching numbers show the immediate effects of your changes and the long-term effects of the economy playing a part in what people are searching for.
Can I say this is what I'll be doing forever? I don't know. Do I love what I'm doing? Absolutely. I learn more and more every day with some of the smartest SEM professionals that I know. And I definitely look forward to learning more.
I have no clue who's reading this, but I'm going to bet that those who are don't fully comprehend what Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is. That's not me being elitist; that's me admitting that I work in a really niche field. But it's a really niche field that fully appeals to my love for marketing, advertising, and numbers.
There are many types of advertising. Commercials you see on TV, ones you hear on the radio, pop up ads, etc. I work with the most glamorous of them all... the ads that appear when you search for something on a search engine. Go ahead. Type something generic into Google. Say.. "dogs". Someone created those text ads you see across the top of the results and along the right hand side. I didn't create those, but I do something of the same ilk. I think of keywords that people might use to search for our product. All keywords are sold on an auction system. For example, having an ad show up for "dog" would be more expensive than using "little black labrador" because more people search for "dog" and will therefore see your ad more often. So once I have a list of keywords I want to use, I figure out how much I want to pay for each of them
Yet paying for keyword space is not even half of what I do. If it were as easy as throwing money at search engines, everybody would be doing it, and the richest companies would have the best positions all of the time. But the search engines are smarter than that. Yes, one way of getting your ad to show up is by spending the most money. However, your ad also needs to appeal to people using search engines. On a very basic level, appeal is calculated by the percentage of clicks on your ad for every time someone sees the ad (also called 'click-through rate'). That means that the most exciting part of the game is to try to find ways to get people to click on your ad more often than they click on your competitors' ads.
That's what I spend a good majority of my time doing. I'm constantly working with numbers to see what factors can be manipulated in order to get more people to click on our ads. Sometimes, changing just a single word in the ad gets it more clicks. It's often fascinating watching numbers show the immediate effects of your changes and the long-term effects of the economy playing a part in what people are searching for.
Can I say this is what I'll be doing forever? I don't know. Do I love what I'm doing? Absolutely. I learn more and more every day with some of the smartest SEM professionals that I know. And I definitely look forward to learning more.
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