Tuesday, January 22, 2008

How to sell Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

I’ve received several questions from different agencies regarding which is in my opinion the best way to sell SEO. With this post I would like to share my opinion on what I believe is the best way to sell it.

When trying to convince a decision maker to invest in SEO, you will need the proper ammunition in order to attract their interest, for example:

Personally, I like to start with an impact statement… For example:

1. We all know that Search Engine Marketing has changed the marketing world as we know it! Today branding is being transferred from the marketer to the consumer via Google, Yahoo and MSN regardless of whether or not the final purchase is made online, information obtained on the internet is shaping brand opinion and purchasing behavior, many people are continuously struggling to get noticed in the world of the Internet.

2. Websites are growing like mushrooms everywhere, every time. How can a company website get past the millions of other websites and eventually be noticed by its target audience? Search Engine optimization aims to achieve the goal of getting more visitors to a website by helping it get higher rankings in the search engines. This simply means that search engine optimization's goal is to make a website appear on the first pages, if not the first page of a search done through the search engine.

3. Try some statistics (IT ALWAYS WORKS and Marketing directors love it): 74 percent of online customers research products and services online before buying. 77 per cent of people use the top 5 NATURAL results. 71 per cent of people say search engines are their most trusted source of information. 80 per cent of all internet journeys now start with a search. Recent research indicates that marketing spend on SEO will potentially surpass the investment made in paid search this year in the UK for 2008

Some of the problems I’ve noticed through the years which the sales team might face when pitching SEO to senior executives and directors could include the CEO’s/ Marketing Director’s lack of knowledge about the subject, sometimes they get a perception of SEO as a ‘dark technical art’ or their requirements for specific evidence that they will get a return on the investment for the money they put in. That is why your pitch should be less technically driven and more marketing driven.

Here are more tips on selling the benefits of SEO:

1. SEO vs Traditional Marketing

Search engine optimization has become one of the most cost effective alternative compared to traditional direct marketing methods. The CEO (client) will be interested in any savings that it can make on the company’s current marketing spend. You can tell the CEO that:

* Effective search engine optimization allows your brand to target potential customers at a lower cost per acquisition than methods such as email marketing, magazines or direct mail.
* By securing first page positions in the search engines for your brand and selected keywords, you are guaranteed to increase sales, increase ROI, increase the efficiency of all media spend and improve brand awareness.

2. Measuring ROI from SEO

If the CEO is concerned about demonstrating the ROI of SEO, there are many ways in which this can be managed. You can suggest the following indicators to the CEO as ways of measuring the effects of SEO:

* Website Visits
* Sales (Online/Off line)
* Website inquiries
* Website registrations

3. Corporate affairs

In my opinion managing a brand online is not just the concern of the marketing department but should encompass corporate affairs, customer services and beyond. This is a critical area for the CEO to consider. You can tell him that:

* Ignoring the search dynamic can have bad effects on a corporate image. Take this for example: Land Rover, completely burn in the search engines for their allegedly faulty products are good to highlight. Land Rover search results
http://www.google.co.uk/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=Land+Rover+Discovery&meta
*
* According to a statistic I found in Technorati there are now 109 million blogs online, so if just a few authoritative bloggers discuss a brand negatively it can have really bad consequences in the search engines.

All these factors combined should help to persuade anyone of the importance of SEO. Notice that we’ve hardly highlighted any technical points.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Internet Marketing- "The number one media"

It is now clear that the Internet has become the fastest and largest media in Sweden. We owe this to the effectiveness and scalability which Internet Marketing provides.

We speculated about this 2 years ago, just around the time Google had become the world's largest media company with a market cap of 80 billion US Dollars in 2005. Google had overtaken media giant Time Warner which had a market cap of 78 million US Dollars at the time.

Not only is Internet more cost effective than all other media channels, it also provides a high targeted value within your specific vertical.