3 Reasons Not To Choose An Internet Marketing Company
Everyone loves lists. There are entire sites dedicated to top ten lists of everything from skin lotion to punk rock bands. I recently realized that I haven’t ever written anything in list format. A terrible, empty feeling began to overtake me. So while I may have missed the Hypercolor shirt trend when I was a kid (don’t remember Hypercolor? Shame on you!), I’m the kind of guy that will buy one off Ebay now just to say that I didn’t miss the trend completely.
This could be me!
Sad? Perhaps. But I’m going to make it count.
Speaking of counting, I figured I’d run in the opposite direction with my first attempt at “listing”. Having inherited a healthy dose of skepticism over the years, I figure it’s time to tell you what NOT to look for in an Internet marketing company, whether it be ad placement, pay per click management, search engine optimization or even web analytics. So let’s get to this list, shall we?
The first reason not to choose an Internet marketing company: They’re not business people. There are a million people out there offering search marketing services in particular, promising you number one rankings faster than you can microwave a bag of popcorn. First off, never trust someone that tells you this. Second, what’s the ultimate goal of their service? Clicks? Visits? How do they devise their keyword strategy? Do they understand your market? Do they have tangible business experience? If they don’t understand business, or if they don’t take the time to understand the uniqueness and complexities of your company, they likely won’t get you the results they want.
The second reason not to choose an Internet marketing company is if they lack a “face”. One of the first clients I worked with at Netvantage Makreting told us about some large faceless organization (that shall remain nameless) who sent them their SEO report each month showing some keywords went up, and some keywords went down. No explanations, no rhyme, no reason…just ranking reports. When they called to try to contact someone in regards to some further explanation, they would get redirected endlessly to someone who didn’t know or really seem to care who they were. You need a person or people that you have a direct relationship with that will act as a partner. If a company doesn’t offer a dedicated individual for your account, this is a huge red flag.
The third reason not to choose an Internet marketing company is a lack of transparency. I’ll be blunt. Much of what we do is NOT rocket science. Managing Google AdWords doesn’t take a degree in neuroscience from Stanford (and may not help at all, actually). It does take time, resources, inclination, and a pretty rounded marketing mind, however. I have always been straightforward with our smaller clients when I tell them that if I’m really doing my job well, and they have available time, they could eventually take over their campaign. Clients should be able to look at their raw data, otherwise, it’s too easy to cook the books or paint rosy pictures. If you can’t look at raw analytics, PPC data, or activity logs for SEO work, how will you hold this firm accountable. Whether you have any desire to ever look at this information is beyond the point. If there is any significant hesitation about transparency in information (aside from figuring out the best way to provide it to you), proceed with caution.
Of course it makes sense to do your standard due diligence when seeking out a vendor, but often times Internet marketing is outside the standard comfort zone of a lot of SMBs. This list should make a nice edition is you aim to trim down your list of potential providers.
Political reputation management via paid search
I wrote an article for American Chronicle before the end of the election titled “The Politics of Paid Search - Combating the Obama and Palin Rumors“. In it, I discussed how Obama’s camp did a far better job squelching the rumors largely spread via e-mail proclaiming many unsavory “facts” about the various candidates. As I’ve continued to see interest in this topic, I decided to dive deeper and see why people have spent so much time discussing how the Internet was utilized in this campaign.
One of the most prevailing rumors spread via email was that Obama was a Muslim. As i stated in my previous article, Obama’s team had put in place a paid search marketing campaign which appeared to be broad matching searches containing “Obama”, “Barack”, and “Muslim”. In the sponsored search listings, two Obama ads ran unopposed. The first as more of a catch-all, titled “Researching Barack Obama?” and a second targeted add proclaiming simply, “Barack Obama: Not Muslim” leading to his brilliantly assembled Fight the Smears site, which provides answers countering all of the misinformation which his team constantly updated.
So how important was this site? Well, if my numbers mean anything, quite a bit. Initial keyword volume research on Google shows an average of 226,616 searches per month pertaining to Obama and the word Muslim. Considering Google accounts for about 70 percent of search traffic now, overall monthly search traffic likely eclipsed 300,000. It would appear that the word of mouth and email campaigns on that subject raised quite a bit of interest. While I am not privvy to the click throughs from the paid search campaigns, Quantcast reported monthly traffic in October to the Fight the Smears website of 747,000 visitors.
Perhaps just as telling from the Quantcast numbers is the traffic to the Fight the Smears site’s affinity for factcheck.org, a site aimed at shooting down both candidates’ loose use of facts. That site showed monthly traffic of 2.1 million visitors. What does this mean? Well, it would appear that a growing number of Americans are utilizing the Internet as a reference tool. While I’m certain it drives the candidates crazy trying to deal with unfounded attacks spreading like wildfire via email and otherwise, it must comfort them to see that people are taking it upon themselves to utilize available resources to ascertain what is fact and what is fiction.
While Obama’s team pushed the envelope to new heights in utilizing technology as a strategic and fundraising tool, it will be interesting to see how politicians leverage paid search management, and the Internet in general, as a powerful tool. With more independent organizations making information readily available to the public, it will be interesting to see if politicians are held increasingly accountable for their less than truthful rhetoric.
Internet Marketing is all grown up…Let’s treat it that way.
Internet marketing does not need to be treated with kid gloves, so why do businesses still treat it that way? It’s time to put your online actions under the microscope.
The more I’m in this business, the more I see larger companies and organizations moving towards highly analytical approaches to their online marketing. This makes sense, as it’s such an important touch point for brand building, creating awareness of new products and services and making transactions. It certainly pays to know what’s going on as these companies pay for ad placements, buy up massive amounts of keywords in their pay per click marketing campaigns and invest significant resources in ongoin web development.
It’s the rest of the business world that scares me. In particular, I’m referring to those medium to small sized businesses that have stuck a toe in the pond, but haven’t yet jumped in. These are the organizations that I speak with who say things like, “We have an AdWords account, but we don’t really pay attention to it.”
Hold on a minute. What? How does this happen? I’ve never spoken with someone who said, “We advertise on Fox, but I don’t even know what commercial we run, how much it costs, or if it gets us any business.” Now, the latter piece of that statement might be true, but most certainly not the first two. Somehow, the Internet in all of its youth seems to be more of a pet project for a lot of small businesses instead of a serious, accountable marketing channel.
The tools are there to see where your dollars are going, if you’re getting a return, and most importantly it provides you with information to continuously adjust and optimize. So if you’re going to do it, really do it! Or, you could call someone like Netvantage and we can help! We’re nearing the end of the adoption curve here, and it’s time those at the end of the curve gain a proper understanding of how Internet marketing works so we can prove its effectiveness and place it in its rightful standing next to traditional marketing channels.
Finding a fresh perspective on Internet marketing
The more I look around at all things Internet marketing, and this is a must within our industry, the more I realize that despite the rather young nature of what we do, there are regular plateaus in innovation. And by this, I certainly do not mean the technology. Almost every day I’m testing some new feature or new tool that provides me more information that I can consume in new ways. Lost in all of this, however, is the ability to take this information and these tools and do something new.
The boards, the blogs, the articles seem to echo the same information more and more it seems. The last time I came across something that raised my eyebrows was when I stumbled across the Confessionss of an Underground Link Building Ninja. The focus of that article, was to dig into some truly outside the box ideas on external SEO. That got me to thinking about the stagnation that’s going on, and how to combat it. As I continue to move forward with my assortment of clients, I’m going to push myself to try new approaches and share them with you here. If I’m going to complain about it, I might as well be a part of the solution, right?
