Marshall will be speaking about “Implementing Your Search Marketing Strategy” at SearchFest 2011, which will take place on February 23rd at the Governor Hotel in Portland, Oregon. Tickets are available now. To purchase, please click the following link.
1) Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living (w/ links).
I’ve been working in the search industry since 1997 starting in the SEO Mecca, Bend, Oregon, with some of the greats in our space. I took a job with About.com in 1999 managing their search strategy for the 850 Guides as well as the entire About.com network. This entailed a massive education process in what was considered a very new area of promotion. I received invaluable experience in true strategic enterprise consulting when About.com was acquired by publishing conglomerate Primedia. This was my first foray working with and managing diverse (and sometimes competing) business models and teams across nearly 250 titles (e.g. MotorTrend, Seventeen, and American Baby) and nearly as many CMS platforms (angry fist shake at all-things-Vignette). In 2005 About.com was purchased by The New York Times Company. My job then extended to include the Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune and all 160 years of the NYT.com archives (over 22 million pieces of content) with strict editorial procedures. It was also in 2005 when joining the NYT, I got the go ahead to start Define Search Strategies – a boutique consultant group specializing in enterprise level SEO and SMO working with top brands and the major blue chip publishers. In 2011 I officially spun Define off from the NYT under the new name Define Media Group, Inc. We harness some of the best industry minds and experience in search and social marketing. Define excels at executing large audience development campaigns. Our priorities are diagnosing and fixing big sites, educating organizations, and leveraging institutional knowledge to achieve business objectives.
2) What “stakeholders” are necessary participants for an Enterprise-level business to create and implement a search strategy?
It certainly isn’t news that C-level buy in is critical for a search strategy to gain early momentum. Hearing SVPs, CTOs, CMOs, CEOs and any other O issue marching orders around the new optimized content creation and promotion strategy is also essential and bears repeating. It’s only one of many important hurdles though. In our experience, early in an engagement the technology department is absolutely the pathway to success. Their efforts ensure a solid foundation, meaning functionality is in place to support those creating content, address indexation concerns and add necessary fixes to the queue. As for the individual stakeholders, our success has been through interacting with those at the Director and Manager level. Depending on the organization, directors typically sit one tier down from the decision makers and are tasked with carrying out new initiatives. They are also the resource gatekeepers. Director of Client Tech, Audience Development, Operations Deputy Editors, for example, are heavily entrenched into the workflow process and can reprioritize agenda items. This means they have the power to manipulate timelines, roadmaps and shift resources.
Some lessons learned:
1. The bigger the organization the harder and longer it is to fix the problem(s) – and you’ll probably have to fix the same problem again at some point.
1a. That’s not frustration you’re feeling; it’s opportunity and even better, job security.
2. Editorial teams don’t care who you are or whose buy-in you may have, acceptance is earned *after* you learn their process.
3. SEO Style guides go a long way.
3) How can an Enterprise-level business choose a search marketing firm that best fits their unique needs?
I recommend talking to as many as possible but more importantly go in with a clear understanding of those “unique needs.” Know the history and roadmap of each brand in your network prior to the conversation. SEO doesn’t need much of an introduction nowadays and it’s safe to say many brands will understand the basic tenants of SEO and can move on to advanced techniques. More importantly, if you can’t provide the necessary tech/product/editorial resources to execute the recommendations you’re wasting money hiring consultants (and the smart ones will probably sniff this out and pass on the opportunity).
That said…If your portfolio spans 20+ key brands, does the marketing firm you are considering have an approach that will scale accordingly and convey IP and process? This doesn’t mean working with an agency that hands off responsibility to a jr. account manager armed with a checklist. What you need is a highly engaged and dedicated team with experience and situational awareness that understands and can anticipate the typical corporation missteps and navigate the enterprise environment.
Other considerations; direct experience in a given industry or category within a segmented market, check references, listening and digging through the pitch to learn a firm’s true strengths.
Finally, know the model that will work best for you and your team: do you need an embedded strategist where the firm is the internal SEO team, or a pure consultant validating, auditing and training where needed, or supporting role for the current SEO or in-house team. All have benefits and ultimately comes down to the most practical fit.
Todd Mintz knows PPC…knows Social Media…knows SEO…knows Blogging…knows Domaining…and knows them all real well. He runs growth marketing for )and is also a Director & Founding Member of SEMpdx: Portland, Oregon’s Search Engine Marketing Association, and he can be found here on Twitter and Facebook.