December 2008 Archives
Dec19

My Dream Search MBA Class

Posted at 11:05 PM • One Comment

Now that search is starting to become more of staple in companies marking mix, I’m starting to see people asking about how to earn a degree (or at least take classes) in search marketing. While many firms offer classes for clients or as part of consulting packages, only a hand full of schools even offer classes on digital marketing; forget about find a legit class on SEO/SEM. That has recently caused me to ask myself what I would expect from a Search Marketing MBA. Since I’m a big Purdue fan, I’m going to use their MBA program overview to help build the Dream MBA in Search. After taking the required classes that every MBA has to take, I would finish my degree with these 7 elective classes:

  1. Digital Marketing Mix: How Users Interact With Brands Online
  2. Advanced Online Analytical Analysis: Understanding Users through Data
  3. Online Customer Communication Skills: Building Content People Want
  4. Search IT 501: Servers and Languages
  5. Search IT 601: Understanding Coding Languages
  6. Search IT 701: Advanced Server and Database Creation and Maintenance
  7. Advanced Online Customer Communication Skills: Perfecting Viral

Digital Marketing Mix: How Users Interact With Brands Online:

There are few people that understand one aspect of digital marketing, regardless of multiple channels. Being an expert in online display advertising as well search isn’t nearly as important as understanding how they affect each other. How does blogging about SEO lead to usage of twitter, which leads to people creating fan pages on Facebook, to people idolizing your brand, to people searching on Yahoo for your site, to people purchasing your product? Understanding how to manipulate the different mediums (both Paid and Free mediums) to one’s advantage is clutch.

Advanced Online Analytical Analysis: Understanding Users through Data:

Search is 1 part science and 1 part math. Read one of Lance Neuhauser’s words of wisdom on the topic to see what I mean. Search is one of, if not the, most data driven forms of media. We gain real data on what people actually DO, not just think they do. That is a big difference in thinking, and means that marketers need to know how to slice and dice data to its full extent. The science behind the Search comes in the way you can segment data and analyze consumer behavior based on a number of factors.

The Advanced Online Analytical Analysis class would be one part Stats (regression analysis, statistical significance, etc.), one part math (evaluating CTR, Bounce Rate, and coming up with math that creates KPI’s that we haven’t thought of yet), one part web analytics training, and finally one part test creation (because that knowing math doesn’t help if you can’t implement the findings). The better one is at segmenting data, the better they will be at Search.

Online Customer Communication Skills: Building Content People Want:

Look content is king on the internet. It doesn’t matter if the desired content is video, audio, or text, without content the internet wouldn’t exists. Marketers need to understand how to write and produce for the internet. Taking into account SEO, SEM, User Engagement, and closed-loop-marketing, marketers need to understand the ins and outs of creating content. This class would include basic PR practices, as well as video editing and directing skills, as well as trainings on how to strategically come up with content that links business objectives to people’s needs.

Search IT:

Three classes, one would think that this be the longest class description. In fact, it is one of the shortest. In order for search marketing to work, computers and humans must all work in harmony. Users have to be able to early use the digital content at hand, while spiders have to be able to read it. Because IT is so complicated, 3 classes would be a great start at understanding all of the ins and outs of what a SEO/SEM Guru needs to know.

Advanced Online Customer Communication Skills: Perfecting Viral:

At some point, online marketers have to stretch out from the class room to the real world. The last class would be pulling everything together. The text book would be The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. This class would be all about taking content, developing a plan to distribute it in a way that allows it to go viral, analyze the response by segmenting all available data, and presenting a case as to why the program was a success or failure (depending on the strategy and desired results).

If you’re reading this and are a professor, feel free to contact me to make the class a reality. Cheers.

Dec12

Starting An SEO Marketing Plan

Posted at 11:21 PM • No Comments

In the spirit of the season, I have been extremely active on Yahoo Answerers helping those lesser SEO Ninjas trying to figure their way through this online marketing world. One of the biggest questions I see is, “how do I get more traffic to my site.” While it’s not easy the fist step is to create a plan. My normal response to a friend I was conversating with through email looks a lot like this:

So you have a website and want to know what to do next? The days of “you build it, they will come” are long over. So, how do you start getting traffic?

The first step is to make a plan. You won’t be able to get anywhere if you don’t have a plan. I once wrote that you should write a plan down, but since then I have realized that actually taking the time to writing every step down is less important the smaller the organization. It is a great idea to jot down as many ideas as possible (or use a tape recorder to help organize your thoughts). During your brainstorm process, try answering these questions.

Basic Questions:

  1. What is my product?
  2. Why would anyone want to buy my product?
  3. What makes me unique from everywhere else?
  4. What do my customers want?
    1. Do I have Google Analytics or Web Analytics program tracking my website traffic?

Once you have those questions answered, the next general question to answer is “where.” Where do you promote your site? To answer that question, answer these questions:

  1. How much money do I have for a marketing budget (none is ok, but you get what you pay for)?
  2. How many hours do I have each day to work on my marketing (if it is none and you have no money then you have a problem)?
  3. Where are the different places you can promote your site?
    1. Facebook?
    2. MySpace?
    3. Search Engines: Google/Yahoo/Live.com/Ask.com/AOL.com?
    4. Twitter?
    5. Craig’s List
    6. Blogs?
    7. Mobile Phones?
    8. Any Other Places?
  4. Can long can you wait to generate profit?
  5. What is my bottom line profitability on each product I sell?
  6. Where can I go for help?
    1. People
    2. Blogs
    3. Online Resources
  7. What type of opportunity is out there for each category?
  8. What can I accomplish on my own and what do I need help with?

Answer as many of those questions HONESTLY and you will have a big jump on most of your competition. The next step is to make a plan on things you want to try.

  1. What can I accomplish now vs. what I need to push off?
  2. How much can I afford to do now (in terms of time and/or money)?
  3. What will make the biggest impact now?
  4. What do I know how to do myself? What can I figure out by myself with help? What do I need to pay for?

Prioritize the list so that you can implement the areas of your plan with the biggest impact that cost the least amount of resources (time and/or money). Then you can make a determination of what you want to do and when. Marketing is a slow effort (unless you have an endless amount of money to spend), and you need to put out the effort to make things happen. The harder you work at your marketing, the less money you will have to spend and the more successful you will be.
If you can answer the bulk of these questions, most likely you will be miles ahead of your competition. Good luck.

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Dec11

Twittering with the Best of Them

Posted at 6:57 PM • No Comments

So, I have been listening about this twitter thing for a while.  Being an “expert” in SEO (and all things related) means that I should probably get off my lazzy butt and setup a Twitter account of my own.   Check it out my new Twitter Account: Nathan Janitz Twitter Account

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Dec5

Resolution Media Shines at the CIMA STAR Awards

Posted at 5:14 PM • No Comments

Last night at the CIMA annul Holiday Party, Resolution Media won an award for “Best Search Program” for the year. The highlights read:

“The launch of G2 was definitely a group effort by several agencies within the Omnicom family (OMD, Element 79, Fleishman Hillard, TPN) and RM would also like to recognize them for all their work that led up to the launch’s success. Kudos to the RM team that managed the search program for the G2 launch: Stacie Susens, Nathan Janitz, Chris Kanellakes, Tomas Muriel, Haley Fierstein & Jackie Kerby”

Notice that my name was mentioned?  Yep, I was one of the master minds behind the program.  To be honest, when Stacie and I started crafting that strategy, neither one of us thought that this could win anything.  We were just to DR focused Search Experts in a room with a whiteboard trying to craft a strategy for a CPG client with a Brand Awareness and Engagement strategy.   CK, Tomas, Haley, and Jackie all helped fill in the wholes of our original brain storm.  While I’m never one about awards (yes, I understand the marketing implementations, but I’m more worried about my client’s success), it does feel good to be part of a team reconized for an award.

As everyone in the office knows, I’m a huge Purdue Basketball fan (well, actually I love everything Purdue).  For the longest time their internal tag line was, “Together We Attach.”  Kind of how I feel about the entire RM family.  We wouldn’t have been recognized by our client, let alone for an award, if it wasn’t because of the hard work of the team as a whole.  Cheers to us all.

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