The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
May 2007, Volume 6, Issue 5

Learning to Share: Consumer Insights and Search Marketing

by Ron Belanger, Vice President, Agency Development, Yahoo! Search Marketing

Why are all of us in search marketing so bad at sharing? No, I don’t mean the box of doughnuts at the Friday staff meeting. I mean sharing the pearls of wisdom we stumble across in our jobs on a daily basis. Is it because we are not asked, or because we do not know how valuable what we know is to the rest of the organization? It’s time that digital marketers – and search marketers in particular – start taking a seat at the marketing strategy table.

Correct Your Communication

In most organizations, the communication flow from the digital agency (or in-house team) to the brand stewards consists almost exclusively of performance results. For instance, “We sold this many widgets at this CPA,” is the focus of the conversation. Yet, the ancillary data that we gather can be combined to create powerfully seismic strategic shifts for an overall marketing plan.

Gather Fast Feedback

How can this be accomplished? First, most brand stewards have a notion of who the target customer should be for a given product or service. Often, the target demographic is guessed using macro industry data points and historical sales data as proof points. However, search has the potential to give us a much cleaner read on how our demographic guesses have fared through the data that accompany search behavior (available through both Yahoo! and Microsoft). From this, we can gather instant feedback on whether our message is actually resonating with target audiences. Why is this important? You would be surprised to find out how many times search activity does not follow in lockstep with assumptions. As an example, certain automobiles aimed at the teen marketplace have actually resonated with older adults.

Get the Scoop on Search

Another example of insights the executive team would relish is search trends. The ways in which consumers search reflect how our brands are being interpreted in the marketplace. For example, an increase in searches for a given product in March may signal increased demand in April. Is the supply chain ready for this onslaught of new orders? Are promotional plans in place to leverage this? On the flipside, a decrease in certain searches could signal a competitive disadvantage. What is causing this? How can you provide some prescriptive changes to the organization based on what you see? These are all valuable insights that can be gained from search.

Inform the Higher-Ups

A final area where search marketers can add incredible value to corporate strategy is message testing. With ad testing so pervasive in today’s search landscape, there are a tremendous amount of findings being compiled. The issue, however, is that the information rarely leaves the interactive group – if even it leaves the search team. If you’ve found that search copy highlighting the environmental upside of your new product produces higher engagement than a specification or price message, then that is a key learning the CEO would want to know. That type of information materially affects everything from product design, brand strategy, sales and almost every other aspect of the organization. Successful ad copy testing helps you learn incredible things about your consumers, so rolling up these findings into an executive summary will get you recognized as more than just the “search guy.”

Hopefully these insights have encouraged you to be better at sharing vital search information. It is only then that search marketers will earn our rightful seat at the corporate marketing strategy table.

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The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article: May 2007, Volume 6, Issue 5

Learning to Share: Consumer Insights and Search Marketing

The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
May 2007, Volume 6, Issue 5