With the growth in global Internet traffic, and the increasing demands placed on search results by the surfer who anticipates that the desired returns will not only be on the first results page but will be number one on the charts, an increased demand for efficiency in search engine optimization practices has also grown. Because of the increase in structured content on the Web, and the explosion in the new growth arenas of unstructured content such as blogs, video, audio, and the ever-morphing algorithms of search engines, the Aberdeen Group study had to be inclusive when it defined search engine marketing. As a result, the definition of SEM was broadened to include paid search, paid inclusion, and organic search.
With a broader definition of SEM established, the Aberdeen Group study sought to uncover what drove organizations toward an SEM investment. Of the organizations employing an SEM strategy at the time of the survey, 51% reported that their prime reason for investing in SEM was the need to drive better conversion, followed closely by 44% of respondents who tagged higher website traffic as the prime goal. Two other reasons for venturing into SEM tied at 26%, those being increase in brand awareness and increase in revenue and profit. No matter how these number are cut, the underlying theme hidden in the matrix is that organizations that are tops in their field see SEM strategies as a vital component for conversion to sales.
To enable an organization to jump from withering in the bitter hinterland of non-SEM to the place of privilege and bounty occupied by the SEM-believers, the Aberdeen Group study wrapped the effort into a best-in-class PACE model (PACE being an acronym for Pressures, Actions, Capabilities, and Enablers). In the study, the number one pressure identified by SEM compliant organizations was found to be the need to drive better conversion numbers. The study identified three actions stemming from this pressure, those being, 1) to develop expertise in SEM, 2) to coordinate SEM with other marketing channel efforts, and 3) to balance SEM spending. The SEM capabilities identified in the study are numerous but they can be basically reduced to an au-jus of providing analytics for tracking, tabulating historical data, the adjustment of SEM initiates, and placing benchmarks in the system to keep SEM accountable to sales while building the SEM team. Enablers in this study were identified as campaign management, website keyword density, and customer relationship management.
While the study identified similar numbers between best-in-class and other organizations when it came to industry pressure to adopt SEM, the survey also uncovered two interesting differences between the two camps when it came to taking action to meet these pressures. Firstly, best-in-class organizations are far more likely to balance their SEM spending. And secondly, best-in-class organizations are far less likely to raise the importance of SEM efforts on the corporate stage. This is to say that best-in-class organizations understand that marketing is a system, not a knee-jerk reaction to trends.
For more on online marketing, please visit the Online Marketing Blog. Up next, we’ll investigate the best-in-class strategy of a well-balanced marketing effort.
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