We’re taking you back to SMX London, and what Brian Fetherstonhaugh, Chairman and CEO, OgilvyOne Worldwide was talking about in his review of the marketing space right now. One thing he mentioned was the “Marketers Hot Seat” in that marketers have been asked to innovate more ideas to reach customers. Not only that, but be more accountable to how campaigns are impacting sales.

Flickr Pic from Pedro Moura Pinheiro

If you are an in-house person, you are nodding your head viciously. Most in-house marketers, search or general, are asked to be super-people. Not that agencies or freelancers aren’t, but in-house people have a special relationship with the client. They don’t have the option to walk away. (Well they do, but it’s harder)

In-house SEMs have to be able to answer the most specific and on the spot questions about search traffic, site usage, and who bought what, when, where and why. Sometimes it’s almost like being asked to be mind readers and psychics.

At least it is easier today than it used to be. Brian was originally talking about how traditional marketers were asked to prove ROI and be innovative, and that was the “hot seat.” I would venture that this is why a large number of search marketers got into the space. It is where you can test, pull metrics, change, and test again, all within a matter of days. What is possible on the web isn’t possible in mediums like TV, radio and print.

When you are in the “Hot Seat,” here are some tips for cooling the flames.

1. Know Their Favorite Metrics Every client/CEO has their favorite metrics. Clicks, CTR, Impressions, Hits, you name it. Spend the first few weeks in any position and with any client figuring out what those are. Be sure to have a weekly report pulled before every meeting with those numbers. Have a fresh report every Monday as well, for those spur of the moment meetings.
2. Build a Testing Schedule With innovation, you have to be able to test it. Upper management doesn’t really care what word you used in the ad, how you changed the bidding, or if you capitalized the name of the company. They want the metrics results they can share with the board or managers. Give them a schedule of what you are testing generally, how long, and then a monthly report of the outcomes and next steps.
3. Utilize Internal Resources The best ideas come from people in the trenches. Become friends with the product managers, customer service agents, and others within the company. The more you can get them to talk to you about everyday issues, trials, and successes, the more you will have to play with. The best ideas are spawned from other people’s rantings. Innovation is not about marketing’s ideas, it’s marketing playing off the real life situations of the end user.
4. Know Your Site and Tracking Be sure that you know the internal ordering, tracking, sales, etc. systems used by the company. The more you know and can track, the better off you will be. Your ultimate goal is to be tracking every user from first visit to brand evangelist. Remember that the purchase is the most important metric, but it should not be where you stop tracking customers. Brand evangelists are the icing on the cake and your allies in future campaigns. Don’t forget them.
5. Know and Love Your IT Team There is no way around this. They hold the keys to the website, tracking, and every cool feature you want to do in the future. Want to do your own affiliate program someday? Want it to rock SEO as well? Buy them their favorite food, bribe them, do whatever to get and keep them on you good side. It’ll come in handy later.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 2:02 pm and is filed under Pay Per Click, PPC, PPC Monday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.