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Immersing Yourself In Search 
By: Mr. Frog 2006-07-10 As curiosity (and in some quarters, anxiety) about Search Marketing continues to percolate through Corporate Americas executive suites, the demand for information about Search continues to strengthen.
At industry trade shows, more Search-oriented workshops and SEM vendor exhibits are popping up, and Search Engine Strategies (http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/), the industrys long-running trade show, has grown from a small, specialized show into a continually touring juggernaut which packs ballrooms in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Toronto, San Diego, Denver, Miami, and San Jose. Other forums, such as the Search Insider Summit (http://mediapost.com/searchinsidersummit/), which will be held on July 19th, in Keystone, Colorado, is less of a trade show than a 3-day think tank session whose workshops are conducted by Search industry insiders, brand marketers, and agency managers. Ad-tech (http://www.ad-tech.com/), another industry heavyweight, continues to gain steam joining the DMA conferences which more than ever are including search sessions. The context for the growth of the Search conferencing business is a long-awaited transformation of the advertising industry, which is under historic pressure to change the way it conducts business. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, about $112 billion of advertising in the U.S. " about half of the total spent -- is wasted. This enormous waste consists of messages sent to the wrong people, at the wrong time, in the wrong place. And yet most advertising dollars continue to be locked up in these old, untargeted channels: according to the Online Publishers Association, while consumers spent almost of their time online last year, online advertising received less than 1/17th of total spending. But dollars are now beginning to flow from untargeted to targeted media, and Search, which has gone from a $0 to a $6 billion per year industry in less than six years, is now considered to be the core component of any integrated marketing plan. But while the mainstream business world is waking up to Search, its still having a hard time understanding how it works. Although the engines do their utmost to make it easy to get up and running with their ad platforms, running Search campaigns that actually deliver the desired results isnt a matter of pressing a few buttons and waiting for the magic to happen. Instead, running campaigns that actually work is a complex, daunting discipline with a steep learning curve, a fluency with campaign management technologies, and a strategic understanding about ones long-term business objectives. While its possible to gain insight into the process by reading the right Blogs, theres no better way than a conference to give yourself a crash course in the strategies and tactics used in the marketplace today and those which will appear tomorrow. Conferences provide intensive hands-on tactical sessions discussing industry best practices, advanced campaign management tools offered by the engines and third-parties, research findings, and other tactical advice. Most of them include Q & A sessions, which gives you a chance to get feedback on a specific issue relevant to your business needs. Then, theres the social networking aspect. Even in an age of instant communications, there is often no substitute for being able to sit down with a Google engineer and talk in plain language about issues that matter to you. And if youre involved in this industry as a service provider, consultant, or practitioner, there are plenty of networking possibilities for you. Search conferences may seem expensive (for a full conference pass, SES charges between $1,700 and $1,000; Search Insider Summit almost $2,500); but the information youll be gaining will be indispensable to your future in this industry and may allow you to either save thousands or more likely get you tens of thousands of dollars in additional profit. The thorny question is whether you can justify the expense to your boss. How can you justify the cost (which, after you count up airfare and hotels, may break the $3,500 mark? Well, if youre spending in the neighborhood of $3,000 a month on search ($36,000 per year), and the new skills you gain let you realize a 10 percent increase in the efficiency of your paid search campaigns, youll have covered these costs nicely. If you are a larger marketer, spending hundreds of thousands per month optimizing thousands of pages for SEO, youll see a payback almost immediately. If youre working for a company which realizes that Search is strategic to its future, youll have another way to phrase this question: given how quickly the industry is moving and how important Search is, how can your company afford NOT to send you? P.S. Mr. Frogs team at Did-it often gets discount pass opportunities for conferences. If you are interested in attending any of the top conferences send me an e-mail at mr.frog@did-it.com. Tags: search conferences Add to Del.icio.us | DiggThis | Yahoo! My Web | Furl About the Author: Mr. Frog is a leading Search industry visionary. Mr. Frog is a member of the Did-it Search Marketing team which accompanies him to most major marketing conferences. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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