I got a preview of the new book by: Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, both co-founders of HubSpot: Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (The New Rules of Social Media). A great read really. Since the in my ‘past life’ I was into the recruitment and jobs, it was really interesting to read the part about the Recruitment of the Marketing Team. Here is a short snippet:

What does this change mean for your marketing staff? Simply put, your hiring
criteria need to change and your way of measuring performance needs to change
along with it. The following is a suggested framework called DARC for hiring and
developing inbound marketing savvy employees.

• D = Hire Digital Citizens
• A = Hire for Analytical chops
• R = Hire for Web Reach
• C = Hire Content Creators

They also wrote a long list of the handy questions for the recruiters hiring Inbound marketing staff. The list is really, really good:

• What RSS reader do you use? Can you show it to me?
• What blogs do you read?
• Do you rank first for your name in Google?
• Do you use Delicious? Can you show it to me?
• Do you have a blog? Can you show it to me?
• Do you use Facebook or LinkedIn? When was the last time you updated
  your profile?
• Do you use Twitter? Can you show me?
• Do you have a channel on YouTube? Can you show it to me?

Interview questions about the Reach:

• How many subscribers to your blog? Do you talk about our industry on
  your blog or about personal stuff?
• How many Facebook followers do you have? Do you talk about our
  industry at all on your Facebook account?
• How many LinkedIn followers do you have?
• How many Twitter followers?

The writing style is extremely light. A complete novice to the digital marketing should have no problems following the book. There are tons of good tips, pointing a reader on how to organise the Inbound Marketing team in the eBook itself. Well worth reading!!!!

Half of marketing people would define Search Marketing as buying paid search listings. The other half would with the paid listings within the search marketing realm include the natural search results listing within the term of search marketing.

Half of them must be wrong – but which half?

The split is actually really down to the middle. While even the top online marketing institution: Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) includes search engine optimization (SEO), most of the Marketing Agencies who are providing the service to the customers would do a very basic onsite SEO, and pour the clients budgets in the paid search advertising. Google AdWords Pay per Click (PPC) program, would in most cases take at least of 80% of the search marketing budget.

So although in theory the Search Marketing should include the SEO, the reality is that if the client doesn’t specify exactly what they are looking for – most of their money goes to PPC. This is excellent for any short term, once off publicity campaign. It is great for a rock concert ticket sales or political activists in a month before the election (and silent for the next 4 years). But for a site where you need a constant stream of new web site traffic, and you plan to run the site for more than a month or two – Google AdWords or any other PPC is probably your worst enemy. It is quick and seductive because it delivers within hours. But it will also drain your budgets if not planned properly, and leave no funds left for the SEO.

The Search Engine Optimization on the other hand is extremely slow (in Interment marketing time). Some search agencies will tell you that you have to wait for months for the results! It is not measurable up front, and a lot of SEO experience is required to properly plan the SEO budgets.

So next time you think of ordering the search marketing services, think about what your goal is (long term or short gain), and ask your search marketing company where in the SEM will they spend your money in – Is it PPC or SEO?

Copywriting

• Web site copy
• Blog
• Press Releases
• Whitepaper
• Newsletter

Link Building

• Related Industry Directory
• Geographical Directory (your Local, or your  target market’s Local)
• Link exchange with related sites
• Blog commenting
• Forum participation

Branding

• Social Networking activity
• Company blog comments maintenance

Paid Advertising

• PPC
• Banners
• Link Purchases
• Blog or blog post sponsoring

As a general rule the best results are achieved if the budget is evenly spread between the marketing activity groups above. The tasks should be performed more or less in the sequence as listed above.

Each online marketing plan is specific to the companies activity on the web. It will contain clear goals and targets to be achieved. Make sure your online marketing budget is adequate to achieve your online marketing goals.