I just returned from two days in Seattle at the Search Marketing Expo Advanced conference put on by Danny Sullivan and Third Door Media.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty good conference.  It was short (2 days), convenient in Seattle and the content was on the intermediate to advanced side.  I won’t bore you with the details here, but you can read Search Engine Roundtable for great summaries of the sessions and Tanya at HP has a good SEO blog with an overview of the organic track and sessions.

But this post isn’t about the conference…instead I want to cover a conversation I had at lunch on the first day with Gord Hotchkiss, president of Enquiro Search Solutions.  Gord and I were discussing staffing difficulties as a result of our companies being located outside of major metro areas (Enquiro is based in Kelowna, British Columbia…a stunningly beautiful part of Canada, and Balihoo is located in Boise, Idaho).  We were lamenting the difficulties of finding entry and mid-level search talent as well as retaining anyone who develops a significant amount of experience in the area.  It’s simply such a hot area and so new that it’s a challenge to find experienced people. 

This conversation got me to thinking about the skill-set a search marketer develops and how those skills apply to the broader marketing industry.  I firmly believe that search marketing skills (specifically paid search) are the foundation by which the next generation of marketers will be successful.  Think of how it’s different from traditional marketing:

• The “user” is in control…they are interacting with a media source (search engine) to actively identify what they are looking for
• Targeting can be extremely finite…an entire marketing program (ad, landing page, conversion) can be targeted down to a single keyword, a single user.  Geo-targeting, day-parting and specific keywords allow the marketer to present a set of extremely targeted messages to their specific audience
• Metricability is extreme…you can follow customer behavior at every click, every point they’re interacting with your message.  You can clearly and distinctly understand the ROI of your marketing programs. 

The items identified in the bullets above:  user control, finite targeting and metricability all the skills that are going to be driving marketing moving forward.  Sophisticated marketers in the future are going to embrace these ideals and use technology like search engines and the Balihoo application to implement marketing and advertising campaigns that are meaningful to their customer base. 

Resources:

• SEMPO Institute offers some great entry-level and advanced courses to learn search marketing
• Balihoo is going to allow you to find the perfect media for your advertising opportunities to reach your target market.  Sign-up to be notified when it’s available.