Chris will be giving the Closing Keynote at SearchFest 2011, which will take place on February 23rd at the Governor Hotel in Portland, Oregon. Tickets are available now. To purchase, please click the following link.
1) Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living.
I was born in Belgium, raised in EU and Australia before settling in to US for High School and since. I was fortunate to learn French and Dutch along the way. I served in the USMC as an artillery section chief in the late nineties, and moved into the Internet marketing world after I got out of the Corps at the end of 1999. I started working in SEM in an in-house capacity for a health insurance brokerage in San Diego in 2000, learning from the Web Position Gold “Bible” (as I referred to it) and through trial and error with GoTo/Overture, Yahoo, and ultimately Google AdWords. I became a consultant as I finished a marketing degree, continuing my life in San Diego. In 2004 I moved to the East coast and worked with a small agency, G3Group and continued to focus on both organic and paid search. In 2006 I moved to Philadelphia to work with then Avenue A | Razorfish, primarily with the great crew from iFrontier. A this point I shifted towards a strong SEO focus, and also began to work with some real “Ferraris and Range Rovers” for Websites. I moved to Brulant in Cleveland in mid-2007, when we were expecting our second child, a sister for our 2 year old boy. Rosetta acquired Brulant in 2008.
I also joined the Board of Directors of SEMPO in 2006, and have been Secretary for a few terms and now serve as President. Although in 2010 I was too busy with client work and team training to do much writing, I spent a significant time contributing to Search Engine Watch Forums and Blog between 2004 and 2009, along with mostly live-blogging in my role as Associate Editor for Search Engine Roundtable. I have also spoken at a number of conferences since 2005, mostly SES and other online marketing events but also recently as a keynote panelist in Beijing China on behalf of SEMPO.
2) Many folks question the necessity & relevance of SEMPO. How would you respond to them?
SEMPO has the longest tenure and is the most industry-respected non-profit organization that helps to promote search marketing. Additionally, it allows for search marketers to network, coordinate and facilitate large scale market research, and provide education to those seeking it. To facilitate growth in 2011, we have restructured the membership to be much more of an option for individuals (by cutting the cost by nearly two thirds) and are planning a number of other initiatives related to training and education on related topics. I would turn those questions around and suggest that people join to try it out, and see how they can support any of our committees or local working groups, while leveraging the educational and networking benefits that membership offers.
3) When a large organization engages a search marketing agency, which stakeholders need to be involved to make the engagement run smoothly?
I and others have written entire articles on this topic, and in fact much of my keynote address will focus on how to find ways to improve implementation rates. The answer to this question has many parts, but if focused on running “smoothly” (which should then lead to “running profitably” or at a desired ROI/ROAS), decision-making executives are the key stakeholders. Without their buy-in, hours and resources can be easily wasted creating doomed plans or through lengthy iteration. For highly regulated spaces (notably pharma/medical and financial services) it is valuable to loop in compliance and legal teams early in the process to clearly outline sacred cows or faux-pas, but they need to also be brought back to the table later in the marketing execution cycle, such as when link building commences to new content for SEO, for example. The IT and marketing team personnel that will be involved with agency-delivered recommendations are an obvious need, but sometimes [people tend to forget key players on the public relations or sponsorship teams, for example. It sounds like a bit of a cop-out answer, but the more people that are involved early on especially if training is occurring, the more likely they will be of assistance down the road.
4) In 2011, can we say that “mainstream business” views search marketing as not only a legitimate form of marketing but a necessary service?
Yes. Even organizations that do not have a mechanism to allow for actual online purchase or quote starts, for example, should be looking for ways to drive traffic to a controlled web property. This can be a very valuable way to protect your reputation online, and to proactively develop content that will push done negative results. Also, high consideration products such as cars or jewelry are often researched online and followed up with offline conversions. One of the biggest growth areas for online marketing continues to be measuring offline effect on the entire sales numbers, which include brick and mortar locations. Obvious bias aside, the increasing number of C-Level executives attending steering committees dedicated to search marketing at the large organizations I work with through the agency, I feel the signs are pointing strongly to supporting the idea that this is a “necessary service.”
5) The search marketing conference schedule has become very crowded in the last few years. Are we at the “glut” stage yet and are there enough attendees to support all the conferences?
As marketers begin to more fully understand the need to train internal resources to support search marketing efforts (if using an agency or not), and agencies like mine continue to have to search very diligently and patiently for experience resources, it is becoming more evident how important conferences are. There is no replacement for learning something in person, and being able to ask follow up questions to speakers and other delegates. Again, I am biased when it comes to believing in conferences perhaps, but I would feel there are definitely enough attendees to support the events. Agencies are likely going to have to send more junior resources rather than the traditionally only more senior folks with a possible triple purpose of learning, selling, and recruiting. I would cite Bruce Clay as someone who has long brought his team members to conferences for the learning rather than only to work his booths.
6) Do you think that “social media marketing” will have the staying power of search marketing or is it just a passing fad?
Ha ha I don’t want to anger any of my social media friends so I won’t answer that. Seriously though the use of social media and the ways to market within it are only going to increase, so to call it a passing fad would indicate denial or stupidity in my opinion. The biggest difference I feel between the two is that with search you are still mostly dealing with “pull” marketing to individuals that are already demonstrating a desire for pertinent information. Contextual ads draw in semantic relevancy to try to match the topic with something that pulls folks in, but this is really more “push.” For me personally, any ads I see at Facebook or eventually Twitter are going to fall under the “push” category, because my raison d’être in those communities is for pleasure and enjoyment – not to be sold. However, I don’t walk around football stadiums getting mad at all the Budweiser ads, not will I do so within social media settings (someone has to pay the bills). The most important part of the puzzle for the social media marketers to continue to tackle is going to be how to walk the fine line between pull and push.
Todd Mintz knows PPC…knows Social Media…knows SEO…knows Blogging…knows Domaining…and knows them all real well. He runs growth marketing for )and is also a Director & Founding Member of SEMpdx: Portland, Oregon’s Search Engine Marketing Association, and he can be found here on Twitter and Facebook.