The SEM Olympiad.

Agility, flexibility, tenacity, endurance.

Sound like the characteristics of an Olympic athlete? Perhaps. But moreover, these days they are the prerequisites for companies trying to gain visibility, traffic and the almighty conversion from the ever-moving target that is marketing on the Internet

Yet with the bureaucracy, decision by committee and analysis paralysis that often plague big companies, it begs the question Do smaller companies have a distinct advantage over larger companies when it comes to marketing online?

While bigger companies have the apparent advantage of increased resources both in manpower and dollars, so too is a much longer decision making process, implementation protocol and interdepartmental agenda coordination (consider Marketing and IT departments to say the very least), not to mention the budgeting process itself.

By comparison a smaller company may be a one-man band of sales, marketing, IT, accounting and customer service with far fewer dollars to spend in marketing. They may however be closer to their market and quicker to market with the ability to cut and move with the trends, all the while gaining top rankings on the search engines at a much faster rate than their big box competitors.

After all, search engine marketing is the great advertising equalizer of the 21st Century; everyone is as big as everyone else on a search engine results page. And while a big company may be mired in timelines and Gant charts, a smaller company may be on its third generation strategy with second tier platforms.

In the end (or the beginning, depending on your vantage point) whether a company is big or small, has deep pockets or shallow ones, those winning SEM gold are as nimble as they are disciplined and as tenacious as they are steadfast in the pursuit for standing atop the search engine rankings.

The difference you can make regardless of company size, is to partner with an SEM who has a strategic marketing foundation coupled with the technical expertise to leverage your online visibility, catapult your traffic and maximize your conversions. To learn more visit www.gdmi.net.

Is your SEM campaign getting results or just exercise?

In many ways online marketers have become obsessed with the process of search engine marketing. Whether it’s building keyword rich content or links or article submissions or press releases, or micro sites (the list goes on and on) the ultimate search for the holy grail (a.k.a high rankings) may appear to be what determines a successful search engine marketing campaign. But the much ado about the processes involved in achieving high rankings can too often lead marketers to lose sight of what actually matters, namely the results.

Most online advertisers know that branding, visibility, impressions and the like will lead the horse to water but only real marketers understand that to get the horse to ‘drink’ is a different story.

Search engine optimization campaigns (and often paid search campaigns) focus all activity around gaining visibility and traffic but the best SEM campaign cannot make up for a website that lacks meaningful messaging, compelling calls to action, or an easy way for the visitor to make contact with the advertiser.

Like any traditional marketing activity, the most successful online campaigns focus on the entire communication cycle from branding to messaging to engaging with the customer. Generating visibility and traffic is only one part of the equation, albeit an essential one. Only those campaigns which address what takes place once a visitor opens the door to a website will be truly successful.

Unfortunately for advertisers most SEMs heavily focus their attention on the first half of the equation, driving traffic. But those SEMs who are marketing centric understand that without the true holy grail of the conversion the rest is just exercise.

To learn more about conversion campaigns from a truly marketing centric SEM, visit Global Directive Marketing Initiatives.