What is your role at Calvert?

I lead the development and execution of marketing communications, production and advertising, and e-commerce strategies in support of Calvert’s communication, sales and asset retention objectives. In addition, my team is responsible for the management of compliance related materials, Calvert’s 529 Plan and shareholder communications.  By integrating the Firm’s communications and brand efforts, my group works to enhance Calvert’s competitive positioning.

How important is the digital channel in the marketing mix for financial services firm?  What role does it play for Calvert?

The digital channel is becoming increasingly important in marketing mix for financial services firms, especially for those firms that distribute their products through third party intermediaries.   The proliferation of information on the Internet has changed the nature of the relationship between a financial advisor and their clients.  Clients are using the information they find online to begin or engage in conversations with their Advisors rather than turn to the Advisor as the only source of information.

At Calvert, it is more important than ever that we provide timely information to Financial Advisors so they can provide relevant, timely information to their clients.  That is a clear role that the digital channel plays for us.   But the digital channel plays an increasingly important role in everything we do, from compliance and sales management, to advertising and promotion.  The digital channel is really pervasive in everything we do today.

Do you plan to shift more money from conventional to digital in the future?  Why or why not?

Absolutely, more money will shift to digital.  The simple answer is accountability.  Digital channels give you greater accountability of your promotional spend and improved tracking.  In addition, more and more of our clients are turning to digital channels for information.  Even FINRA is embracing digital capabilities with its recent “Summary Prospectus” regulation, which requires the ability for the summary prospectuses to electronically link to other relevant information pertaining to a mutual fund.

What are some of the issues and problems you have faced in measuring the results of digital marketing at Calvert?

The biggest challenge we face is figuring out what to measure and connecting that back to sales.  Since the majority of our sales go through a third party, we rely on correlated data to try and suggest causation.

What is the mix of outsourcing and in-house at Calvert?  (How much of your digital marketing do you outsource; how much do you handle in-house?)  Do you foresee increasing or decreasing reliance on outsourcing in the future?

It isn’t really a question of mix; it really is more a question of roles.  We outsource much of our promotional activities and manage all web site management in-house.  As we increase our budget for digital we will probably also out-source development of our tracking infrastructure so that we can manage it in-house once it is built.

Digital marketing is changing rapidly.  How do you keep your staff’s skills current?

We use the media that we manage.  My staff has full range to attend webinars and other training that increases their skills or knowledge.  I’ve found that conferences are less effective in building those skills because of the strategic focus of most conferences.

Where does Social Media fit into your mix now?  Do you see it playing a bigger role in 2010 and beyond?

We are just making in roads into Social Media and are using it to supplement our search engine optimization.  At this point, it is more about link building than actually engaging in the social media conversations.

What are some of the challenges of Social Media engagement that are specific to financial services firms?

The major challenge is compliance related, but probably just as challenging is finding the resources to monitor and engage in the conversations in a timely and meaningful way.  That isn’t an issue specific to financial services firms, but is one that impedes our ability to truly embrace the social media phenomena.

What are some of your best marketing successes at Calvert?

Our initial foray into search engine marketing and PPC had tremendous results.  We saw a significant increase in traffic and downloads of our Alternative Energy White Paper.  It was the first time that Calvert had actively pursued a PPC campaign and its success drove additional dollars and emphasis on the digital channel.

The other huge success was the launching of our user focused web site.  We used user testing to hone our web site navigation and the results of that testing were proven out by the surprisingly few issues we had at launch and with user acceptance.

What excites you about marketing in today’s world?

Our ability to increasingly measure results and optimize off of our findings.  We are getting closer and closer to one2one mass marketing and that is exciting.

How did you get into search?

I was the General Sales Manager at the Talk Station in Baltimore who’s lineup included Howard Stern, G. Gordon Liddy and Don & Mike.   I helped the station setup their first website, and we created a form for listeners to fill out.   It was 1999 and we were already garnering great listener information.  Don & Mike always used to ask their listeners “What celebrity do you most resemble?” So we added it to the survey and people actually filled it out.  It was amazing to me that the internet had so much power to cultivate data so I joined the company that built our website.  We were optimizing sites for the engines back then and even today those basics are still a major factor in search marketing.

In your days with Advertising.com and Local Roll Call, what are some of the greatest challenges you’ve faced?

I do have to say this economy is the toughest thing I have ever seen.  There are major clients in the industry that have cut their spend in half and some that are just holding tight until 2010.  I do see that the economy is starting to improve, but I just wish it was faster.    January – March were probably the worst for many businesses as the stock market collapsed, as the stock market continues to climb so will the confidence and the pocket strings will open up.  It’s a vicious cycle – clients want conversions and to hit a manageable CPA, consumers are clicking but not converting as they did two years ago so the CPA is higher, conversions cost more and the market is more competitive. The strong will survive and stay in business, Best Buy will be a stronger force coming out of this since Circuit City is gone.  The same goes for Bed Bath and Beyond now that Linens and Things has left them with a larger market share.

What’s been your greatest success/proudest moment in search?

I love seeing a site get to the first page of Google by utilizing white hat SEO tactics.   Sure hitting a client goal with Paid Search is definitely gratifying, but seeing all of the hard work and forethought you put into helping a client optimize their site to receive an influx of traffic for free: that’s what search is all about.  People finding the proper information and knowing that you can provide it against a client’s target audience is key.  Not to mention seeing the Google Analytics meter go off the chart when you help a small business gain that growth.  It can make their year, even if it’s just someone downloading a menu.

How do you keep current with search changes?

I attend various conferences across the country not only speaking but also writing articles for online publications.  By sitting in on the session I can pick up a tremendous amount of information to help keep me up to date on an industry that is ever expanding and rapidly changing.  Conferences I recommend are SMX, Search Engine Strategies, Affiliate Summit and Internet Retailer

As you’ve focused primarily working at an in-house level, what are some of the advantages as opposed to an agency?

The advantage of in-house is complete control and speed to change.  No campaign is ever perfect because there are so many fluctuations in the marketplace.  If a CPA skyrockets you need to determine the issue and in some cases it might take an agency a little longer to notice it.  It might also take them 24-48 hours to make a change in a campaign and as business fluctuates you need that extra speed in-house provides.   By having complete control the campaign falls on you. Agencies are totally beneficial some have great technology to better optimize campaigns, seasoned search copy writers and managers that can better A-B and build out landing pages.  Agencies are key if you are overwhelmed and you lose control of your campaign.

Do you have any agency horror stories?

I had a client I was working with that sold virus protection software and they were using an agency.  They asked me to take look at the campaign to see if there was anything I would do to improve it.  There were so many issues I didn’t know where to start.  The one glaring issue was that they had no negative keywords associated with the campaign.  In one month alone they would spend well in the lower five figures bidding on terms that had to do with human viruses – terms like Hepatitis, Ebola and Chickenpox.

Where do you see search heading?

Most people don’t know what they would do if they weren’t connected online.  We are a society that gathers data and makes a decision based on billions of results that are gathered are brought back to us in the form of a search result.  Smart phone usage is also on the rise and with that more laws will be passed to limit use while commuting.  This will prompt manufacturers to work with the major portals in developing voice recognition systems for use in our daily commute and interact with our GPS system.   Search queries are seeing a rise in length, 5 combined keywords is not unusual anymore, and the results are improving rapidly.  It won’t be long before we can ask our car where the best place local place for bagels is and it will give us a community answer on the data it finds.

What advice would you offer to a company looking to start their own in-house marketing effort?

I once spoke at SES about building an in-house marketing team.  You have to have a team that watches the campaign every minute of every day.  Depending on the spend levels one person cannot do it all.  You need a creative specialist that reviews the ads and the quality scores across ads, give them an incentive to hit a quality score of 10. You also need a numbers cruncher on the staff, someone who can run pivot table and populate tens of thousands of keywords with just a few excel formula’s.  Quality people make the difference if you can justify the expense to hire an experienced individual you should.  If you hire someone that has less experience and they get on the job training be prepared to pay more as their experience climbs.   A search marketing manager is a hot commodity and in high demand.  Beware, agencies and other competitors will want to pick them up if you aren’t taking care of them.

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What direction do you SES going in the next year or two?

Well, in a year or two you simply won’t recognize it. In fact, it’s my intention to make some subtle changes in the next few months. So by the time we get to Chicago there’ll be a different kind of stamp. Nothing dramatic, but certainly an indication of how it’s likely to change going forward.

We have our core focus on search and that won’t change, but we’ll certainly have a more integrated approach as we see how online marketing begins to converge.

What’s your whole take on the Microsoft/Yahoo! Thing? Good or bad for the industry?

Anything that can affect change and alternatives is good for the industry. I get fed up with hearing people talking about Google killers. One could say BMW was a Mercedes killer. But it doesn’t stop a gazillion people driving a Merc. I know absolutely nothing about cars, so that may be a bad example, but I’m sure you know what I mean.

Has it really become all about the “now” or “instant search”?

You and I have talked a lot about this, Li. I think it’s more about satisfying the long term information needs of the end user, as well as the real time thing. Would love to talk more about this, but you’ll have to wait for my book!

I’ll be the first in line for it Mike, that’s something you can count on!

To read the first part of the interview, visit Search Marketing Gurus.

Mike is the co-author of the best-selling 2005 book Search Engine Marketing, Inc. (along with fellow search marketing expert Bill Hunt), which is now in its Second Edition (2008). Mike is also the author of the acclaimed Internet marketing book, Do It Wrong Quickly: How the Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules, named one of best business books of 2007 by the Miami Herald.

You are the author of “Do It Wrong Quickly,” which has received great reviews on Amazon.  What are some of the key focuses?  What would you like people to come away with after reading it?

My book is designed to help those with some background in marketing or in the Internet learn what works in Internet marketing. Too often, we make people feel stupid about not knowing all the latest and greatest, when the simple fact is that even we experts are frequently confused about what is happening–we just don’t like to admit it. My book tries to help people adapt what they already know to the big things moving on the Internet, along with a lot of practical advice on how to do it. Even the title, “Do It Wrong Quickly,” is just a cheeky way of getting people to adopt experimentation in their marketing rather than the old focus-group laden long project that is necessary with expensive traditional marketing. That is what the book is about–helping you see that most of what you know is still true and that you need to adapt to some differences to do the best you can.

How did you get into search?

It started on a galaxy long ago and far away. OK, OK, it was at IBM in the 1980s. I was one of the inventors of an electronic book program long before Adobe Acrobat (now Adobe Reader) and we actually pioneered the first commercial linguistic search engine–it could find “mice” when you searched for “mouse” because it knew it was the same word. It did that in dozens of national languages and I was bitten by the text retrieval bug.

I spent many years working in enterprise search (my last job at IBM was as a Distinguished Engineer for IBM’s search and text analytics products) but probably my favorite job was at IBM’s Web site, ibm.com, where I worked on the site search engine, search marketing, and many other initiatives.

In your days with IBM and Converseon, what are some of the greatest challenges you’ve faced?

Probably my biggest challenge has been setting up and operating the search marketing efforts at IBM. Back in 2001, no one really was looking at search at large corporations. My search background taught me some of what I needed to know, but I hired Bill Hunt to help me fill in the gaps between understanding search technology and the search marketing business. (Bill later became my co-author for our book Search Engine Marketing, Inc.) It was soon clear to both of us that knowing what to do was the easy part. Getting thousands of people to do those things across 90 countries and millions of Web pages was an organizational nightmare. It took us a while, but we honed the corporate governance approach that led to success, and which is still the backbone in my work with large companies today at Converseon.

What’s been your greatest success/proudest moment in search?

I’m not sure that the history books will be littered with great moments in search after we pass from the earth, but I do know what I remember the most. I remember the first time we optimized a page at IBM, waited for weeks (remember, it was 2001) and then saw it suddenly appear on the first page of search results on several major search engines. That was the moment where I said, “OK, this stuff might actually work.” I knew we were on our way.

How do you keep current with search changes?

Gee, I don’t even know that I can claim that I do keep current. I follow lots of blogs and talk to people all the time, but the pace of change is dizzying. I think there are lots of people who keep up better than I do. I try to help large companies to focus on the things that aren’t changing–good content, page optimization, links, and–most of all–a way to measure sales from search, both online and offline. Most of my clients can’t change the behaviors of thousands of people in a company based on what Google announced yesterday, so I help companies focus on the things that are not changing, which works pretty well.

Where do you see search moving in the future?

I think the biggest change is going to be personalized search. You see signs of it on a small scale now, but it’s going to really take off, especially as mobile Web usage accelerates. You will get search results for you and I will get them for me and they won’t always be the same. You’ll also see phones and other devices that run searches for you, based on your past behavior. (If you stop for coffee every morning, then your phone can search for a coffee shop no matter where you’re going that morning.) I also see search becoming far more integrated into other forms of Internet marketing. You already see it entwined with social media, but you should expect even more integration.

As you’ve focused primarily working at an in-house level, what are some of the advantages/disadvantages of working with an agency?

I think that most large companies shouldn’t be thinking about a black-and-white question of in-house or outsource, but rather consider what tasks are best done in-house rather than outsourced. At IBM, I used a hybrid model, where I hired consultants to help with strategy, best practices, thorny problems, training, and other things that would be difficult for me to staff in-house. (The moment I found someone good to do that job, and agency could come along and double his salary and he’d be gone.) But I never hired consultants to do the heavy lifting of updating content, or fixing redirects, or other things that are much better done by the in-house team. Different companies might make different decisions about which tasks belong with which team, but it’s rare that I find a company that makes a good decision wholesale in one direction or the other.

What advice would you offer to a company looking to start their own in-house marketing effort?

It’s essential that you have in-house people that know your customers and your offerings and can stick with your efforts to provide them continuity. Focus on what tasks make sense to be done in-house because you want the expertise inside the company, because it is more efficient and cost-effective to do it internally, and because you can hire or train those skills and retain them. Start small–part-time efforts that show profitability right away are preferable to hiring a big team and having nothing to show for it. And make sure that your focus is on measurability–you must be able to show how much money you are making. If you can’t do that, you’re not ready to make a big investment.

Hi Melanie, good to see you, so why don’t we start off with you telling us how you ended up running the in-house team at Folio Investing?

It is part of what I was hired to do. I have been doing search marketing for ~9 years now. As a side note, I got into search marketing as a fluke. I was at Network Solutions from 2000-2004 and SEO/PPC was something we were getting into early on in my time there and it was handed to me to “learn and day-to-day manage”. I instantly loved it. I love marketing and had loved math/statistics in college and with search marketing you have the trackability and the accountability as well as some of the creativity that goes into it.

What’s involved in running the in-house marketing team at Folio Investing?

Like most companies large and small, it is a cross functional effort. This is the third company where I have managed the in-house SEO with the other two companies being AOL and Network Solutions. So the same tactics and strategies can scale at a smaller company like Folio Investing in a very similar way as they would at a large company like AOL.

As an in-house SEO you have to understand that everyone plays a role in SEO and it is the in-house person’s/people’s job to help the others understand what their role is, what they need to do, when they need to do it and how. Depending on your company’s size, you may want to have a core team of 8-10 people. This would include the search subject-matter experts (SMEs) that provide your base of SEO knowledge. The SMEs understand the ins, the outs, the technical details, the tactical techniques and what you can and can’t control. There may only be 2 or 3 of these folks, but they are key, as they help pull together the SEO perspective of how certain elements/changes affect your SEO efforts. You would also want to have a “systems architect” on your team that helps connect the dots between the different platforms and publishing systems. Then have a “tech lead” that is the bridge between the business requirements and the engineers – although if you are a small company the systems architect and the tech lead may be the same person. Then you have the “front-liners” who are a couple of people from design, content programming (if necessary) and product groups (if necessary). They help you understand how to work best with those teams. Last, but not least, and depending on your size and scope of the effort, you may need a program manager to keep the overall project plan together and a couple of project managers to track individual tasks.

Once you have your team together it is about communication, training, ongoing reporting and ongoing education.

Speaking of ongoing education, how do you keep current with the industry & how do you keep your team current?

I have to thank my network in a large part for that. For those new to the industry who haven’t built up a network yet – I find that twitter helps, but I recommend you look into who you are following and the quality of information they put out there. I find I am introduced to tools and information I might not have otherwise found thanks to the people I follow on Twitter (I am @melaniemitchell if you care to network).

Conferences also help as you meet the vendors, listen/talk to the speakers as well as the many sharp attendees, and attend the networking events where you can bounce ideas off others and soak up all of the good information being shared first-hand. One of the many things I love about the search/digital industry is that most people are open and willing to share with others no matter what their position/title/company is.

What do you feel to be the biggest challenges with having the marketing effort in-house?

That is a tough question. I have had many challenges along the way, which I think most in-house SEOs can say, but these are in some ways company specific challenges. However, in getting the effort going initially, one of the biggest challenges in-house SEOs can face is getting the attention it deserves. Let’s face it – you are competition against others in the company for resources, prioritization, time and sometimes funding. Others may have their own agendas and manipulate data to be what they want it to be so they can get their project prioritized, funded or resourced above your efforts. Sometimes for the right reasons (let’s face it, as a company we are all working towards the same goal), but sometimes not.

By having an outside vendor – whom we assume has no agenda as they are getting paid whether the SEO work gets done or not – the report/data can be viewed as non-biased and therefore more reliable. I know it sounds weird, but that is how it is sometimes where that third party “assessment” can be the catalyst to get your SEO program started.

What do you feel have been the biggest benefits of having the marketing effort in-house?

Yes there are cost and ROI benefits, but I feel the biggest benefit is timing, accountability and speed. In my experience, many SEO consultants are constantly chasing “the fix”. Meaning they aren’t necessarily part of the process as content/products/tools/platforms are being developed. The SEO consultants are not left out on purpose, but the internal employees building/publishing/designing aren’t always thinking about SEO since they have their own tasks/projects to complete. To be clear, that scenario is not always the case with outside SEO consultants as I am sure some have client engagements that work well, but in my personal experience outside vendors have often been forgotten because they don’t have the direct relationships with the engineers, the stakeholders, product people, etc. Nor do they have the direct authority to hold people within the company accountable.

Additionally, because SEO consultants aren’t part of the company or culture, many have the challenge of not having the relationships so they are not as influential when trying to get a company to implement the SEO recommendations. Additionally, they don’t necessarily have ready access to the C-Suite to keep SEO top of mind with the recent “wins” and the importance of keeping SEO momentum going. A big part of being an in-house SEO is being an “influencer” whether it is developing/building relationships, showing how SEO effects the bottom line as well as getting most of the employees — who don’t report into you — do work that you need them to do in order for SEO to be successful.

Have you worked with agencies in the past?

Yes, but not at Folio Investing. I have used agencies mostly for paid search, display, PR, etc. I really believe that within a company, everyone plays a role in SEO from the CEO on down and it is important to help people understand their role, what they need to do, how and why.

Do you have any agency horror stories?

Not that come to mind, but I do have an internal company horror story and it was part of my awaking of the importance of SEO training across the entire company. The marketing UI team for the company I was working for at the time decided to do some testing of the home page where they were serving four different versions of the home page to see which version increased engagement/conversions — sounds innocent enough.

However, the way they were serving it looked like spam as it looked like four different URLs for the same page and Google kicked our web site COMPLETELY out of the index. It took about two months to get back into the index where traffic/rankings were back to previous levels. A complete nightmare and cost the company a fairly large amount in lost revenue and opportunities. That opened my eyes to how important tailored SEO training and education at a tactical level was to a company (back to everyone plays a role in SEO and needs to know the what, when, how). It was a tough lesson to learn and I am happy to say I never made that mistake again.

Are there efforts that you would consider outsourcing rather than taking in-house, and why would that be?

With regards to SEO, possibly the training as it takes a lot of time and effort. At Network Solutions (and Folio) I personally did the training and at AOL I lead the training efforts, but was fortunate to have an internal team of professionals to really help drive it. I worked with our training team that helped develop documentation as well as an online SEO test (which people took once the training was completed). In the development phase we had internal SMEs from SEO, technology, design, programming so that we could tailor the classes for specific groups. Lastly, there were several of us leading training classes around the world so the task didn’t fall on just one or two people.

You came from AOL, so you’ve had experience with leading an in-house marketing effort at much larger organizations, what have been the biggest differences, and what have been the similarities that you’ve encountered?

It is similar, but different for many of the reasons I stated above with regards to organizing the team, tactics and training. The biggest difference is scale. Are you leading a 10 person effort or a 1,000 person effort. How large are the different groups, where are they located, how quickly do they produce content or products? The tactics and many strategies you employ for small or large scale SEO are very similar though.

What advice would you give to someone looking to start up their own in-house marketing effort?

I love this question. I love it because I hope it saves people some time in their in-house efforts. First, you want to start with a few “small wins” to show that SEO is something that can really help the company if more effort and time was spent on it. Once I have that information, I go to my executive and ultimately up to the CEO to walk through why an SEO strategy is something that is important to the company, can contribute to the bottom line (more often than not in a significant way), show them the “small wins”, layout the opportunity, talk through what needs to be done/what you’ll need in order to get there, show them what is in it for them ($$), and ask for their support. Not just the support at that meeting, but the support of them communicating it out to the company that SEO is important to them and the company thus is important to all of the employees.

I have found that getting the top executives’ support makes it much easier to take the SEO strategy, plan and tactics to get to projects moving in the right direction to the rest of the company once other people within the company know that SEO is something that is important to their boss. And their bosses’ boss. And their bosses’ bosses’ boss. You get the picture…

So Claudette, how did you get into search marketing?

I owned my own marketing business for 15 years and was an early participant in web design & marketing… primarily doing project management. After I sold that business, I did marketing and project management for small businesses, specifically incorporating web sites into their business models. One of my clients (Gear-Source) asked me if I would be interested in taking over Search Optimization for them and, eventually, they offered me a full-time job as their Marketing Director.

What’s involved in doing in-house marketing at GearSource?

In-house marketing at GearSource is me and a part-time assistant! So, what that means is attention to scheduling and time-management. My top priorities include managing numerous PPC campaigns on both Google and Yahoo, managing content on the web sites, preparing regular e-mail marketing blasts, coordinating marketing materials and events and advertising for print and online, managing the advertising module on our own web site, meeting regularly with our Development team to keep the sites running smoothly and identifying the ongoing modifications required to keep our users happy and our sites at their best. I am also always trying to learn more.

How do you keep current with the industry?

I belong to a few related organizations that I feel can give me positive support and information (i.e. American Marketing Assoc, Web Analytics Assoc. eMarketing Assoc), I subscribe to trade magazines, monitor blogs and I read, read, read!!

What do you feel to be the biggest challenges with having the marketing effort in-house?

One thing I would say is most challenging is when everyone from the receptionist to the CEO think they are SEO specialists.

What do you feel have been the biggest benefits of having the marketing effort in-house?

Cost is one benefit but I believe the biggest benefit is my personal investment in the company’s success.

Do you have any agency horror stories?

Yes… We hired a search agency who claimed we were paying for them to run hours and hours of analytics on two of our web sites… they developed 100+ page reports that didn’t say much at all, drove our dev people nuts making revisions to the sites, with the end result being our traffic went down 25% within 5 days of the changes being incorporated. That’s when I was hired full-time.

Are there efforts that you would consider outsourcing rather than taking in-house, and why would that be?

We outsource graphic design and artwork prep but everything else we’ll likely always keep in-house.

Having done in-house marketing with a few companies, both externally as a consultant and from within as at Gear-Source, what are some of the lessons that you’ve learned, and what are some of the commonalities that you’ve seen within in-house teams?

I’d say the biggest lesson I have learned is to embrace change because what works today may not work tomorrow. Search Marketing requires flexibility and patience. Communication within your team is critical to success and using whatever tools you have access to.

What’s been your biggest in-house internet marketing success?

Doubling our conversions in under one year is one of my biggest successes but it’s an ongoing process and every success, big or small, is a marketing accomplishment to me.

What advice would you give to someone looking to start up their own in-house marketing effort?

First, hire the right person; be clear what results you want them to achieve; know how you will measure those results; give them the tools they need; and a reasonable budget. Second: trust them; listen to their recommendations and don’t second-guess. Finally, be patient – results don’t happen overnight.

How did you get into search marketing?

Back in 2000, I moved from a career in biotechnology / medical diagnostic marketing into Internet – at a small startup, WebSurveyor (I was person number 5!). My role was to “feed the beast” – meaning get leads for sales. Since I had very little budget, traditional means like direct mail and trade shows were right out. I stumbled upon (long before that was a trademark) an article about advertising through search engines on marcommwise.com. That day (with my own credit card in hand), I began my first campaign through GoTo, then added a CPM campaign with Google (back in the days before CPC). I was immediately addicted to checking registrations, analyzing return on investment, bid positioning, etc! I also got a new credit card that gave me travel points – since the success of the campaigns meant that I was increasing them daily. In the early days, I would turn keywords off that didn’t give a 200% return on investment… A lot has changed since then!

In that same gig, I was also responsible for managing the customer-facing website – and had found some interesting information at Search Engine Watch about how to program a site so that it would be found in natural search. I would toggle between articles and HomeSite, coding in every (valid) tip that I found. I was able to get and maintain positioning on very competitive keywords. Having a coding and marketing background made all the difference in successful SEO even back then. I stayed there for three years, as the company grew to about 40 people, became profitable.

Following WebSurveyor, I consulted on my own for about a year, then landed at Network Solutions in 2004, managing SEO, PPC and banner advertising. Early on, we used outsourcing and I managed agency relationships  for paid advertising and SEO. In early 2007, I transitioned all activities in-house, hiring two teams of professionals – one to manage paid advertising and one for natural search – a total of seven people.

The biggest challenge in transitioning was hiring the right people for the positions. I was really lucky to get a great group of people!

Also in 2007, our agency came into Network Solutions and presented about search engine optimization to the executives, then did a two-day training with key technical people. This was a turning point in the company, where there was broad acceptance of and interest in SEO and how it could build the business. From May of 2007 to when I left, we saw more than 100% increase in natural search traffic. That success was only possible because SEO became engrained in the organization’s DNA.

Back in February, I moved back to my real passion – an entrepreneurial environment – working at PRWeb.

I go by the online handle ebuzzmaster and have started a blog by that name.

What’s involved in doing in-house marketing at PRWeb?

PRWeb is the leading online news release service,  providing SEO optimized press releases to public relations and SEO agencies, as well as small business, non-profit and e-commerce vendors. The Marketing team I joined in February was brand new – and today, I am the only person working on online advertising, SEO and PPC. I get to review campaigns, report, manage bids and budgets every day.  On the SEO side, not only do I get to work on SEO to market our products, I get to help with SEO for our press release services! My next opportunities will include starting to work on social media efforts.

I have been able to define how we report on and measure success in PPC and in SEO – and have seen some nice growth in just the few months since I started.

How do you keep current with the industry? (tools, trends, etc)?

My favorite [geeky] combination for keeping up to date on current trends is my iPhone paired with Google Reader – it is the answer to waiting room (and DC traffic) boredom!  I’ve subscribed to a lot of different blogs and newsletters, so there is always something valuable to read. My favorites include Searchengineland.com, Searchenginewatch.com, TopRankBlog.com, Google Webmaster Blog and more. I scan through about 600 articles a week, reading through the ones that look particularly pertinent.

I also attend conferences when possible – SES NYC this March, and planning to attend SMX Advanced, SES San Jose, and possibly others this year. Since PRWeb exhibits, I often fill in at the booth, too, so I can catch up with other people as they are learning about PRWeb.
Networking – I keep up with networking contacts as much as time allows – answering as many questions as I can when asked so that I can ask questions of them when the need arises.

Participate / follow groups in Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and I’m looking forward to reading more information about in-house search marketing on this site.

What do you feel have been the biggest benefits of having the marketing  effort in-house?

There are several benefits to having marketing efforts in-house:

1. Ownership. People who work for the company have “skin in the game.” They know what they do every day has a direct impact on the success or failure of the company.
2. Speed. Since internal team members are far more engaged, they can work directly with internal stakeholders, make quicker changes and are empowered to make decisions without having to validate everything first.
3. Flexibility. Changing reporting, vendors, campaigns is much easier when you manage it internally.
4. Return on investment. This comes naturally from the previous two items – but the quicker you can respond and the more flexible you are, the better return you can get on the campaigns you run.

Do you have any agency horror stories?

I have a lot of horror stories working with outsourced development firms, site design companies and one SEO firm. However, to protect the not so innocent, I will not go into details. Suffice it to say, they didn’t get the importance of developing and designing with SEO in mind. One of my favorites was the series of five URL modifications over three months, none of which was actually right. Changing the values for query string parameters does not equal building clean URLs.

From my previous life in biotechnology – probably the biggest horror story was when an agency changed verbiage on a brochure we printed 10k copies of. Instead of “versus” they changed it to “verses” – and they changed “under-served” to “undeserved”… When talking about patients, music isn’t as much of an issue (verses) than saying they do not deserve treatment (undeserved). Devil is in the details!

Having done in-house marketing at a few companies, what are some of the lessons that you’ve learned, and what are some of the commonalities that you’ve seen within in-house teams?

1. Understand the big picture: It’s easy when managing the day-to-day tactics to lose focus on what you’re trying to accomplish. If it is lead generation, then set specific objectives, and be “brutal” in assuring that you reach them. Sometimes that means cutting off ad campaigns that seem like they should work, but do not.
2. Measure daily: Yes, it takes time, but keeping an eye on the numbers yourself (as either a director OR a “do-er” assures that you are not getting far off track before you correct your course.
3. Pay attention to analytics / users: Although it may not be your responsibility to manage user experience on the broader basis, understanding how the visitors YOU drive behave on a website gives you a leg up on recommending (or changing) website flows, registration forms, etc., etc., etc.
4. Use a second set of eyes: Since a small change can mean a campaign or optimizations working or not working,  set up a process by which an objective team member spot-checks major efforts.
5. Be a team – and be a team player: SEO and PPC can be a huge driver of revenue and success – and there will be other people in the organization that want to understand how it works. It is in the knowledge-sharing and inter- and intra-team efforts that you can really succeed long-term.

What’s been your biggest success?

Probably my biggest success was helping to architect the sea-change at Network Solutions to understand the value of search engine optimization, and to make it an integral part of the products, websites, and analyses processes.

What advice would you give to someone looking to start up their own in-house marketing effort?

• Get buy-in first. Get buy-in from as many groups as you can – ESPECIALLY web development, design, finance, purchasing and senior management. Getting buy-in usually requires a lot of education, which is very important with web development to understand how and why the SEO team is making what may seem like major changes to their website.
• Do not expect to save considerable amounts of money over the costs of working with an agency.
• Getting the right people is everything – and it can be expensive. However, don’t discount applicants who have had only a couple years’ hands on in SEO or PPC, especially if they have experience with marketing communications, web design, and/or web development. Look for people with a broad and accurate vocabulary: SEO and PPC rely on really knowing words!
• Make certain you have at least one person who you can trust who is really good with numbers. Analytics is the backbone of successful online marketing.
• Plan for administrative time. The biggest surprise for me was the amount of time that was taken up in running down insertion orders, working with budgeting, reviewing multiple invoices and working with the legal group.
• Stay up-to-date on business objectives and on changes in the industry.

1. You are steadily building internal capabilities in a number of areas (search, social media, PR). What’s behind that decision and what are your long term plans for balancing in-house with outsourced services?

We are expanding our in-house capabilities to align with continually increasing growth objectives. Five years ago when we first engaged Serengeti as a partner, we were a young, start-up company and were working toward establishing a successful marketing strategy. Since then, we have matured significantly as an organization and have invested in a deeper and broader team of in-house talent to oversee, manage and execute our growth initiatives. Even so, we maintain relationships with a team of partners who are experts in various aspects of marketing and who can infuse new perspectives and industry ideas as well as efficiently complement in-house skills and capacity. Looking to the future, I expect us to continue to deepen our in-house competencies while maintaining and expanding key partnerships that we view as critical to our success.

2. Describe your in-house PPC program, how it is organized, etc.

Our PPC program is essentially managed by one individual. As context, we run thousands of keyword campaigns on Google, Yahoo and MSN, and the PPC program generates a significant portion of our leads. In other words, the success of this program is critical to our growth objectives. On a quarterly basis, Serengeti provides a detailed audit for us, along with recommendations for optimizing leads and efficiencies.

3. Why did you take PPC in-house?

We wanted to focus Serengeti on new initiatives (social engagement/viral opportunities, analytics, etc.) and recognized that having in-house talent with an “institutional ear to the ground” would give us a greater ability to incorporate organizational news/positioning and leverage other marketing initiatives within this critical channel.

4. What were/are the biggest issues/challenges of taking PPC in-house; how did you overcome?

As previously mentioned, the PPC program is critical to us. Our biggest concern was that the effectiveness of the current program would be compromised during the transition process. Fortunately, our worst fear was not realized; in fact, the transition was extremely smooth.

5. What were/are the biggest benefits of taking PPC in-house?

For one, adjustments are able to be done more quickly, because we can make them directly and our team is exclusively dedicated to our brand. We also experienced some cost savings by doing this in-house, both directly and in opportunity cost. Finally, as mentioned before, the ability for dedicated, in-house personnel to directly leverage institutional knowledge helped us more quickly expand and deepen our PPC program.

6. How do you stay current with industry trends, etc.

Attending conferences/webinars; reading industry news (e.g.,tools.SEO.book.com, SEOpros.org). Look for tips on the search engines, and good SEM vendors will share trends and article/new application ideas with you on a regular basis.

7. Is ROI of PPC improving?

Yes, but that’s a tricky question since our PPC program is more mature now. We have exploited many of the high-yield efficiencies, but we are still uncovering incremental efficiencies all the time. Ultimately – and more importantly for us, we’re maintaining our ROI while generating a steady increase in leads by utilizing new PPC channels and expanding current aspects of the program.

8. What kind of training/skills updates do you use to keep your staff current?

We give our staff open communication channels with our partners to brainstorm and exchange ideas; we offer opportunities to attend local and national industry conferences and skills training seminars; and we give them access to cross-train with in-house staff in other areas of the organization.

9. What advice would you give to a company that is considering taking PPC (or any other marketing channel) in-house?

1. Weigh carefully the short-term and long-term benefits of your current setup versus making any change.
2. Obtain buy- in from management/partners and think carefully about your time horizon and other operational or market conditions that could or should impact your transition/timing.
3. If you decide to make a change, establish a thoughtful transition plan with your vendor and work together to establish success milestones and clear expectations and benchmarks for measuring results.

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