Transcript: Good Search Strategies from Bob Heyman of Mediasmith

This transcript is from a PodTech.net podcast at:
http://www.podtech.net/home/technology/1600/marketing-voices-search-strategies-from-mediasmiths-bob-heyman

Guest: Bob Heyman - Mediasmith
Host: Jennifer Jones - MarketingVoices

Speaker
Search is becoming a ubiquitous business activity. Good search to us means that you can find the product or the service on a search engine when you're looking for it, because what search we were using is -- it has turned out to be the most effective direct marketing medium ever devised.

Announcer
This is PodTech.net, welcome to MarketingVoices, featuring the fresh perspectives of innovative marketing leaders and examining how social media is changing marketing throughout the world. Here's your host Jennifer Jones.

Jennifer Jones - MarketingVoices
Hi, this is Jennifer Jones and here on MarketingVoices today, I have Bob Heyman, who is the Chief Search Officer at Mediasmith. Mediasmith is a very well know integrated media agency and it buys and sells media in all forms, from Search to the Super Bowl. So, Bob is going to be here today to talk all about search and the power of search. So, Bob, welcome to MarketingVoices.

Bob Heyman - Mediasmith
Thank you, happy to be here.

Jennifer Jones - MarketingVoices
So, the first question is -- define what your job is and then what search is?

Bob Heyman - Mediasmith
Yes, it's a testimony to gain or pick your own title, I suppose, but what we were trying to do here is basically to digress a bit to probably a subsequent question. I had the good fortune to, sort of, accidentally invent the agency side of search marketing back in '94 and '95. And, I can get into the anecdote but basically the Jefferson Starship gets the thanks for this.

Jennifer Jones - MarketingVoices
Let me interrupt there a second. So, to all of you out there who don't know Bob, he is -- or was, the Entertainment Lawyer, who represented Jefferson Starship and also Maria Muldaur and various people.

Bob Heyman - Mediasmith
Indeed, but I had an agency that, became an early -- one of the first early full-service internet marketing agencies that we sold to The US Web back in '97, when that was a good thing to do before they -- yeah, they had a category went belly-up, but - in looking at -- in 2001-2002, with Google, helping revive internet marketing by essentially making a big business out of search, it became obvious to me that just as interactive media, (Inaudible) agencies won't really stand alone, but were just, part of what a full-service agency would offer, that search was not -- even though eventually being done by boutiques and mom and pops, was not really a business by itself, but it was just another one of the media that a media buying and planning agency needed to plan and then strategize for the client. I had noticed a couple of my ex-employees started one of the early SEMs, a 1000 men other people in the field, but it seemed to me that it was, already past the point of wanting to start a search-only agency.

And, I knew David Smith from having been a competitor and we collaborated on some clients. It seemed to me that as one of the largest independent media buying and planning shops, in another words, not owned my public operator, public, that Dave was an ideal partner to, turn in -- talk into the idea that search was a big part of the future media, it was a gateway media to other media and Dave agreed that we wanted to be before ahead of the curve of essentially search big part of integrated media offering, and to emphasize the importance that we were placing on search, by doing that to give it a title that wasn't just Media Planner or Media Buyer or something of that sort, but to indicate that we thought that search was going to be a more and more important piece of the media mix. And, to communicate to clients that, there was a better alternative than going to a stand-alone shop that did search, but the search should be integrated with the rest of your medium.

Jennifer Jones - MarketingVoices
OK, cool and very good. So, a simple explanation of what is good search, like if you said, 'Okay' to a client you got to have these elements to make good search.

Bob Heyman - Mediasmith
Almost all of there, the questions that Yahoo! in particular has been able to quantify, indicates that search -- typing into a Search Box on the internet has become the predominant way people find products or in services; it's up there even if you have a -- having a baby and you want to pick the right crib and if you had a word in your mouth and it's ahead of asking your parents. So, search is becoming a Ubiquitous Business activity. Good search to us means that you can find the product or the service on a search engine when you are looking for it. Because, what search really is -- it's turned out to be the most attractive direct marketing medium ever devised and we can get into how that works and add a good campaign in terms of direct marketing, but in terms of branding, there was a famous introduction of a Coke product a few years ago where they didn't buy the search terms and there was something in the order of three to 1000 searches a day that we're not finding what they wanted to find. Basically, we all are trying to find this new product intro.

So, search is where people go when you've introduced to branding campaign and people don't quite remember the name of the product or they only remember the tag line or they remember making attribute that was in the Ad or. So, basically they now have the option of GI (ph) I can find that out I'll go Google it and if you're not there, you are not going to get the sale. Searches are considered to be a great direct marketing medium because essentially listed are lot of project products you're getting people in the purchase cycle where they are doing research, they really want to purchase and if you turn up under the right keyword basically you'll get the sale.

Jennifer Jones - MarketingVoices
So, okay, so hang on a second. So, in terms of an example of a good search outcome again short form like if we really say, 'okay, this is where it started and this is where they is nothing. This was goodness.'

Bob Heyman - Mediasmith
Example I used probably there is so much case study is work we did for Napster. Napster did a Super Ball Ad last year in which their tag line was the do the match and it was current competition essentially to show you that the Napster make more sense than I do. We both do the math, we bought all the Super Ball terms, we bought music downloads, Napster all of those paid off in search the attitude, the exposure as with almost any kind of branding drives more search.

A good search outcome means that you are in the top results, you are on the first page; if you don't show up on the first page, basically people don't go to a second page ideally you're in the top three results onto the organic side which is for left side, but the search page also on the top three of the right side or top which is way to pay the extra one. Basically about 70% of people want to click an organic Ad if it's relevant, but if you'll show up in both organic and in paid listing, people have a higher contents level that you're for real and your name is inserted in a search query.

Jennifer Jones - MarketingVoices
Okay, so that's very helpful. So, why should CMOs of technology companies really care about doing great search for their sites?

Bob Heyman - Mediasmith
One problem is that search in a way grew up outside the orbit of the CMO. It originally be able to search product the way it's just getting into a Yahoo! or an out edition directory listing and what we now called SEO, or Search Engine Optimization is something that is probably more the domain of the Webmaster than a marketer. Often we came out of the IT budget nevertheless we go to Website that was in the IT budget. Now we want to propagate it make sure you become a search engines. So, generally a Search Engine Optimization practitioner which initially was just making sure you had the right Media Tags and now means you have lot to be inbound links, but its almost more coding than a marketing function.

So, often it's under the IT person rather then the CMO and what has happened is our search has become more important. CMOs are discovering that there's a whole a budget that should be under their control that's directly towards a positive marketing outcome, but it's being directed by the IT person or by the Webmaster. So, they often -- the CMO often doesn't have even visibility of to what's going on in organic search. Is this paid search going on, usually that comes out of a marketing budget, and what has happened is that direct market that search has been recognized as the single most effective direct marketing medium ever devised. The return on equity of search marketing in particular sense of directly traceable to an action, so you can really find out what the CPA is, it's something which got the attention of Marketing Managers. So, they've control, if they didn't have it of their Google and Yahoo! paid search budget and if they're smart they're trying to get control of the SEO budgets as well.

Jennifer Jones - MarketingVoices
Yeah, well that's what I was -- where I was going, because the whole thing is matrix and search and what's really being used today, so that's my next question is what are the matrix that everybody is going by?

Bob Heyman - Mediasmith
Well, we have a as far I think it's an amusing phase, but we say you can measure the CPW and by which we mean the cost per whatever you want to measure. In some cases, that's an actual sale, it could be a lead in the case Napster it was how much they were spending to get as many people who signed up for a two week trial as possible, but almost every marketer even people who aren't really direct marketer when they start doing search which they see as a direct medium they find a some kind of CTA goal or some cost per action goal to measure.

So, whether that's, $20 for a lead or so when the instructions so many for a download or whatever the matrix is you can manage search against that matrix when we started with Napster they were paying $70 per two week trial and we got that down below $20, that's impart by being smart about what keywords you're buying it's some smart big part, smart about what the - what's called action is and a copy. It's also a matter of how much you're willing to bid and managing that bid so that it might be a different position in your ranking. Works better on weekends or day parts it could make a difference, it may be that being soar is more economical than being first.

Jennifer Jones - MarketingVoices
Okay, so final question, what is the average cost arises? This is a really tough question of a search campaign for say, $500 million company.

Bob Heyman - Mediasmith
It is hard to say on an average cost of anything is because you're doing within option so, the bid fluctuate even for a Napster who was spending millions of dollars in media. It is only somebody's -- Google would love it, if they could create more searches, but there are only so many searches that people do everyday on a given term. So, for a major 'b' to 'c' client spending maybe $150 to $20,000 a month is a big search budget where they maybe spending lots more money in other media, but you can only spend -- spend against somebody's searches for that term everyday in terms of what you actually want to pay per word the minimum data information is like five cents nobody is competing for the word you can get it for five or ten cents.

The most expensive word I know is Beverly Hills Lasik because the Lasik search engine Beverly Hills are willing to beat almost anything to get a lead in the door for such a high profit specialty. So, it's the bid price is all over the map which ended to built-up again in the fourth quarter because of increase competition in Christmas melodies for consumer terms, but they are 80-20 role of 20% of the keywords tend to deliver 80% of the traffic so it's a lot of try and error and discovery and looking over to competitor who're doing to be able to identify words in word nest.

Jennifer Jones - MarketingVoices
So, I said it was a final question before that now I really have a final question. Okay lets -- does anybody ever go sure on the bids like all these words?

Bob Heyman - Mediasmith
No I mean its an auction, but not in its not a sort of put and call auction, but basically there are bidding strategies, there is artificial technology, artificial intelligent technology to manage bids and there're bid tools, they try to replicate the stock market, but the user what they call a portfolio based approach to bidding, but you see those short you cant just not rank very highly its basically highest bid market.

Jennifer Jones - MarketingVoices
Very amazing, so they're obviously much more complicated.

Bob Heyman - Mediasmith
So Google is trying to bring this model to radio, television and print so some people are thinking where they are trying to put all the Ad Reps out of business or they are trying to put all the media buyers out of business and I more think they are trying to put the reps out of business, but they think the Google should be the mechanism by which all advertising assault.

Jennifer Jones - MarketingVoices
Well, Bob Heyman you've been in awesome interview this is been very, very educational side, I've been talking about Heyman who is the chief search officer at Mediasmith. Mediasmith is very well known San Francisco based integrated media agency, so Bob thank you for joining at MarketingVoices.

Bob Heyman - Mediasmith
And Jennifer I can briefly do my Jefferson Starship got me into the search marketing business story.

Jennifer Jones - MarketingVoices
No, definitely I didn't know if you wanted to take the time, yeah go ahead.

Bob Heyman - Mediasmith
Yeah sure, we had -- and my first company Cybernautic as I mentioned I've been a lawyer and they wanted a Website and I knew a Web came back in '94 and we built on a website that was a boljstarship.com which you think could be a pretty easy URL to remember and I think a very cool site. One night I got a call from the manager and I don't know where they were playing, but it was three in the morning my time and they were rip-shit (ph) and the reason they were rip-shit is they had wanted to show the website to the promoter and none of them could remember the URL.

Jennifer Jones - MarketingVoices
Oh, my God.

Bob Heyman - Mediasmith
Which makes you wonder what they were on, but they had then gone to I think it AltaVista and typed in Jefferson Starship thinking that their site would show up number one and it showed up like on the third page and they were furious with me. They said you guys are terrible Web designers, how can you, we are the Jefferson Starship? How could the search engine not know we're -- we should be number one? You must have screwed up.

It turned out that at that point that it was early in the algorithm of organic search and what the search engine was doing was basically putting at number one whatever site that had the word Jefferson Starship most often. And there was a fan site that had used the term repeatedly and we though it didn't rather tasteful and didn't mention Jefferson Starship as bright as -- as much as they had, but it just turned out that if we put Jefferson Starship in little black letters against a black background and ran it half-a-mile down the page the next day we were number one and they thought we were a genius and we had a new specialty called Search Engine Optimization.

Jennifer Jones - MarketingVoices
Very impressive that is in great sort of I am sorry that you are saying at the top, but I know a lot of people listen to the whole Podcast so hopefully everyone will hear that. So, anyway thank you so much and again Bob Heyman who is a chief search officer at Mediasmith and all of you give your website for your firm.

Bob Heyman - Mediasmith
Sure, www.mediasmith.com.

Jennifer Jones - MarketingVoices
Great and this is been Jennifer Jones of MarketingVoices and so to all my listeners until next week may all the voices you hear be MarketingVoices.