Plumbers and Brain Surgeons, How Does SMO and SEO Work for Inbound Marketing
As little as 5 years ago, Yellow Page advertisements fit dominantly into many companies marketing mixes. If this was the case for your company, you may not be able to ignore Social Media and Search Engine Optimization.
Today, Social Media Optimization and Search Engine Optimization have replaced or joined Yellow Page ads in many companies marketing mixes. But, how much should your company focus on SMO/SEO? How much money should you throw at the effort? How much time?
To answer these questions you must take into consideration your product and your potential customers. If your toilet is backed up and you don't know "Joe the Plumber" personally, what do you do? If you are like me, you go to Google and type in "Plumber, 63304 and Reviews" and watch options for doing business together populate on the screen.
On the other hand God forbid my daughter needs brain surgery, I wouldn't hop on Google and start typing "Brain Surgeon, St. Louis". Instead, I would use my network to find "the Who" for the type of procedure. By "the Who", I mean the world renowned expert on that particular item.
So if you have a complex solution like brain surgery, then SEO/SMO shouldn't be part of your marketing mix? Not necessarily, consider the following. A surgeon decides he wants to own "brain surgery" in web searches. He starts to blog and tweet on best practices in brain surgery. Since he is first and he is diligent in providing really good content, he earns a following among doctors. And this following creates a really nice referral source because this entrepreneurial surgeon has now garnered "the Who" status.
Consequently no matter what you sell, SEO/SMO deserves attention. If the lifeblood of your business is based upon inbound leads or is "pull" marketing dependent, it is much more likely that SEO/SMO should be a vital part of your marketing mix. However if new business development is more complex or more dependent on push marketing strategies, then the answer could be more complicated. Where does your company/organization fit in the spectrum?
Three recommended resources:
http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/documents/Viral_Marketing.pdf
http://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Search-Engine-Optimization/dp/0789738317
Author: Bill Ziercher
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