Engineering “Top-of-Find”

Recently, I was interviewing the president at one of my client companies. I asked him what he expected from Marketing in 2010. He said, “I want us to be top-of-mind in the marketplace.” We spent the next few minutes discussing the fact that since his company had virtually zero name recognition on the national scene, it would be impractical and “crazy expensive” to buy our way into the market’s mindshare. We eventually agreed to an alternative objective for the year: to be top-of-find.

According to Google, each month some 22,000 businesses are looking for solutions that this company delivers. We determined that on these searches, our company and products were nearly invisible in Google results. Two ways to look at this. 1) What a disaster!  2) Green pastures!…We have an opportunity to increase our site traffic 10-fold!

So now we’re in the process of applying an SEO strategy (search engine optimization program) with the help of RefreshWeb, and we’re immediately launching a Google Adwords campaign (actually a series of campaigns tailored to 5 regions) to buy our way onto search results page, at least until our SEO work kicks in.

Today’s marketers aren’t nearly as concerned with creating brand presence and top-of-mind as in the past. While a strong brand is still desirable, it’s now downstream from the more pressing task of being discovered by active buyers. As buyers find you, they will learn about your products and experience your brand in as they engage with the content you make available to them. (creating engaging content is a subject in a future post…)

Forgive me for over-simplifying this part of a holistic online marketing program…but frankly, there are some simple things businesses can attack that can have huge impact. Let me know what you think.

Professional Destiny? That’s Kinda Personal…

When I left a senior executive position at a F500 company this past summer, I had alot of thinking to do. It was clear that I wasn’t interested in jumping right back into the corporate world, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to nail down a vision of my future.

Good thing I met with Valerie Hausladen, former president of Tocquigny, plus head of Enfatico’s Austin office. She’d recently published her book “Professional Destiny” and was willing to talk about it over lunch with me. And the timing was perfect, because I was headed to New Mexico for backpacking the following week. Sitting in my tent in pouring rain for several days, I literally waded through her book, making notes and doing the exercises she suggested. Shazaam. I had my vision for my professional (and personal) destiny. It put my radar on alert so that when the opportunity to join Chief Outsiders rolled around, I was able to recognize it as a perfect fit with my goals.

So have a look. Read about Valerie here on her BLOG. And here in the Austin American Statesman this week (a great read!). And she’s having a book reading and signing this Thursday, 7pm at Bookwoman, 5501 N. Lamar Blvd.

Thanks Valerie, on behalf of those like me who’ve been helped by your book and those soon to be!