Our company has experience phenomenal growth over the past few years. We seem to be in a perpetual state of hiring. I am not complaining; the constant state of change, new ideas and challenges is what keeps me going. Being too steady would drive me nuts, boring me out of my mind.
So, all this change brings on a number of questions about SEM. One of the most frequently faced from clients and prospective employees is “what makes a good search marketer?” Given that the search group is one of the areas I oversee, this question is constantly on my mind. And, I have come to several conclusions.
First, SEM is the kind of marketing most marketing majors coming out of college want to do. It is extremely tangible. Your results are virtually immediate. You have nearly ultimate control. And, if your ideas pan out, you can prove it. Unfortunately, if you do not get into search early out of school(or direct marketing off-line), the tangibility of marketing is quickly lost. Running traditional advertising and marketing programs keeps us a couple of step removed from the ultimate goal: the Sale. It is not that these are ineffective tactics. It is that their impact is cumulative and the view to any one tactic’s effect is very hard to determine. So, keeping the initial marketing desire is key to SEM.
Second, I believe good marketers are naturally curious people. They want to know… everything. If a question comes up that is technically beyond their scope, they find a way to answer it. The boundaries of a position are irrelevant. Natural curiosity drives them to figure it out. Good SEM is driven by good marketing. And good marketing is driven by curiosity.
So, where does SEM expertise come into play? Obviously, we need this. We must understand cause and affect within search. But, if you hire people who fulfill the first and second points, teaching them search marketing ins and outs is easy; much easier than teaching curiosity.
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