Where is SEMPO now?
Introduction covering SEMPOs brief history and their newly-expanded mission statement and "triad" of initiatives: Power/Leverage, Information and Relationships.
SEMPO's Landmark Initiatives
Listen in as we drill down on the triad and discuss the main projects SEMPO has recently announced: Click fraud study, State of Search survey, Training program, Global strategy, Standards.
SEMPO experienced their
own SEM nightmare.
Find out what that was and how they are overcoming
it.
SEMPO: Living Our Promises
Hear more about the future and SEMPO's outreach
to inhouse.
SEMPO is a non-profit independent industry group
comprised of search marketers around the world,
with an expanding membership of service providers
and corporate search marketing professionals.
Now in its third year, SEMPO has over 400 member
companies in 22 countries, and has made a significant
name for itself as the voice of SEM.
SEMPO Moving Forward and Looking Ahead Summary
On the 1st of September 2006, Cindy Turrietta
and Brooke Schumacher interviewed Dana Todd, President
of SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professionals
Organization) and its chairperson Gord Hotchkiss.
The search industry has shown phenomenal growth
from the time of its inception three years back-
growing from, as Dana describes “being
a mere 1% of someones marketing budget, to search
now controlling 40% of the overall marketing spend”.
In this show, Gord and Dana discussed the initial
problems faced by SEMPO, the successful initiatives
launched by it and what SEMPO aims to achieve
in the near future.
Where Is SEMPO now?
In the first segment Cindy started with the
question what is SEMPO? Dana informed listeners
that SEMPO is a non profit independent industry
group comprising of search marketers around the
world. SEMPO has an expanding membership which
includes service providers and corporate search
marketing professionals from around the world.
Dana explained how she and Gord were part of the
founding group and how a lot of credit for creating
SEMPO goes to Barbara Coll of Web Mama.
A lot of web marketers used to get together at
the end of SES every year and would discuss how
nice it would be to have this organization that
would introduce people outside the circle of search
to the amazing ways in which search can be utilized.
However, nothing materialized until Barbara Colt
finally called a meeting. By the end of that night,
there were 14 people left in the room who said
“Okay, we are going to make this happen!”
When asked who SEMPO serves, Gord stated that
according to its mission statement, SEMPO is about
building an inclusive community and expanding
the boundaries of that community to include more
and more growth. SEMPO has a diverse group of
members such as traditional marketers and brand
advertisers. As a result, SEMPO has grown from
being more of a promotional vehicle to a community
builder; building communication channels and helping
with education.
Gord gave a wonderful description of what search
marketing really is saying, “…it
is like dancing on quick sand”. Search
marketing is a dynamic industry that where if
you don’t keep up with the new trends and
make the necessary changes, you sink, and you
sink fast. Dana agreed, saying “The thing
that makes us search marketers unique is that
we are mavericks. We are always on the cutting
edge. We’re always looking for the next
thing and trying new things. We have to be very
flexible because you can’t ride this wild
pony for more than 3 weeks without realizing that
you will have to give up your whole way of thinking”.
SEMPO's Landmark Initiatives
In the second segment, Dana and Gord discussed
SEMPO’s triad of initiatives and the main
projects that SEMPO has recently announced. Gord
explained to viewers that SEMPO redid its mission
statement and decided on new initiatives by finding
out what was important to the members through
surveys and one on one conversations.
Using this method, the management identified
three priorities and called them “power
and influence, information and relationships”.
Gord revealed the aim of the first part of the
triad i.e. power and influence, was to “extend
SEMPO to make it to make it a more inclusive community
and to expand our membership into areas like the
brand marketers, in-house marketers and large
traditional agencies and continue to use the media
through an outreach program…The media can
also use SEMPO to crystal ball a bit about what
is happening in the future. That is a key initiative
and one we have been working on for the last several
months.”
The second and third parts of the triad i.e.
information and relationships was described by
Gord as being an inclusive initiative that covers
the use of the SEMPO website, continuing use of
SEMPO’s own publications and newsletters
and also creating partnerships with other well
regarded publications like Clickz, Mediapost,
Marketing Sherpa etc to get reliable and up to
date information.
SEMPO’s Own SEM Nightmare
Not all is rosy at SEMPO and in the third segment
Cindy and Brooke asked about the bad press SEMPO
received. Initially, SEMPO faced some pretty serious
criticism by bloggers and had a very negative
search engine reputation. Some of these critics
were even members of SEMPO. Overcoming this was
difficult and even more difficult was carving
out a reputation of some standard after the bad
press. On this Dana said, “we called
it our own search engine marketing nightmare”
because, ironically “as search professionals
we teach people about their search engine marketing
reputation i.e. what do you look like when you
type your name into a search engine.”
Gord felt that the actual issue was lack of understanding
of what the organization was, what is mandate
was and what it was there to do. Different members
had different opinions. The members who were initially
critical have now started to work with the organization
rather than against it. According to Gord, this
is a part of evolution.
Focusing on the third part of the triad, that
is the relationships, Gord said that one of the
main things all the members want is a stronger
and more proactive relationship with the search
engines i.e. Google, Yahoo and MSN etc.
Living Our Promises
In the fourth segment, Dana and Gord were led
to talk about living out their promises and discussed
the future of the organization.
Gord explained to listeners that with any new
industry there is a need for standards and till
now the search engine marketing community has
let the search engines define the standards. In
the past the search engines defined the standards
in a way that was fairly insular to them. There
is a change needed now, where the advertising
community wants standardization across the board
so that they can do ‘apples to apples
comparisons with different campaigns across different
channels’.
The second goal SEMPO wants to achieve is to
extend their global reach and engage international
members. People who are members of SEMPO will
have ‘a seat at the table that will define
what this industry will become’. SEMPO puts
the views of its members in front of the publishers
and that helps influence the shape of the industry.
Dana added that the three major areas SEMPO will
be focusing on this year are the click fraud research,
the development of a training program and a standards
task force.
All in all, this will be a very eventful year
for SEMPO and their future looks bright.
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