Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Is the Web Marketing Industry Still Immature?

Search engine marketing (SEM) expert Kevin Lee talks about the immaturity of the SEM industry in his recent ClickZ column post. He reminds us that nearly all of the companies engaging in search marketing are less than 10 years old, and believes that the way agency/client relationships are created and maintained is immature as well.

While Kevin indicated by email that this post was more of a rant, he makes outstanding observations that apply to the state of web marketing as a whole I believe. He points out, for example, that:

"successful brands and successful marketers, be they manufacturers, retailers or catalog merchants, nearly always manage offline marketing by establishing long-term partnerships with their agencies, suppliers, and even media providers. These relationships don't always work out, of course, but there generally exists a mature understanding that in order for the company to thrive and grow, an investment in success requires both sides of the relationship to work hard to achieve agreed-upon goals and objectives, many of which will not be easy to deliver. Some initiatives take time to bear fruit; others rely on aggregation of experiential data, as well as learning by both organizations."

Some of the reasons for client dissatisfaction can include unreasonable expectations, a "dating mentality" with too short of a time horizon, and an unwillingness to communicate. Maybe because web marketing can bring such immediate results, company marketers expect their agencies to be able to maximize those results immediately as well.

In hiring employees, companies don't generally give new hires just one or even a few months to prove themselves - they have usually at least several months unless there's a clear and obvious mismatch between the company's needs and the new employee's abilities. There is a learning curve for both sides to work effectively together. To do any differently is too costly to both parties given the amount invested in the relationship (high costs of employee turnover and poor hirinig is well documented). The situation, costs and benefits are really very similar in an agency relationship.

An example of what one smart SRB client did illustrates a more mature way to approach the web marketing agency/client relationship. When we started with the client four years ago, we had to climb a learning curve in determining what would work for that client. The first few months we missed the benchmarks we had set out to achieve. The client stuck with us. By the fifth or sixth month we had become by far the client's most cost-effective marketing channel and remained that way for the following years. Had the client given up too soon, it wouldn't have realized the results that helped it grow substantially during the remainder of the relationship.

Posted by Perry Goldschein
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