10 Things I Learned About SEM From the Movies

by Amy Yates on 06/21/2010 at 11:27 am in Performance Marketing

“Yo, Adrian.” I’ll admit it: I’m a total geek and I love to learn new things. So much so, I try to tackle something new every year. The guitar didn’t last long because I didn’t like calluses on my fingers. Golf lessons in July weren’t my best idea either, especially in the Texas heat. Teaching myself PHP has come in handy a few times when I want to spice up my blog sidebar. As crazy as it sounds, I even took a few years and went to nursing school. Being an RN is bound to help me as an online marketer, right? Needless to say, learning is an important part of any job but especially so with search engine marketing. Standards change so rapidly; today’s best practices can often be completely ineffective tomorrow. While we can learn from any situation, I’ve found movies are a great source of insights.

1. “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” – Monitor your competition. What are they doing? Capitalize on their mistakes, and learn from their successes and failures. Find out how they position themselves. Can you meet their service levels or even offer something better?

2. “Round up the usual suspects.” – While odd problems do crop up, check the typical offenders, first. A decline in organic traffic? Ensure your content is fresh and visible to search engines. No activity through your PPC campaigns? Check your budget caps. Analytics package showing strange results? Make sure everything is tagged properly.

3. “My momma always said, life was like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.” – Just because our audience behaved a certain way last month doesn’t mean they’re still doing the same thing today. From creative tests, to landing page tests, to conversion optimization, as effective performance marketers, we must evolve. Compare the performance of “Sale on Widgets” to “Widgets on Sale.” Don’t assume you know the answer. Test, test, and test some more. Along those lines …

4. “You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.” – Being able to draw accurate and actionable conclusions takes time. If you’re trying a landing page conversion test, don’t assume that Page A is better based on one day (or week, or month) of data. Be sure you have statistically relevant results before making sweeping decisions.

5. “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” – or a bigger budget, or a better tool. Time and again, I’ve seen companies invest in a solution, program, or product, and stubbornly refuse to switch courses even in the face of compelling reasons to adjust their initial plans.

6. “You can’t handle the truth.” – As you test, be prepared to get surprised. Who knew that ad copy with text speak (like ‘LOL’ or ‘OMG’) could convert? Texting-happy teenagers!

7. “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.” – Use demographics of existing customers to find new ones in creative places. Does a 43-year old woman fall within your target market? Perhaps you should consider advertising within or alongside a social game, specifically tailoring your creative message to speak to her. Even better, can you include an incentive to purchase, such as a FarmVille or Mafia Wars gift card?

8. “Elementary, my dear Watson.” – Progress is crucial; however, we must also keep a keen eye on the basic principles of marketing. Who is our customer? There may be a spiffy new pilot program but does it reach our target audience? What does our customer want? If they’re shopping for widgets but all of our materials try to drive them to sprockets, prospective shoppers are going to take their dollars elsewhere.

9. “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” – Communication is vital in any relationship, including the one we have with our customers. From a consistent branding message, to clearly delineating our latest offering, we must communicate. When an ad says “Free Shipping” but in reality it’s free shipping only at a certain price point, consumers are justifiably disgruntled.

10. “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” – There are so many great resources out there; bloggers sharing their experiences with testing in PPC campaigns, emerging social marketing techniques, and how algorithm changes impact search engine optimization. It impresses me, because they’re putting information out there for all of us to use – even competitors!

Did you recognize all the movie quotes? Bonus points if you did! Now I’m curious — Did your favorite movie teach you anything about search engine marketing? I’m off to see if I can structure a test to prove the worth of showing a movie every afternoon in the conference room. Don’t worry; “I’ll be back.“