SEM and Branding Are Not Mutually Exclusive

By Pete Larmey

Mention the term “search engine marketing” (SEM) among those who engage in it and you’re likely to get the same three or four responses. It’s about being on page one of all the search engines. It’s about being #1 on Google. It’s about increasing brand recognition among prospects and customers.

Um, wait a second…repeat that last one again?

Increasing brand recognition among prospects and customers is not something that one typically gives as a reason for implementing an SEM campaign. In fact, it can be argued that SEM can be a very powerful tool for enhancing a company’s brand image among its target audiences.

This is supported by a recent study by the Dieringer Resource Group, which surveyed 3,000 respondents regarding their online purchasing habits. Interestingly, 60% of these respondents’ brand opinions were changed or enhanced as a result of online research (American Interactive Consumer Survey, June, 2004).

Another report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Nielsen NetRatings suggest that “27 percent (of survey respondents were) more likely to name a specific brand if it was in the top spot of the search results page.” (Sponsored Listings Effectiveness Study, July, 2004).

Getting Your Brand to the Top of the Heap

The Web is huge, with millions of sites competing for attention (yeah, I know, you’re thinking, tell me something I don’t know. Please, bear with me.). Chances are that a good portion of those sites are competing with your company’s offerings in one category or another.

While getting to the top of the heap on the engines may be enough to make people clickthrough, it may not be enough to make people buy from you, let alone develop a long-term customer relationship.

People buy because they associate particular companies with specific concepts. When people think reliable automobile, they might think Honda. When they think fast microprocessors, they might think Intel. They form an impression. They associate. They buy.

This is the core of all marketing programs; your SEM campaigns should be no different. Consider that all SEM campaigns are based on possibly the most important and valued resource for any marketing campaign: words that accurately describe what your company does and what it offers.

Keywords are Key

Marketing campaigns begin very innocently, in the form of concepts, which are then boiled down to messages, which are then dispersed -- at times ad nauseum -- across all possible marketing channels.

The same marketing messages pop up in advertisements, news articles, and more, engraining themselves in people’s consciousnesses. These messages are comprised of keywords designed to reinforce the company’s brand: “best toothpaste”…”most cost-effective staffing services”…”best tasting diet soda.”

And what is an effective SEM campaign based on? Yep. Keywords. Choosing them is both an art and a science: companies want to select keyword terms that are popular, but they should also keep in mind that they keywords they select are representative of the products and services they sell.

Thus, these terms are also representative of the company, which makes them representative of the company’s brand. They give customers and prospects an idea of what a company stands for, how it provides a benefit, and how it can help meet someone’s needs.

By choosing keyword terms that reflect your brand positioning, you can both enhance your brand and increase your chances of getting noticed by web searchers. In fact, keyword terms offer an excellent chance to reinforce your brand through simple and direct terminology that can help your customers and prospects identify your company with certain terms.

For example, a Web hosting service may not just want to be known for Web hosting, but “affordable Web hosting” (which, according to Wordtracker -- a tool used by many search marketers – is searched on over 200 times a day).

Tying SEM into branding could be particularly important for companies whose sole marketing efforts revolve around SEM; for them, this is their only chance to truly brand themselves to the world at large.

Keyword selection should be used in such a way as to reinforce a company’s branding just as a traditional advertising or offline marketing campaign does. For example, among the more traditional keywords found on IBM’s homepage (words such as “technical support,” “linux,” etc.) can be found “On Demand Business.”

On Demand Business is an initiative that IBM developed to capitalize on the burgeoning popularity of on-demand computing. On Demand Business is an IBM term that the company has driven into the public lexicon through ads, articles, and case studies. As it turns out, they’ve also put it in their keyword selections.

The reason for this is three-fold:

A) they know that people associate On Demand Business with IBM, and a search on that term will drive customers to the IBM website;

B) the topic of On Demand Business is prominently displayed on the homepage; and

C) the company wants to reinforce the term On Demand Business in any way they can, including via their keywords.

In effect, they are using SEM, through their keyword selections, to promote and reinforce a brand image – IBM as the pioneer in On Demand Business.

Here are two other examples:

• www.intel.com – keyword example: “Intel Inside”
• www.swatch.com – keyword example: “swatch internet time”

All of these companies are marketing themselves not just on their pages, but in their source code. They are optimizing their sites in a way that reinforces the power of their brands.

There’s no reason why online marketing should just be relegated to banner ads or email marketing campaigns. Consider this when developing an SEM program and its keywords in particular.

SEM provides ample opportunity to project a brand image, and thus should be considered an organic (excuse the pun) extension of your marketing efforts.

About the Author
Pete Larmey has over 10 years of marketing communications consulting experience. As a business consultant with KeywordRanking (a division of Websourced, Inc.), Pete helps clients develop effective search engine marketing programs designed to increase brand awareness and drive revenue. Prior to KeywordRanking, Pete was an independent consultant, helping companies build successful public relations and interactive marketing campaigns.