In these days of turbulent and uncertain economic times, the first things that usually get looked at and cut (and in many parts of the world already have), are marketing and advertising budgets.
It is very easy for CEOs and boards to generate some quick bottomline savings. While this is often prudent and makes perfect business sense, I would argue that it is also the perfect time to increase marketing spend in order to take market share from your competitors.
The one area where we think all companies should look to invest further during these times is search engine marketing (SEM), both paid search programs and search engine optimisation (SEO).
Across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, where we have up until this point been a little more protected from the collapses occurring in the US and Europe, there is an incredible opportunity for companies to increase both website visitors and market share for their particular industry and category.
Paid search and SEO are the two main areas where we believe marketers should ensure an increased investment in 2009.
Increasing paid search investment
Paid search, often referred to as SEM or pay-per-click (PPC), must be allowed to work hand in hand with your organic optimisation strategies. Now is the time to be increasing (or even starting) your paid search investment with the various search engines around the region.
Again, consumers have not stopped using search engines because there is an economic downturn!
People if anything are likely to increase their usage. In an economic slowdown when more and more consumers are counting every cent, they'll spend more time researching online -- comparison shopping and hunting for bargains before making any purchases. More consumer time spent on search engines means more paid search opportunities.
The fact is that SEM is probably the most accountable and quick to action of all advertising mediums. Marketing teams should have the confidence in going to their CEOs and boards with a very justified rationale for increasing their investment on Google, Yahoo, Baidu, Naver and other regional search engines.
Through the use of widely available bid management and reporting technologies (such as Decide DNA and Omniture) that can be used across the APAC region, clients can ensure that their expenditure is spent, tracked and optimised in the most cost effective manner.
Research in both APAC and the US tells us that those companies that have both a high ranking listing in the search engines and a high ranking ad appearing will receive an exponential amount of traffic compared to those companies that have either a high ranked organic listing or paid ad alone, or even worse no ranking or appearance in the search engine results at all!
Forward-thinking clients should use this period to take market share from their narrow-minded competitors.
Leveraging SEO
Having a website that can be found easily and is able to have all its relevant pages indexed by search engine crawlers is a basic fundamental that is all too often overlooked.
It should be one of the first areas a marketing team should be looking at in order to ensure a steady flow of traffic from the likes of Google and other search engines. This is especially the case during periods of economic downturn.
For a relatively minor investment and a commitment to ongoing website optimisation, companies will ensure that the search engines continue to drive them highly targeted, measurable and accountable traffic.
People (potential customers) are not going to stop searching for credit cards, mobile phones, laptops, books, shoes and even a new chicken curry recipe just because the banking system is in crisis.
People are still people. The Christmas and the holiday season is still happening this year last time I checked.
If you, as a marketer, can invest in SEO and get the buy-in of your various colleagues in IT and product management and ensure that the relevant pages of your website come up on the first page of a search engine, you will reap the rewards of more customers interacting with your brand and buying your products.
I would encourage you as an advertiser to ensure that your search marketing investment is at the required levels in order to take advantage over your competitors in the current economic climate.
Robbie Hills is CEO for GroupM Search in Asia Pacific.
