Dispelling the notion that it's an either/or proposition.

Perhaps we’ve all been influenced by the tone of the presidential campaign so much that everyone now reads more between the lines than what is really printed. Perhaps we are now so used to divides that we expect them where they don’t exist. Or maybe I just need to practice what I preach more and send concise and clear messages. Whatever the case, I seem to have sent the wrong message to a few of my colleagues lately.

Judging from some of the emails that resulted from my last few columns, it appears that I may have given one or two readers the impression that I don't like Search. One email even began with, “I hate search too.”

Too?

My May column warned that many non-Search related companies were entering the space because they equated having the term “Search” in their product lines to a license to print money. The intent was to tell buyers to beware because we saw the same thing happen in Email. The upper cut was aimed at the poseurs not the true search professionals. 

Last month, my column pointed out how many marketers were looking at Email once again because Search prices have risen dramatically this year (a fact, not a jab). I never suggested that it was an either/or proposition. I even stated that “the two channels are coming together in interesting ways” and have many similarities.

Still, the “Mayor Hates Search” flags were spotted in other camps as well. My friend and colleague David Berkowitz, who writes for the Search Insider, took a comment that I made at the recent DMA convention out of context and determined that I was perpetuating a fight between Search and Email.

Fight?

David’s column last week entitled “Search and E-Mail: Why Do We Have to Fight?" used my line (that he heard secondhand, mind you) “the goal of Search is to drive you to the site and get your email address” as an example of apparent infighting between the two groups. Granted it was an oversimplification, but one that was actually used for the purpose of illustrating how intertwined the two channels really are.

Just to be clear, I have always felt that Search and Email are like the two handles on a wheelbarrow. If those two handles didn't exist, no one would even approach the wheelbarrow. They probably wouldn’t spend much time with it if it only had one handle either. Yet with both of them firmly in place, people will walk up to it, lift it and load up on things they never dreamed they could find. 

What I have been openly critical of is the lack of a unified approach to the two channels (a view also supported by David Berkowitz' article). David builds a great example in his article by using a Wal-Mart DVD campaign that properly combines paid Search and Email. I would add that it’s not Wal-Mart’s fault for not seriously considering such a common-sensed approach. It’s ours. We have done nothing as an industry to facilitate such an integrated approach to interactive marketing. By not doing so, we have inadvertently forced marketers to make the either/or decision and that’s just harmful to both channels.

I don't hate Search. I hate missed opportunities. Maybe the timing hasn't been right for integration. After all, both Search and Email have certainly had their hands full just getting their own houses in order. However, in 2005 there are no excuses. Let’s pull these two amazing marketing channels together and generate new customers for our clients in ways that exemplify the power of interactive marketing, not its complexities.  

So for the record it’s not Search vs. Email, it’s Search and Email. And the only in-fighting that I know of will hopefully die down dramatically starting November 3rd.

Michael Mayor is president of NetCreations, the customer acquisition and data division of Return Path The Email Performance Company. He is a 19-year veteran of direct marketing and a recognized pioneer of email marketing. Mayor joined NetCreation's as one of the company's first employees in 1998, and played a key role in helping to build the largest email list management company in the industry today. He has also pioneered many of the email marketing industry's standards and best practices. Mayor is a leading advocate of privacy and is a frequent speaker at industry functions.