I decided my first post of 2010 wasn't going to be about social media. I'm certainly a proponent for the opportunities that social media brings to the marketing mix, done well and for the right reasons. But I am also a realist that sees there are still many other important tools in the digital marketers toolbox shouldn't be ignored. So my first post of 2010 isn't about social media, and it's not even written by me!
For specialized online marketing tools, I leave that to the experts. So the below is posted with special thanks to guest Intouch blogger and Search Manager, Dave Anderson, who reminds us it never hurts to get back to (search engine marketing) basics ...
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As we enter 2010, there are certain topics that are buzzwords for pharmaceutical marketers across the board – social media, mobile web, and video to name the big ideas. These are excellent topics and definitely are what pharmaceutical companies need to be thinking about if they want to continue to “move the needle” online. These are pertinent tactics to consider and include in your online brand initiatives, but there is one tactic left off this list – search engine marketing (both organic and paid search).
While social media and other emerging media are very important channels for online marketing, search engine marketing can serve as a stabilizing, powerful base for your entire online approach. With a well-planned search strategy in place, you can help to ensure a larger piece of the online pie is able to find your site. It doesn’t do any good to build something if no one can find it. Statistics have shown that search is still the most prevalent traffic driver for digital pharmaceutical marketing.
What is Search Engine Marketing?
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the process of marketing a website within search engine results. There are two basic arms of SEM:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing a website in order to increase its visibility within organic search engine results.
- Paid Search Marketing (PPC) is the process of bidding on relevant keywords in order to increase visibility within search engine results “sponsored listings.”
Why is Search Important?
In November 2009 at the FDA Social Media Hearings, Google presented statistics that reinforce the importance of search for digital pharmaceutical marketing. According to Google's statistics, there are 110 million unique users performing 4.6 billion monthly health-related searches. During their presentation, Google also shared the above graphic which shows that health condition searches have been increasing exponentially since 2006. In our opinion, this trend is only going to continue in 2010 and beyond.
Search is all about providing the right content at the right time to the right audience.
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This is Wendy speaking again. One of Dave's main points really sticks out to me:
The key thing for search is to find out what the users search for and to provide content relevant to those searches.
This is something we often remind our clients, but it's a tough sell. Great content done right doesn't come cheap, and there's already a lot of great content out there on (diabetes, cancer, asthma... you pick the disease category) on the Web.
So to meet this need, we're always looking for new ways for our clients to provide "added value" content to patients and professionals, such as a new interactive tool, a unique service, proprietary information, videos and podcasts, or access to experts they wouldn't normally have access to.
Also, providing deep but basic disease-state information such as info on symptoms may seem like a stretch to tie back to ROI and sales. But when it's done for the right reasons - such as increasing the number of relevent people that find your site - it makes a world of sense. Your entire online strategy should tie all of these components together to lead your patient, caregiver or professional to the information they want to find -- but also to the information you want to give them.
What are your plans to refocus (or not) on search engine marketing in 2010, and what relevant content will you be providing?
1 comments:
Wendy, in terms of presenting the right content for the right audience, Google allows creation of custom search engines. Here you can define a list of sites to search, thereby providing more specialized results. Several years ago, I started creating the Diabetes search engine from a list of diabetes-related sites that I visited first. Using this approach, I choose what sites are in the results, instead of letting Bing, Google, etc., choose for me based on clever SEO tactics.
Your readers may also be interested in Peter Morville's site on findability, which is all about ways to improve search.
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