Dear Webmaster or Supported Personnel,

As our research suggests, you are doing the specimens e.g. Search engine Optimization, PPC, link building, Content Development & Web-Promotional activities. This really hurts us! As so many individuals have not clearly about the root to which we concern if you will outsource campaigns of any theme, we will definitely put our rhythm right giving 100% effort-making activities. How to draw the attention of the Search engines in major SERPS with targeted traffic as well as quality prospects to their sites - without paying a single penny to Google, Yahoo or MSN like search engines. I know that it’s your business and you want to achieve the key objective incorporated with the initiation of your website. But I have the solution for you to wipe out such worries that are tormenting you on your way to achieve the necessary business success. From one of my daily emails from service providers in India.

I was talking today with an agency friend about a client who always wants the cheapest solution. It’s an unsophisticated client, so it’s not likely she can educate them about how to evaluate the offer, trying to understand what QUALITY is being offered at that low price. I suggested they try the cheap solution for a few months, see what the real cost turns out to be, and then measure the cost per lead or cost per acquisition. One of the great things about web marketing is that you can measure everything…that is, everything that comes in to your site. You can’t measure the damage from people who dismiss you without visiting because your content doesn’t look professional, or if there are errors in the content on your pages. Part of your job as a marketer concerned with reputation management should be the quality of prospective SEO firms.

I don’t know how many people are using offshore SEO vendors, or how many agencies are outsourcing to them, but as a recovering English major, I don’t understand how a person can justify the risk of having their web content developed by a vendor which is not a marketing firm, does not have American writers, and who does not know the technology, the competition, the market or the customer. The sample text above is the worst written email pitching professional services I have ever received, but not ONE of these Indian companies has ever sent an email soliciting my SEO business without a syntactical or other grammatical error. That is the concern that has put my rhythm right, tormenting me on the way to achieving the necessary business success. Well, actually, it gives me some security, that there are some jobs that really can’t be outsourced. In terms of your reputation and that first impression, quality doesn’t cost, it pays.

Lots of good thinking out there on how referrals are becoming the new filters that sort out the good stuff from the “90% of everything that’s crud.” (Chris Anderson, The Long Tail) It’s not so much the wisdom of crowds (remember Howard Dean?) but the “nichebusters” that break to daylight and someone casually gives you a rendezvous with greatness. That’s the power of social media, and why it is so important to the future of search marketing. Even for B2B. Thinking future perfect, we are already becoming a social media agency, courtesy of our teaming with leaders like Tom Parish, Cynthia Baker and Deltina Hay. (These would be the people you would HOPE to have in your network!)

As marketers who are in the business of helping people find what they are looking for, it’s nice to know that we are both helpful and contributors to the bottom line for our clients. It’s so much better than being in advertising and trying to figure out how to persuade someone that one brand is better than any other option, just because of the cool person who is using it in our TV ad! (for a cool $250K)

I love this quote because it can explain to your CEO why nobody ever searches on your tagline:

“Marketers now have to compete with the conversations customers are having with one another about the products they buy. None of those conversations consists of customers repeating the same three word phrases over and over. This is one of the main drivers for (the market’s) interest in “customer-generated media”: Not only are customers more credible—a 2006 study by Edelman PR showed that customers think the most trustworthy source of information about a company is “a person like me”—they’re also more interesting. Customers are now “mashing up” marketing materials—re-editing them into parodies, mixing them up with totally inappropriate soundtracks—turning commercials back against their creators and in the process making them far more interesting than they were originally. Think of it as customers’ revenge for all those years of being treated like simpletons.”

The truth is that advertising stopped being smart and tried to win by being clever, and fell away from relevance. As David Ogilvy said, the consumer isn’t stupid, she’s your wife. For this next gen of search marketers, the lesson should be clear: don’t try to use tricks to outsmart Google, because in the long term, you will never win. Talk to the people! Open up and let them in…they are smart enough to see through corporate speak, and they ARE talking about you behind your back. If you are honest, responsive and reliable, that will be your reputation. My view? You don’t really manage your reputation–you earn it every day.