Moderator:

• Jeffrey Rohrs, VP, Agency & Search Marketing, ExactTarget

Speakers:

• Paul J. Elliot, Principal-Search Engine Marketing, eMergent Marketing/BRULANT Inc.
• Matthew Greitzer, Director of SEM, Avenue A/Razorfish
• Bill Hunt, CEO, Global Strategies International

Aw, suki it’s time for Paul to present. I’ve decided to attend so I can heckle. But I’m a chicken, so I won’t. But Paul is engaging a rather hot topic of going for an outside agency or keeping you SEO in-house. He’s been working for days on his presentation, so I’m sure it will be stellar.

Obviously, I’m biased going into this since I work for an agency but there fine lines that are difficult to dance with all of this. Jeff is going to start the discussion with basic introductions and all the speakers introduce who they are and what they do. I’ll forgo that since it’s at the top of this post.

Bill is reminiscing the last time he presented with Chris Boggs who fired up the crowd. He points out an article in the SES magazine that he highly recommends. Bill’s company works with a lot of Fortune 100s, many of which bringing elements into their strategy that have to do with SEO. He recommends a hybrid approach combining in house and outsourcing to get the job done, and he is the self-described “middle of the road” guy.

Jeff asks if Bill sees an ebb and flow in this trend right now. Bill says yes, especially on a global scale. SEO is going through a maturation process and hitting a peak so many companies have someone on payroll who is the dedicated search marketing person. They are the voice of reason in the marketing rush. They are search-centric evangelists in the company, which is a huge shift due to the fact there is a focus on search where there previously wasn’t any. Search marketers have to play nice with everyone. You have to work with the agencies, PR, marketing directors, brand experts, and more.

Generally, he sees a disconnect in that these people are not communicating on a regular basis.

Matthew from Avenue A Razorfish is up and his position is “hire an agency.” He agrees with Bill’s take and he’s seeing it more and more in his clients. It’s  beneficial to us SEOs to have that internal assistance. There are two things you want from your agency:

1. Leadership: agencies live in the search space and need to bring big ideas and concepts, strategy & tactical leadership (especially since as a sociological phenomenon, groups of SEOs are motivated to learn more to help each other) and organizational leadership (help you get a handle on who’s doing what, bridge the gap and bring it all together).
2. Results: No explanation necessary. Clients want results; so do agencies. Nuff said.

When looking for an agency:

1. What is the staff-client ratio? This will tell you how much time and attention your account will get.
2. Level of customization: how much, what, and how often
3. Process, training and on-boarding, turnover: how fast can new people get up to speed on your account?
4. Meet the team

Get more from your agency by:

1. Sharing data with the agency. The more information they have the better the results.
2. Take advice & offer feedback. If you can’t do this, why hire an agency? It’s frustrating from the agency side. Give frank and honest feedback. If the agency doesn’t take it and improve, find someone else.
3. Reward success: Shoot a note to their boss to give positive feedback.
4. Push for innovation, exceptional results: The best clients are the ones who raise the bar, push the agency, and think differently.

Jeff poses a question to Paul about the transition from being in-house to being on the agency side and asks what the challenges are. He’s stealing Paul’s thunder, but Paul recovers well. Each side has its different challenges. He was a one man machine when he was client side and he could only share so much and only had limited time to learn. On the agency side, he loves the fast paced craze, but also knows it’s hard not to be able to only focus on one client.

Olivier is asked if he had to be a jack of all trades. Olivier sympathizes with Paul in that he was a one man media marketing show and now he focuses more on a diverse hiring plan.

Paul’s turn… tempted to heckle… must resist. Okay, I’m good. Moving on…

Paul describes his experience going from in-house to agency side. Boy he talks fast. His presentation discusses the comparative experiences between being the Internet Marketing Manager for Things Remembered to becoming the Principal in charge of eMergent Marketing at Brulant, Inc. He talks about how 50 hours wasn’t enough stress. Yep. You read that right.

Now he’s bragging on Brulant and his team. I’m blushing. We learn about our clients and their industries. We’re an integrated service solution so that saves money and time. He has pros and cons lists that break it all down.

The bottom line is that each side has its ups and downs.

In-House Pros

1. Strong connection to the product & service offerings
2. Concentrated focus on one site
3. Easy access to all the necessary data
4. Better integration & coordination with internal team members

In-house cons

1. Good search marketers are all very similar: get bored easily, very competitive, etc.
2. Lack of educational opportunities
3. Lack of training in both organic and paid search tactics, etc.
4. Justification in tool and research purchases
5. Difficult to drive organizational change from within

No agency relationship will be successful without an internal resource allocated solely to the agency to be a voice for the agency and to provide a vehicle for two way communication. Rah, rah, Paul’s the man.

Olivier says Paul makes him feel like a slacker. Me too, Olivier! He has also been on both sides of the coin. He gives a brief background on the company he works for and their evolution into the search sphere. They hired someone to assess where they were and they became a hybrid model example, using both in house and agency resources. He’s working on both sides simultaneously and decided he needed to bring together everyone to work together.

Olivier points out that you need to work with developers and this can be a challenge as SEO is generally at the bottom of the list in terms of order of importance. He also reiterates some points that Matthew made about staff to client ratio and customization capabilities. His company compromised and took the SEO in-house after a year of working with an agency for SEO best practices & training and then used an agency for paid search.

Jeff revisits the hybrid concept and asks: what are the hallmarks for a successful relationship in this type of model? Bill says it will go right when you have the right person with the right passion and the right focus for the company will work. Egos can get you on the speaking circuit and hired away from your company but the people with the right attitude who can play right with all the parties involved, it will go well. What is your culture? Are you too domineering that you won’t be able to grow or are you willing to learn, to grow, to adapt and take into consideration the pulse of the customer and the market.

Bill says that failure happens most when the search resource in-house thinks they know everything. There is a huge support network for in house SEOs but you have to be willing to share it. He also says another downfall is not challenging your agency and pushing for better results.

Q: When clients work with an agency, who are you primarily working with?

Paul chimes in that it differs from agency to agency. For the larger clients, we work with the marketing team.

Q: So is there no out? There has to be an “in” somewhere.

Paul says there should always be relationship with someone on the inside. Matthew concurs.