Why Retailers Spent 17% More On Search Engine Optimization In Q4 Of 2009

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The unemployment rate hovers around 10%. The under-employment rate is between 17-18%. Not news, I agree, however, GDP ran up 5.8% in Q4. Productivity is up more than 6% continuing its remarkable climb. These provide real hints as to why retailers spent 17% more on SEO in Q4. Let me explain.

Marketing budgets have been slashed. However, this also doesn’t tell the story. Dig deeper and you will find that traditional marketing in the various media through advertising (TV, Radio, and Print), direct outbound marketing including direct mail and telemarketing are the areas that have seen the ax. Retailers understand, just as other businesses, that outbound marketing is a low probability “ocean” of activity hoping to get a micro-percentage response rate.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) provides marketers the opportunity to highly target their marketing dollars by “being found” by exactly those people that have made the decision to look for their goods and / or services. Rather than hunting for business, as in traditional marketing, Search ...
... Engine Marketing, particularly SEO, provides businesses with visibility only when visibility really counts; the time and place that a searcher searches. SEO achieves high visibility on page 1 of Google, Yahoo and Bing where 97% of all online searches are happening. Now consider that 68% of the searchers don’t go past page 1 and 98% don’t go past page 3. So businesses know where they need to be. SEO takes business from this understanding to reality of high rankings through sophisticated processes that target keywords / phrases that are the most relevant and produce a body of work that includes a vast array of specialties and sub-specialties to achieve high visibility to a targeted audience.

The future belongs to the efficient and this is a prime example of marketing efficiency … Being found by only those looking for you rather than hunting for customers by “intruding” upon daily life as part of an endless barrage of TV and Radio Ads, Junk mail, even junk email.

Just as new equipment orders jumped in Q4 to more efficiently conduct business during these tough times, Retailers spent significantly more on SEO … it is a more efficient and more effective way to market one’s business. Some skeptics may say that retailers spent more due to the Christmas buying season. But SEO can’t be accomplished in just one quarter. It’s a long term process requiring a long term outlook.

What it comes down to is the realization that for longevity and effectiveness, SEO campaigns are hard to top when it comes to ROI. The results are measurable (like those for pay per click or for banner ads), but SEO can be sustained long past the initial campaign, and as time goes by the cost-per-conversion gets better and better. Always remember, once you achieve high ranking, every click costs zero dollars and zero cents. That’s hard to beat.

Are you considering your future marketing budget? Contact us and we will be happy to give you a free initial consultation.