DMNews has an article up now about a new study which Coremetrics (a web analytics firm in San Mateo, CA) put out on August 22nd. I followed the link from there over to Coremetrics’ site to read more about it. The study is called “The Face of the New Marketer” and it reveals some very interesting trends for the marketing industry as a whole.

The basic findings of the study were that skills in analysis, measurement and search engine optimization are becoming more important than traditional marketing competencies, such as branding and product promotion. That’s not really new information to internet marketers.

But the findings also showed that most professional marketers feel they need to improve in these areas, and that the lack of good educational resources is causing a shortage of marketers who have expertise in these digital marketing techniques.

Here’s what Coremetrics said about the test:
“The survey of 120 senior marketing professionals in the US and UK was conducted in June 2006. Coremetrics asked marketers which skills they needed to perform their job, which had become the most important over the past two years and which they most needed to acquire or improve.”

And here are a couple of interesting bullet points outlining some of the findings:

• For 73% of respondents, analytics and measurement have become more important over the past two years. These skills are now seen as more important than branding (23% feel this has grown in importance) and product promotion (more important for just 13%.)

• For 31% of respondents, SEM is the most important skill in their current role.
• 60% feel that SEM skills have become more important over the past two years.
• 50% say they need to improve their analytical abilities.
• 41% feel that their SEM skills are in need of improvement.

The article on DMNews and the press release on Coremetrics go into a bit more detail about the study. What I thought was telling, though, was that the Internet Marketing community has known about the importance of SEM and analysis over branding and product promotion…for years! It’s only recently that more traditional marketing firms are standing up and taking notice. Right now, good analytics and strong SEM will give a company or organization an advantage over the competition. In the future, without utilizing those techniques, companies will find it hard to compete at all.

The DMNews write up on the study can be found here:
http://www.dmnews.com/cms/trackback/38002-1

The Coremetrics press release about the study can be found here:
http://www.coremetrics.com/news/media/2006/pr06_08_22_new_marketer.html

Coremetrics’s site also has a free White Paper called “Preparing Your Organization to Successfully Measure Your Web Site” that also you might find useful.

Last Wednesday, American Business Media conducted an event called “It’s All About Search: Partnering to Get the Most Exposure for Your Content”. Some major folks were there, including:

• Erin Clift, Head of Business and Industrial Markets at Google
• Greg Bartalos, News Editor for Yahoo!
• Andrew Pancer, COO of About.com
• Chris Hulse, VP Strategic Sales and Business Development at Business.com

A few quotes from this event really grabbed my attention. (I came across them in a brief writeup I found on BtoBonline.com.

“A lot of people say, ‘We can do this internally.’ This is one of those things where you wouldn’t defend yourself in court. We’re far enough along where, if the guy who is fixing your computer is also doing your SEO and SEM, it’s time to shop for a specialist,”
- Chris Hulse, VP Strategic Sales and Business Development at Business.com

And this one is even more straightforward:

“From a publisher perspective, SEO needs to be something you focus on every day.”
- Andrew Pancer, COO of About.com

I wonder how these kinds of media events (which are happening with greater frequency) will affect the common misperception that SEO and SEM are things you focus on only once you’re “done” with your website. Time will tell.

Info about that event (even though it’s over) can be found at:
http://www.americanbusinessmedia.com/assnfe/ev.asp?MODE=&SNID=461590359&ID=67

The article the above quotes are from can be found at:
http://www.btobonline.com/article.cms?articleId=28955

I just realized I haven’t yet posted about this, but anyway, I was quoted in the March 11-17th issue of The Economist, in an article called “Attack of the Eurogoogle”. The article is about a Franco-German search engine called “Quaero” (which is Latin for “I seek”). Quaero will allow users to not only search by keyword, but will allow searching pictures and sounds as query terms. Another interesting thing about it is that it’s being funded by government dollars.

The Economist asked me what I thought about this, and I pointed out that Google is also developing these same technologies, but it appears that Quaero has the edge. Either way, it will certainly foster competition for the big 3, simply by existing.

Quaero (which is overseen by the Agency for Industrial Innovation in Paris) expects to launch by the end of this year.

The Economist has the full article up on its website, but it’s premium content, so you’ll have to subscribe to read the whole thing. You can get to it from here:
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_VVSTQJG

A quick note for fellow bloggers: Last Friday, Microsoft released a Beta program for Windows (sorry Mac users) that could make the task of blogging a lot easier. It’s called “Windows Live Writer” and features WYSIWYG editing, Photo and Map publishing, and has an SDK kit available, meaning other developers can create extensions and add functionality down the road. Currently, the software is compatible with Windows Live Spaces, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, and Moveable Type. If you’re tired of your normal blog software’s user-interface, maybe give this a shot.

Read more or download it at: http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!D85741BB5E0BE8AA!174.entry