July 27, 2004

Search marketing does need an industry association. But who exactly needs SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organisation formed in August last year, asks Mike Grehan.

Last year, I attended the "Rah-Rah" meeting which launched SEMPO at SES San Jose. I have to declare that, I have friends and colleagues who are either on the board of directors, or in some way involved with the organisation. But I didn't join.

I sat back and watched, to see exactly what would make this one different to any of the other ideas for an organisation I'd seen bandied around before it.

For sure, this one has some industry "movers and shakers" on the board of directors, including the mighty Brett Tabke, industry founding father Fredrick Marckini and the benefit of veritable Guru Danny Sullivan, currently sitting on the sidelines in an advisory capacity.

But the first question I was asked about the great and good involved, by the people required to shell out that night (the future members) was: "How did they get there?" People wanted to know how the board of directors was voted in? Who chose them? Well, of course, in the first instance, Barbara Coll chose them. After all, SEMPO is her brainchild.

Barbara Coll (AKA Webmama.com), for those who are not aware, is a regular conference speaker on the subject of search engine marketing and runs her own SEM practice. And it is clear that the board of directors of SEMPO is a SEM powerhouse. Enough to get a good spread of column inches throughout the trade press. And they achieved just that. But since that launch...

Well since that launch, the biggest news is that they have appointed a new member to the board. However, there appeared to be no communication of this to the membership before they read about it in the press.

Furthermore, SEMPO has approved a $1,500 per week stipend to Ms Coll. This amounts to a salary of $78,000, to fund a part time effort from someone who already has a full time job running a SEM business. Some might ask whether this attractive salary such could have been used to bring on board an executive experienced in building trade associations.

I've spoken with Barbara Coll regarding SEMPO moving out of the US and into other geographical territories. The UK being of prime interest to me, of course. I have to say I was bemused to discover that, the recently appointed member of the board, Mauro Lupi as Chairman of SEMPO Europe, will "coordinate the local activities of SEMPO in Europe" (albeit that he is based in San Francisco), along with seven search engine marketing executives who were appointed as members of the European committee.

These include Sylvain Bellaïche, Massimo Burgio, David Degrelle, Marco Loguercio - Sems Srl, Morten Nüchel, Christian Petersen, Tim Ringer. In other words, two from France, two from Italy, one from Denmark and one from Germany. Once again, does this not beg the question: Who voted for the European committee?

There appears at this stage to be no appointment of a board member for the UK. This, despite the fact that the UK is the second largest market outside the US.

SEMPO has suggested that the UK may like to form its own committee and hand it over to them. But there has been no mention of a position on the board for the chair of that committee as is the case with the European set up. So, why is the UK so second-rate to this organisation that we have to take a lead from Italy? I have no problems with Italians, but they are a much smaller market than the UK.

I was invited by Barbara Coll to speak at the SEMPO meeting at SES London and it seemed essential to her that I should, in fact, be a member of the organisation first.

So, a few months ago, I succumbed and joined at the lowest level for $299. After parting with my cash I waited patiently for my welcome pack and my newsletter and frequent pinging about events and happening stuff and... Not a sausage.

There has been much dialogue in the industry forums about what it is that SEMPO actually does and what the benefits of the organisation are.

Even though I personally know members of the board, I really don't think that they have fully set out their stall to the members, to give us an opportunity to see what they are really trying to achieve. Any other trade association would have planning documents prepared and available and the board prepared to be judged on the results of those objectives.

SEMPO needs to prove that there is value to the subscription. Networking events are of value, but no single justification for paying a membership to join an association. SES itself is probably the biggest networking event for our industry on the planet anyway.

And why be an association with no teeth? The subscription needs to be seen as an investment: not an overhead. Members need to be convinced of this one vital thing: that the association is providing the member company with "bottom-line" help.

If, as has been promoted, SEMPO is purely a marketing organisation, then why do I not see those marketing messages in conventional offline publications? I see a great presence from SEMPO at SES but little advertising and promotion in other industry sectors.

Shouldn't the SEMPO presence be much larger at an offline direct marketing show, or in joint venture with other organisations such as the American Association of Advertising Agencies or The Chartered Institute of Marketing?

There has been mention of SEMPO using membership monies to conduct primary research into the market. Once again, figures and stats are nice to have access to, but do they justify the cost of membership?

More to the point, I've just recently helped a research company called Vividence, in California, to package up the results of their new search engine study. The white paper will be available soon and the data is superb. With such good secondary data available, why does SEMPO feel it's necessary to conduct very expensive primary research? Is this not a "reinventing the wheel" exercise?

The question of "reputation" continues to hound our industry. Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch recently likened our industry to that of PR firms and noted that there was no official body to govern standards in that sector.

That's not exactly true. The PR sector does have the Institute of Public Relations, which although does not impose standards on firms, it does impose a code of practice on all its members. And its members are not firms, they're individuals. At least there, much like the Chartered Institute of Marketing, individuals are accepted on vocational experience at the lower end and fully accredited by studying for a recognised diploma at the higher end. There is much more collaboration with academia to provide courses leading to qualification.

Perhaps the model we're looking at for representation is wrong. Forget the whole issue of "black hat vs white hat" because that's a situation which search engines have to deal with themselves. They are the ones who must develop their technology to defeat the issue. And certainly, personalisation will go a long way to contributing to that. To go back to the PR analogy for a moment. I know for a fact that, in my days in PR if I had fed bullshit to a journalist I had a relationship with - once discovered he would never, never deal with me again. And in a similar way search engines currently try to do the same with spammers.

Here's a "finger in the air" figure, but let's take a guess at the average size of a search marketing firm and about 80% will be "one man band" or "micro-firm" perhaps? So why don't we concentrate on a body which recognises individuals as opposed to firms? Individuals who are accredited in some way so that they can run their own small practice, or use that qualification as a major factor to be considered when applying for a job with a larger firm.

Maybe we need to think about the development of qualified people in the industry and not just the further development and recognition of organisations.

In August it will be one year since SEMPO was formed. I'm sure there is much back-slapping and cork-popping on the SEMPO agenda for the anniversary at SES San Jose. However, when that is over, I have a suggestion that I'd like to put to the entire board: Why don't you honourably take the plaudits for your excellent work in forming a steering group (which you have been) to gain the first wave of membership, and then resign your positions?

That way, the membership will get the opportunity it certainly deserves, to decide who should be responsible for taking the association (that it pays for) to the next phase of development and direction with a democratic vote.

Article written by Mike Grehan,
CEO, Smart Interactive.

Source: Net Imperative

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The opinions and ideas expressed by Mike Grehan are his only. Rank for $ales does not necessarily endorse nor approve the above article. This information is only provided as a service to our users.

        

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