So Everyone Already Knows About Your Company?

MoreVisibility - May 24, 2007

Amazingly, many companies think they are so well known that they don’t require any form of search marketing. They have a marketing department and a website and a significant budget, but don’t think they need to be competitive online. I would argue differently.

Case in point: Last year I spoke with a major player in the field of Treasury Management Software Solutions. Their webmaster realized that there was SEO work that they needed and they did not have the ability or expertise to handle in house. Great: Tech is onboard. When we brought in the marketing side of the house, it was a different story. The response I received to online marketing was “All of our prospective clients know all about our capabilities and about our company.” Even after seeing search data on very descriptive terms that were related to their business; they were still not convinced that any financial institution would look online for information to help them meet a critical need. I was even told that they only have maybe 100 or so prospective clients because their product was so expensive.

Maybe I’m a poor salesperson, but sometimes you can’t break the mold of old thinking. When a company with a multi-million dollar product can’t see the benefit of being in front of 3,000 searchers every month who are looking for their service, I’m not sure how to react. Especially since one sale would pay for their optimization efforts many times over.

What’s interesting is that now their competitors are catching on. Today there are 3 relevant ads displayed alongside some of their core keywords while 6 months ago there were none.