Slow? No way.

Cheap? Hardly.

High Stakes? You bet.

Paid search is a marketplace where every day, every hour—hell, every minute—counts. And costs. Cluttered and convoluted, it forces search marketers to grasp on to every advantage they can get. Not surprisingly, ad copy tops that list. But the question is, are you fully capitalizing on yours? If not, perhaps it’s time to kick it up a notch.

To be sure, ad copy is the keystone of paid search. Master it, and you’re golden. Fumble it, and you could give your competitors just what they want—the advantage.

Yet despite its importance, many marketers rush in with copy that is lacking. Why? Who knows? Perhaps they’re lured by the medium’s ease, speed, and flexibility, and they just want to get something—anything—out there. But whatever the reason, one thing is for sure, subpar ad copy can only lead to one thing: subpar campaign performance.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Poor ad copy can also adversely affect your quality score and end up costing you more money. How so?

Well, gone are the good ol’ days when paid search ad copy was simply used to help qualify potential prospects and weed out unnecessary clicks. Back then, you could cast a wide net with your keywords and bid aggressively knowing that you could screen out unwanted clicks with your ad copy without any negative effect. But the advent of the quality score changed all that.

Now the relevance of your ad copy and landing page and the click through rate of your ad all factor in to your ‘engine determined’ quality score. As a result, it can dramatically affect the performance of your campaign, and in the process, drive up your costs.

Consequently, it is more important than ever to get paid search ad copy right. Below are a few tips on ways to improve yours.

Define your audience. As relevance plays a big role in the success of a paid search campaign, it is vital to define your audience and the language they use. This is especially important considering that you have to map the keywords you have chosen to the landing page you have created, and then create ad copy that maps the two together. Given that, make sure you choose the most relevant keywords possible—don’t cast your net too wide. When in doubt, you should use relevancy as your ultimate judge on whether or not to target a keyword.

Align your keyword with your messaging and goal. Relevancy also applies to the nature of the keyword and where the buyer is in the purchase cycle. Consequently, it is critical that your keyword, messaging, and goal are aligned. For example, you would never want to buy an action-oriented keyword phrase like ‘best price for Sony DVD Model XYZ’ when the messaging in your ad copy is research–based and takes them to a landing page where they can’t buy the specific product. Instead, you want to make sure that your keywords are aligned with your messaging, and that it is aligned with the buying cycle of your prospects.

Leverage other channels. One of the best ways to improve your ad copy is to look beyond search. Namely, you need to leverage keywords and messaging from other channels. To start, take a good look at your organization’s other marketing initiatives. Then choose the keywords, copy, and messaging that are generating the best response rates, and use them in all online channels. But keep in mind that it’s a two-way street. If you find that certain keywords or messaging are resonating with your audience in your paid search campaign, make sure it gets incorporated into your offline messaging, as research shows offline channels are a powerful driver of search. Ultimately, leveraging keywords and messaging from other channels will provide many benefits; not only will it help campaign performance, it will also help improve your quality score and ensure consistent messaging.

Test and refine. Testing is essential to improving ad copy, so make sure you have a robust testing and refinement plan in place. Fortunately, there are several tools available to help with testing. But regardless of the one you choose and the form you use—A/B testing or multivariate testing—make sure you set up proper control groups to compare against, and create a testing calendar. Your ability to perform testing quickly and then act on the results can have an exponential impact on your search campaigns and other marketing initiatives.

While there are many factors that affect the success of a paid search campaign, ad copy sits squarely at the top of the list. And in today’s ultra–competitive marketplace, it’s more important than ever to fully capitalize on it. Perhaps it’s time you re–assessed the performance of your ad copy—you might want to kick it up a notch. Or…you could just wait until your competitors do, and you won’t even know what hit you when it happens.

The development of universal search heralded in a new era in search engine marketing. Overnight, various types of digital content – such as press releases, images, and video – were blended into the general web search results (where previously it was limited to vertical searches). Not surprisingly, Yahoo! and Live Search soon followed suit with similar offerings of their own. Today the development is commonly referred to as blended search.

And the effect of this change?

The web page is no longer the de facto search result. Today, a general search can just as likely return a video or image result in the top spot as it could a web page. The development translates into a major shift in page real estate in the general search results.

But like many marketers, you might be wondering what prompted the engines to make such a dramatic shift. Why fix something if it isn’t broken? The answer is most likely twofold: inventory and relevancy.

Prior to the blended change, each of the major search engines had a huge inventory of content in their vertical categories (news, images, videos, etc.), but few ever tapped into it. And despite their efforts to get users to explore these offerings, the content remained largely ignored. So much so, in fact, that industry pundits dubbed the vertical categories “invisible tabs.”

Since the engines were unable to get users to consume the content where it resided, they needed to develop a way to bring the content to the user. And blended search does exactly that. Moreover, it accomplishes it without the need to affect a change in user behavior. Ultimately, it brings a variety of content types directly to the user, where they are most comfortable and open to receiving it.

But there’s more to it than that. Beyond providing exposure for massive inventories, the engines likely developed blended search to also improve relevancy. For instance, providing users with a wider array of content to choose from in the general results may help reduce the ambiguity of user intent expressed in a query. In the end, it could help provide a better user experience.

But the skeptic in you might be wondering if blended search will really affect you. Will users click on these other types of digital content within the general search results? Perhaps they ignored the vertical categories because they weren’t interested in such content.

Fortunately, new research answers those questions and more.

Conducted by JupiterResearch and sponsored by iProspect, the iProspect Blended Search Results Study quantifies users’ propensity to click-on specialized results – news, images, video – within blended search results, compared to that in the vertical search results.

Below are a few of the key findings:

• 36% of search engine users surveyed click on a “news” result within the blended search results page, while only 17% click a “news” result after conducting a news-specific search on the News tab.
• 31% of search engine users surveyed click on an “image” result within the blended search results page, while only 26% click an “image” result after conducting an image-specific search on the Image tab.
• 17% of search engine users surveyed click on a “video” results within blended search results page, while only 10% click on a “video” result after conducting a video-specific search on the Video tab.

Overall, the study shows that users are roughly twice as likely to click on specialized search results that appear within the general search results page than they are to click on those types of results within the vertical search categories.

The implications of this should be obvious to marketers.

Since web pages are no longer the ultimate search result, marketers have a great opportunity to claim more real estate in the general search results by leveraging their news, image, and video assets. In essence, blended search increases a marketer’s inventory and improves their chances to be found amongst the clutter. While marketers might have sidestepped investing in the development of such content types in the past (because users previously ignored the vertical categories), they would be ill-advised to follow that course today. Undoubtedly, those who lack such digital assets will essentially forfeit page real estate to their competitors.

To best capitalize on blended search, you need to develop a diverse digital portfolio and build a holistic search strategy. Doing so requires assessing both your current digital assets and the competitive search landscape in your business category.

To start, first take an inventory of all of your available digital assets, by class and type. In the process, be sure to make note of whether or not you own the digital rights to your image and video assets.

Next, define what the search landscape looks like for your category. Think of it as shelf space in a grocery aisle. Are most of the results pages on your keywords returning images, web pages, press releases, videos, or blog results? What position do particular asset types tend to be in? Gaining clarity on this will in turn guide the further development of your digital portfolio.

Lastly, once you know what your search shelf looks like and what kind of inventory you have available to put on the shelf, make sure your digital assets are optimized – otherwise, they’ll never make it there.

The bottom line is that blended search has changed the competitive landscape of the search results page. It essentially increases marketers’ inventory and chances to show up amongst the clutter. The question is – are you prepared? Companies that have developed and optimized a variety of digital assets will have a distinct competitive advantage. Those who lack such assets will not only forfeit page real estate to their competitors, but quite possibly, a whole lot more.

Robert J. Murray is president of search engine marketing firm iProspect and can be reached at rob.murray@iprospect.com. The Brand Aid column appears Wednesdays at Search Engine Land.

Sound like fun? Hardly. When you walked into that store you had expectations. When you walked out, all you had was disappointment.

Clearly, consumer expectations are very real, but keep in mind that they’re not limited to brick and mortar venues. Online consumers have the same expectations as their offline counterparts. Likewise, so do search users. In fact, people visiting a “search shelf”—a search results page—expect the same experience as people visiting a shelf in a retail store.

Doubtful? A recent SEMPO study proves my point.

The study reveals that the majority of those surveyed expect leading brands to be at the top of their search results (71%), and that they have been introduced to new brands/companies via search (71%). In addition, the study’s respondents reported that search helps them find information on more than where to buy things (67%); and that search allows them to make better buying decisions (76%).

Clearly, these results are anything but surprising. In fact, they seem intuitive. But if consumers expect the same experience at the search shelf as they do at the store shelf, one would think that marketers would make it easy for people to find them online.

Unfortunately, that is not always the case.

The truth is that more often than not, people do not find what they are looking for right away when conducting searches online. In fact, the same study reveals that the majority (54%) of those surveyed indicate that it takes them a few searches before they find exactly what they need. The implication of this finding should be obvious: There’s a lot of room for improvement in how marketers promote their brands and products online.

What’s a marketer to do? You need a plan. To start, I recommend the following:

The first thing you need to do is to define what the search shelf looks like for your category. This in itself is hugely important, but even more so given the development of blended search results in the major search engines. Specifically, you need to understand what the typical results page looks like, and where the data is being pulled from to populate the various results. For example, is it coming from YouTube, Flickr, or is it a blog or product feed? The answers to these questions will play a key role in the development of your plan.

Once you have defined your search shelf, you can build out a robust search plan that will address the various sources of search results to ensure maximum exposure in the results set against your critical keywords. In addition, benchmarks are an important component of this plan — be sure to set them so you can gauge your success. For example, maybe you will want to measure how much space you want to occupy on the search shelf. Owning shelf space is a critical in-store success factor — why shouldn’t the same rules apply here?

Next, you need to execute this plan flawlessly. Be mindful, however, that you will need to get creative with your efforts for certain sites or digital assets. Why? You need to make sure you can get your content indexed there so that Google and Yahoo! can go pull it from those sites. For example, on many product related searches, the engines will display product results at the top of the page. The product results actually come from other comparison shopping engines or sites like Drugstore.com. Examples like this one demonstrate why it is so important to define the search shelf before creating your plan.

Once you have executed your plan, you need to measure, reassess, and refine. Did you meet your original success metrics in terms of traffic or space occupied? Did these visitors take the course of action you wanted them to? There are no hard and fast rules to this. You need to constantly evaluate how you are doing, and continually test and make adjustments.

Remember, everybody has expectations — especially your customers and prospects. The question is, are you meeting them? Whether they are looking at the store shelf or the search shelf, their expectations are the same. Smart marketers realize this and will work to help their customers and prospects easily find their brands and products, regardless of where the shelf is.

Robert J. Murray is president of search engine marketing firm iProspect and can be reached at rob.murray@iprospect.com. The Brand Aid column appears Wednesdays at Search Engine Land.

If Thanksgiving is any indication—it appears to have been a record year for most online retailers, in terms of activity at least—then 2007 might end on a high note. However, it remains to be seen just how deep retailers discounted merchandise in order to drive volume.

But before you start thinking about relaxing after the rush, realize that it “ain’t over until it’s over.” How so? Don’t assume that people are done shopping on December 22nd. Sure, most retailers experience a sharp decline in activity post holiday, but the 2006 drop-off wasn’t nearly as significant as in years past, and we do not expect it to be that dramatic in 2007, either. The reason? Maybe it’s the increasing effect of gift cards, or that most shoppers realize that the real deals happen after the holidays. Either way, savvy marketers should be prepared to capture post-holiday activity.

With that said, as we get ready to close out the year, I’d like to share some key considerations that you should keep in mind when evaluating your 2007 performance, and make a few suggestions to think about as you move forward into 2008.

First of all, I am a firm believer that true insight comes from digging deep. And as any good researcher will tell you, the devil truly is in the details. Well, Search is no different than any other science (though it definitely has some art to it as well). As you pick apart you post holiday search data and mine your referral logs to evaluate your performance, be sure to consider the following questions:

• Did your messaging resonate with your customer base? By that, I mean did you find that consumers purchased the products you marketed, and did their search queries contain the language used in your marketing messages? Answering these questions will help you gain insight into whether or not your messaging (both offline and online) is on target for your customer base. Taking a close look at this is time well spent, as speaking in the language of your customer can dramatically improve your response and conversion rates. Ultimately, the data should reveal the information you need to tweak your messaging so it is more closely aligned with the language of your customers.

• What were your best moving or most profitable items? Are you surprised by this finding? Answering these questions will provide you with insight into your customers’ actual needs and wants, versus what you are trying to sell them. In fact, examining the data might reveal that you have been promoting the wrong items—or worse—that you failed to promote the right ones.
• Did people tend to buy certain items together? Did you make it easy for customers to purchase related items? The answers to these questions could point to bundling opportunities that you could promote to your customers. Moreover, the data might very well suggest that your site does not make it easy for customers to make add-on purchases. Such a finding could represent significant opportunity.
• Do the products that you sell on the web mirror those available at the store? Do you offer “web-only” deals? The answers to these questions could reveal that certain merchandise sells better online, or that people are more inclined to buy certain products online. Naturally, this information could greatly influence your overall merchandising strategy.
• How did you compare to your competitors? While you might have fared well against your own historical performance, perhaps everyone else in your market also did just as well. Further still, maybe your competitors actually out-performed you. Hopefully not, but you won’t know the real score if you don’t look into it. Utilizing third party data from Comscore or Compete will give you a more accurate reading and help inform your marketing decisions for 2008. For example, such outside data might reveal that the lift you received was more seasonal, or a macro effect of more people shopping online, than the actual performance of your site as a whole.

Happy Holidays!

Robert J. Murray is president of search engine marketing firm iProspect and can be reached at rob.murray@iprospect.com. The Brand Aid column appears Wednesdays at Search Engine Land.

Well, such a source exists—and it’s right at your fingertips.

Search user behavior data is an exceedingly rich source that can provide you with valuable information about your customers. And while I am a big fan of market research, I believe that search data is so rich that marketers should be mining it to help them formulate their messaging and brand positioning for all their marketing activities. In essence, search behavior data offers a way for marketers to close the loop.

Why? Search is unique in that it provides marketers with insight on how people use language. Think about it. Do customers consider their portable computer a “laptop” or a “notebook”? Do they “copy” something or “Xerox” it? Understanding the language your customers use is paramount, and search behavior data can help you do just that.

Let me illustrate with one of my favorite examples of how insightful search data can be.

During a meeting with a large consumer package goods company, we presented key search insights to the entire brand and marketing team. When we informed the client that two of the top referring keyword phrases to their site were “swirl marks” and “removing swirl marks,” the response was telling. One of the brand managers shot-up from his chair—as if a light bulb just went on—and exclaimed, “That’s amazing! We have the language all wrong! Here we are selling and promoting rubbing compounds in all of our marketing messaging, while our customers are looking for something that will remove swirl marks from the hood of their cars!”

Since that meeting, the company has launched a product called Swirl Mark Remover.

This is just one example of the kind of key insight you can obtain from search data that you may never get from market research.

What should smart marketers be doing to leverage key search insights?

First and foremost, marketers need to mine the keyword data at a detailed level. Compare the conversion rates for different keywords, and see if there are patterns in the data. Remember that you should look at both impression data (when available), as well as click data. Also, be mindful that words that are not found in the data can provide just as much insight as words that are found. For example, do people use my company slogan or tag line in their search queries? If not, why? Is it because they don’t identify with it, or because can’t they remember it? Are they using my branded keywords more than my non-branded ones? Also, consider the volume of queries and clicks against your best selling products. Are they consistent?

Next, you will need to map the language of your audience to your various products. You will need to map which keywords led to which product conversions. Can words be grouped together into product categories? Do some products tend to be searched using your brand while others do not? Why would that be? Do branded keywords convert better? If so, why? You must follow the trail from query to conversion.

Finally, you must ensure that the messaging in all of your marketing is consistent and uses the same language as your keyword mapping above. Do not get caught up in “marketing speak.” If the keywords searched do not match the language in your messaging, then you are speaking to your audience in your language, not theirs. Your customers are telling you how they identify with your product and brand through these keywords. When possible, keep to this script. Imagine the impact your marketing messaging would have if it were delivered in the language your customers actually use. If you can deliver upon this successfully, your marketing efforts will be much more successful. I have little doubt that it would improve your response and conversion rates.

Also remember that offline messaging impacts online search behavior dramatically—as was evidenced by our recent study on the topic—so make sure your language and messaging are consistent throughout all your marketing initiatives.

At the end of the day, marketers need to leverage every resource they have for insight about their customers. They need to realize that search behavior data is a rich source offering insights about customers in ways that market research cannot. Smart marketers will tap into this source and use the information to inform their overall marketing decisions.

Robert J. Murray is president of search engine marketing firm iProspect and can be reached at rob.murray@iprospect.com. The Brand Aid column appears Wednesdays at Search Engine Land.

But being the mature adult that I purport to be, I have to put the blame game aside—at least for a little while—and just be thankful for the drug therapies that help me and so many others. Today, tons of folks are receiving pharmaceutical intervention, and not surprisingly, more than a few search for information about the drugs online. But as anyone who has ever tried to conduct such research knows, doing so is no easy task.

In fact, I think most folks usually get overwhelmed with the process. And why shouldn’t they? There is nothing short of a glut of pharmaceutical sites out there, all claiming to be the pre-eminent source of information on a particular topic. To say the pharma industry is a tad cluttered and confusing is an understatement. Instead, it’s the epitome of chaos.

But consumers aren’t the only ones affected by it. Try being a marketer promoting medications. You’ve got to cut through the clutter, get your message to the right audiences, and abide by some seriously stringent rules. In short, marketers operating in this climate have more than a few hoops to jump through.

But don’t take my word for it. Let’s take a look at some of the factors that come into play when building a branded website for a prescription pharmaceutical.

First, the website needs to target two very different audiences: the end consumer, and the prescribing physician. Why? Because each audience searches in very different ways, and they use their own unique sets of keywords. For example, consumers tend to conduct their research based on symptoms, while physicians are more precise, and search for a medical compound or drug name. As a marketer, your keywords and content need to speak to each audience in a manner that is consistent with their thought process. As such, marketers need to target both branded and non-branded/symptom related keyword phrases.

Next, selling prescription pharmaceuticals over the Internet is prohibited in the United States; consequently, the website must be purely educational. Given that reality, what’s the value of a visitor to the site? The first thing you need to do to answer that question is to create defined calls to action. Once delineated, then you can assign a value to each. For example, such calls to action could be anything from signing-up for newsletter, to an information request, or even an online survey asking people if they have ever used the medication or discussed it with their doctor. Again, once the actions are defined, a value can be assigned to each, and then you’ll know what a visitor is worth.

Finally, every piece of content on the site—visible or not—has to be approved for fair balance by a medical legal review board. Moreover, keep in mind that they operate on their own timeline, and that they are very strict about what they approve.

Clearly, big brand pharmaceuticals face unique marketing challenges. For illustration purposes, let’s do a search for the term “cholesterol medication.” As a person with high cholesterol, the term not only provides a great example here, it’s also a topic which is near and dear to my heart (no pun intended).

Launch a search in Google for the term “cholesterol medication.” It should produce the following results set:

Notice anything in particular about the results? Only two branded websites show up in the set. Lipitor is in position #1 (also in the #3 position within sponsored listings), and Zetia is in position #9. Other than one herbal remedy site, the rest of the listings are general information sites about cholesterol medication.

First of all, kudos go out to the Lipitor and Zetia marketing teams for doing such a great job optimizing their sites. But what has the Lipitor team done so well to earn that top spot? Let’s take a closer look:

• The site has plenty of indexable content, and they have included good content that will be useful to users and attract links, such as their heart disease quiz page.

• The use of the META information fields matches the content on the page, building a keyword phrase theme for each page.
• The URL strings contain the keyword phrases that are being targeted for each page.
• The pages are all well linked to each other internally.
• The site speaks to multiple audiences; they have targeted consumers/caregivers as well as physicians.
• The site has three defined calls to action that can have a value assigned to them to help value a visitor, and are aimed at driving trials: 1. Information request, 2. My HeartWise (which offers tools and education), and 3. Free trial request.

All in all, the Lipitor team has a done a nice job breaking through the clutter to get a useful and well targeted site in front of their potential audiences on a very competitive keyword. I suggest other marketers follow their lead as it will help ensure that you are capturing as much of your potential audience as possible.

Without a doubt, big brand pharmaceuticals face unique marketing challenges. It’s easy to see why they have their work cut out trying to reach their audiences. But even though the marketplace is clogged with a seemingly infinite number of sites, marketers should take heart because it is possible to breakthrough. Smart marketers will remember to speak to multiple audiences, optimize the site around the keywords specific to those audiences, define clear calls to action, and assign a value to each action. Otherwise, failing to do so would mean lost opportunity, pure and simple.

Robert J. Murray is president of search engine marketing firm iProspect and can be reached at rob.murray@iprospect.com. The Brand Aid column appears Wednesdays at Search Engine Land.

Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock for the last couple of months, by now you’ve heard that Google recently rolled out a new interface called Universal Search. Not surprisingly, Google’s latest change has caused a lot of industry chatter, and understandably, many marketers are fraught with fear on how it will affect their rankings.

But how will Universal Search impact B2B marketers?

In the past, Google’s results were siloed under different tabs, with various forms of digital content including news, videos, images, and blogs, etc., served-up separately from the main Web page results.

But despite the plethora of offerings available, user adoption of theses channels stalled, essentially rendering them “invisible” tabs.

But about a year ago – in a move that many surmised was designed to encourage user adoption for these tabs – Google began to experiment with integrating results from these separate channels so that they would appear directly above the natural Web page results.

Today, Universal Search fully integrates relevant content from all of these other tabs within one set of unified or “universal” search results.

Google’s message? A Web page is no longer the ultimate form of digital content to address a user query.

Given that Web pages – the mainstay of many B2B marketers – no longer rein supreme as the de facto search result, the changes effected by Universal Search could have serious implications for B2B players.

Up to this point, B2B search marketing efforts have been conservative in approach, mostly relying on optimized Web pages, and largely shying away from more creative and exciting opportunities.

Ironically, and as cited by my colleague, Brian Kaminski, in a recent article, many B2B marketers lament that they can’t participate in the more “cool stuff” that their B2C counterparts are engaged in.

Not anymore.

Universal Search provides B2B marketers with a unique opportunity to expand their Web search presences more creatively. Now that Google has busted open their silos – essentially creating equality between all types of digital content – B2B search marketing efforts must branch out beyond their staple of Web pages. Failing to do so could lead to a competitive disadvantage.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. Let’s look at an example that demonstrates some of the changes on the way.

Do a search for “business intelligence” in Google.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page. You should see results that have been migrated from the News, Blog, and Image tabs. In the past, you would need to click on each of the individual tabs to see such results. Today, they are all served-up in response to a single user query.

The ramifications of such integration should be obvious. And while some may view it as a case of creep with the potential to eventually tank their rankings, it really is an opportunity to diversify your marketing, and expand your reach by leveraging every possible form of digital content available.

No matter how you look at it, one thing is for certain. Universal Search has changed the rules of the game. Smart marketers need to be aware of the changes, and start planning on how to address them. Below are a few tips to help you get ready.

• First and foremost, B2B marketers need to acknowledge that Universal Search applies to them, and that it will have an impact on their Web search presence. Granted, the change affected by Universal Search may happen gradually, but make no mistake about it – it will have an impact. Smart marketers should start planning now for what will surely have serious implications in the future.
• B2B marketers need to understand that their presence in Google today is no longer about rankings and positions. Rather, it is now about real estate, messaging, and branding. Universal Search changes everything. Smart marketers will embrace the change, learn the rules, and cover the bases.
• B2B marketers need to realize that individual Web pages no longer rein as the supreme search result. Today’s marketers need to make sure they optimize all available digital content. And if you do not have other forms of digital content beyond Web pages, you should start thinking about creating some. Soon.
• B2B marketers need to not only leverage all available forms of digital content, but also recognize that different formats can be used for different purposes. For example, videos or blogs could be used for branding purposes, where Web pages could be used more as a direct response vehicle.
• Finally, B2B marketers should embrace Universal Search as it will ultimately create opportunity for them to participate in more exciting and creative search marketing initiatives. Ultimately, it could present a real opportunity for forward thinking B2B marketers to separate their brands from all the clutter in today’s search results.

Once again, the rules of the game have changed. But this time, the change holds special significance for B2B marketers. Smart marketers will realize that change really can be a good thing, and that this time around, it actually spells opportunity.

Robert J. Murray is president of search engine marketing firm iProspect and can be reached at rob.murray@iprospect.com. The Strictly Business column appears Wednesdays at Search Engine Land.

I am not going to dispute that general claim that people are influenced by others and, more often than not, that communication comes in the form of a conversation. That seems totally reasonable. In addition, I do believe that people want engagement through a two-way dialog. However, I am not convinced as the study claims, that “face-to-face marketing efforts” are the primary method required to influence purchasing decisions.

I believe that there is a new way to initiate a two-way dialog (i.e. word-of-mouth) with others and share ideas and opinions in an open and engaging manner that does not require face-to-face marketing efforts. In fact, we see it all the time today, just not as frequently in a B2B environment. They are called social networking sites and they are one of the fastest growing channels on the Internet.

While their application is not yet mainstream in the B2B world, marketers are starting to leverage them. In fact, a study conducted in March of this year by B2B Online found that 26% of those polled indicated that they have in fact used a social networking site as a marketing channel, while another 22% indicated that they plan to do so this year. Another study conducted by iProspect found that the top reasons for placing content on social networking sites include driving traffic (51%); creating brand awareness (32%); direct selling (25%); and influencing a purchase decision (15%).

While I believe that we will never see the adoption of social networking sites for purposes of B2B marketing like we will for BtoC marketing, I think there is much we can learn from these sites in creating an open and engaging two-way dialog with your target prospects online without having a face-to-face discussion with someone.

If you believe that people want to engage with, and trust other people that share their common interests, then why can’t social networking work for B2B marketers? Social networking sites are really just communities of like-minded individuals that want to engage with others and share ideas and opinions.

In fact, I recently read about a good example of how B2B companies can leverage social networking sites. The site, called ITtoolbox Community Hub, is a recently-launched site of IT professionals that, among other things, allows users to share and compare information with peers who have similar interests including evaluating IT vendors This site allows its 1.5 million registrants post to blogs, join topic-based groups and check up on recent postings from their Connections, the site’s version of MySpace friends.

In an interview, George Krautzel Co-founder and President of ITtoolbox noted that online social networking for IT “is going to facilitate a lot more knowledge-sharing between [users] since people will be more familiar with each other.” He then went on to say that when presented in a “professional sense,” people will use networking sites like his “for real value and knowledge exchange.” And that this will translate to real value for advertisers who reach out to them there.

It seems logical to me. It does not require any face-to-face marketing efforts, but provides an engaging two-way dialog that many seem to desire.

Now before you run off and start participating in 100 different social networking sites, there are a few rules to abide by. First make sure you are only participating in those sites that are truly relevant to your product or service. Second, participate in a transparent fashion. Let people know who you are and be open and honest. Third, be prepared to accept the good with the bad. Don’t get defensive if people don’t love your product or service. Use this as a critical R&D feedback loop.

Finally, don’t assume you can visit a site once a month and post a few comments. You need to become part of the community through consistent and honest participation. If you can’t commit to that do not get involved. If you violate any of these rules the community will turn their back on you.

Again, I am not minimizing the value of a face-to-face recommendation or reference. I just believe that we can use the Internet to create communities of people that can share opinions and ideas via one-to-one conversations in a more efficient and scalable manner.

Robert J. Murray is president of search engine marketing firm iProspect and can be reached at rob.murray@iprospect.com. The Strictly Business column appears Wednesdays at Search Engine Land.

Fortunately, I recently had the opportunity to chat with the person who would know best: Derrick Connell, the General Manager of Live Search. Following are Derrick’s remarks from our discussion, where he shares his opinion on the product, its future plans, and his views on search in general.

Q: What do you believe is the weakest element of algorithmic within the Big 3 players today? Relevancy? User experience? Something else?

Customization. We believe relevancy is not defined by math—it’s defined by people—and relevancy likely has a unique meaning for every searcher. Our goal is to build and deliver services that bring new levels of control and personalization to the web experience.

Is there room for another major search engine to enter the market or capture significant share?

Absolutely. We believe the search industry is in its infancy right now and there is room for improvement across all search engines. We welcome all competitors into the search engine market, as competition is what will bring the search industry to the next level.

What is the current size of the Live Search index and what are your plans for its growth?

The Live Search Index includes more than 5 billion documents, more than 400 million images, and more than 3 million instant answers.

What do you believe the key differentiators are for Live.com?

Internet search gives everybody the same results the same way no matter who they are or what they care about. Live Search lets you control your search experience so you can find and organize the information you need, the way you want. Image Search is a great example of this. You can use Smart Scroll that offers continuous scrolling of results and gets rid of pagination, hovering over an image gives you all the associated meta data so your search results page is uncluttered, and with Advanced Image Viewing options you can find and image fast and save it to a scratchpad as you search.

What are some of the new features on the horizon?

We have seen a lot of traction with our Recommended Searches and Related Searches features and we have also received a lot of great feedback on our Image Search, so look for more UI features like those coming this year. We don’t have anything specific to announce at this time, but are continually looking to improve Live.com and Live Search and are looking forward to the months ahead.

What are the most popular features used on the platform?

Our verticals (Search Scopes) are growing in popularity. Maps and Image being the most popular, but we’re continuing to add new categories and make improvements to what we have now like QnA, Book Search and Video Search.

What are your plans to grow market/query share?

We believe a strong foundation, combined with personalization of Live.com, and customization of Live Search will enable us to make significant progress toward our business goals. Over the last nine months, we focused intently on bringing Live Search from beta to final version. With our search experience now in the right place for widespread consumer use, we are just beginning the execution of our broad marketing strategy, as well as building strategic partnerships that we expect will expand and grow our user base over time.

What are your plans in relation to mobile and social search?

Both of these areas are still in their early stages. Mobile is an area where there is a lot of potential and where we are currently leading with SMS search, MMS technology, instant answers, real-time location integration and so on. Social search is very much in the early stages, QnA being our initial offering there, but more is certainly to come. We are going to continue to invest in both of these areas as the activity in the marketplace continues to pick up and consumers get more engaged in the technology.

What are your plans to leverage user generated content sites?

Soapbox on MSN, Live Search QnA, and Live Search Maps Collections are examples of Microsoft’s commitment to developing user-generated content.

Soapbox on MSN Video is our user-upload video service that is currently in invitation-only beta. Soapbox on MSN Video makes it easy for people to express themselves by uploading, discovering and sharing personal videos with the Soapbox community and others around the world. At this time, it is being rolled out to select beta testers and via friend-of-friend invites. You can sign up to be wait-listed for the beta at http://soapbox.msn.com.

Another great example of how consumers are customizing Live Search is a map that contains links to traffic cameras throughout the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area. Created in Live Search by our users, the map aggregates data from a variety of sources and consolidates that data on Live Search to share with other users.

We’ve learned from customer feedback that people want search to be faster and more relevant. We’ve seen firsthand that customers enjoy showing off their smarts and helping people out. We believe that through Live Search QnA our consumers will be able to make direct connections to information they want by asking a question, reading other people’s answers, or searching the site for information about the topics they are interested in. As with Live Search, consumers will have control of their search experience, customize it for their context and present search results in a usable format, thereby empowering users to make their own choices.

What do you believe will be the key to maintaining a dominant market position in algorithmic search in the future?

Our goal is to build and deliver services that bring new levels of control and personalization to the web experience. Live.com delivers on this goal by providing a personal search experience in which customers can harness the power of Live Search to find, customize and track news, images, video, RSS feeds, and blogs across the web. We like to use the term “full page relevancy,” it is much more than what results are numbers 1, 2, & 3 (and relevancy defined in that way we are on par with the competition in a number of areas, better in some, and more to do in others), but what is available on the page to make the results even more relevant.

Thanks, Derrick.

Surely, getting the inside scoop beats sideline speculation any day, and given Derrick’s input, it’s clear that Microsoft is betting heavily on customization as a way to beat the competition. It will be interesting to see how consumers like this approach, and if it will help Microsoft grow their query share from a distant third place to something more in line with Google or Yahoo!. But regardless of the outcome, I agree with Derrick on one thing: Search is definitely in its infancy, and there is still a lot more that can be done to improve it. And if the Big 3 won’t take the lead on this, someone else could very well come in and change the game all together.

Robert J. Murray is president of search engine marketing firm iProspect and can be reached at rob.murray@iprospect.com. The Strictly Business column appears Wednesdays at Search Engine Land.