Catalyst online Search Marketing Blog » Uncategorized

Digital Asset Optimization (DAO)

Heather — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:54:53 +0000

iProspect recently released a study that shows users are responding to the various specialized content types within search results. Top-level findings: 36% of search engine users click a “news” results within blended search results, 31% click “image” results and 17% click “video” results. I just typed in “Lipitor image” in Google. Three images appeared, none of them were images from Pfizer. I tried “Plavix image,” same situation. I then tried “Nexium image” first image was AZ, nice job. Try this exercise with your brand.

I would suggest a three part plan to respond to consumers looking for information and responding to the information in their choice format.

1. Optimizing your images is a simple task for your SEO shop, start today.

2. Push to optimize all your digital assets this year.

3. Create a digital asset strategy. What should we be creating for our digital constituents? Who are the partners we need to work with to develop and implement the digital asset strategy? Of course I am biased, so I will suggest first and foremost that your SEO shop be leveraged here, but I would strongly suggest your PR firm, CPA, iAgency, content providers and beyond.

I can hear you asking me, what is the ROI of DAO? How I would suggest you think about ROI is we are responding to consumers looking information in a format that they choose. Thus the response rate will improve driving more traffic to your site for further engagement and influence, search IS a branding medium, and we will develop a deep understanding of what consumers are looking for in terms of format of information.

The Evolution of Search

Heather — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:32:03 +0000

I am off to Disney World tomorrow with my family. I started thinking about how my children will look for information as they grow up. I have not yet introduced my three year old and five year old to Google. I was at a CBI conference www.cbinet.com last week. Henry van den Berg, from P&G www.pg.com gave an interesting presentation that highlighted this topic. He asked four of his children what they would do to gather information if they were sick. Each child looked for information differently, Google, MySpace, YouTube and Webkinz. WOW. Search is evolving. Further thoughts on this topic…I recently read an article written by a colleague of mine, Chris Copeland, Managing Director at Outrider www.outrider.com. Chris stated, “organic search marketing is moving towards a more sophisticated integration of elements, be it image, video, consumer reviews, or social networks. The future is all about Digital Asset Optimization (DAO) and not limited to SEO.” I agree. We are all aware that relatively few consumers, 13%, visit pharma company websites (of course I would highlight that this is because only a few have a good organic search strategy in place). If we optimize our assets and not just our site we have the opportunity to appear in many other places on the web, perhaps a video (approved by legal and regulatory - of course) will be referenced by an affluent blogger in our category or our images will appear in Google. People are increasingly searching for health-related videos and images. Type in yours, “Lipitor image” and view the results. How are your consumers and HCP searching?

Paid Search Ads and FDA Guidelines

Heather — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 17:19:50 +0000

I often speak at pharma conferences regarding the impact of effective search marketing strategies in the pharmaceutical market. In fact, I am speaking again at CBI’s conference, The 7th Annual eMarketing for the Pharmaceutical Industry, March 6th in Philadelphia . A hot topic at these events is the FDA guidelines and how it applies to paid search ads. Pharma search experts, like our friend John Mack, share their thoughts on Fair Balance and pharma paid search ads. Quite often, I find my colleagues views regarding the effective management of pharma paid search ads to be simply……outdated.

In John’s Pharma Marketing Blog he states: “These Adwords seem to violate FDA regulations that require presentation of major side effect information whenever a brand name and its approved indication are mentioned in the same ad”.

This is what I think.

The pharma industry is handling paid search ads three ways:

the condition in the ad with brand url (Learn about cholesterol. www.Lipitor.com).
the condition with a vanity url. (Learn about cholesterol. www.LowerMyCholestrol.com)
no condition and brand url.

The first option is the obvious best choice. The second option creates destination disappointment, a possible bait and switch tactic. The consumer may not want to go to a pharma site and you just tricked them thus deminishing your brand equity. In addition you just paid for it too! The third option is okay but paid search best practices requires you to include the keyphrase the searcher users to improve your quality score.

Some industry marketers believe that the first option - (condition and brand name) violates the FDA fair balance guidelines. If other pharma search experts choose to apply traditional marketing practices to the innovative online marketplace, then I would ask them to consider this; as long as the safety information is on each page of a brand’s website (another best practice) a searcher is always just one click away from safety information - acceptable. To help the traditional marketers relate, just like a magazine ad, one turn of a magazine page and there you see the safety information.

I believe including the condition and brand URL in a paid search ad is not only in accordance to the FDA’s Fair Balance guidelines but also produces a much better consumer experience as well.

What do you think?