• by Frank Lee , May 11, 2009

eCommerce/Lead Gen Roundtable: Micah Nyatsambo, SEO Manager, Media Contacts, led this roundtable and gathered the following key takeaways from the group:

1. Twitter works for to drive online opportunities to offline sales. It works exceptionally well for local products and local brick & mortars. 2. Monetizing social to target specific initiatives was also discussed. An automotive OEM tied social events to local car dealers. 3. Social media monitoring can help sculpt opportunities to leverage services or products. 4. On the flip side, mobile still doesn't work. Too fragmented. Transactions need to be as simple as Amazon's 1 click.

Publisher Roundtable: Olivier Lemaignen, Group Manager, Global Search Marketing, Intuit, led this roundtable. Key takeaways:

Nail the basics and test your way into new areas: a. Get search basics done right Leverage existing digital assets to the fullest. b. Deliver against what works hardest (e.g., optimize for keywords at bottom of the funnel) c. More openness to exploring new channels (e.g., social) because it is harder to deliver sustained growth with search only

Leverage efficiencies wherever you can: a. Integrate across brands as well as marketing efforts (offline & online, PPC & SEO, DRTV & Search, etc.) b. Content is king… Use what works in one medium and turn it into new assets that can be leveraged in other media (e.g., videos, images, blog posts) and across platforms (e.g., post TV spots on YouTube)

Make the most of you existing resources: a. Re-focus on training across the organization. Now more than ever, training should be an ongoing effort. Creates less need for downstream reviews, less rework, more scale. b. Outsource time-consuming work offshore to benefit from lower hourly rates (e.g., link analysis & link building) c. Push responsibility & accountability for SEO results further down the org: more hands to do the work, more attention given to SEO d. Reframe large projects into smaller chunks to get faster implemenation