• December 8, 2008

"Search is like God, it's everywhere and in everything you do," Jenn Mathews, online marketer and former senior director of marketing at Smartsheet.com, told MediaPost Search Insider Summit attendees in Park City, Utah on Friday.

Mathews, who led a discussion at the conference about taking search out of the silo and putting search at the center of your marketing campaign, said it's something she stresses with copywriters, developers and even human resources specialists. The HR department recently optimized job descriptions so when people search for jobs they get the perfect match.

If search is God, than data is King, said Aaron Goldman, VP of marketing and strategic partnerships at Resolution Media. "Any business case you're trying to make as to why search needs to have a seat, you need to lead with the data," he said. "You can take the nuggets and build an argument that's not built on, 'well, intuitively we know people are searching for your brand.'"

Goldman said to lead with the data, because if you can show numbers to support your augment, people will respond. In an economy like this, people only respond to rational thought. --Laurie Sullivan