The Year of the Fire Dog
Happy New Year! Chinese everywhere are celebrating the year of the Fire Dog or Sleeping Dog. We’re having some auspicious first days, too, here at Oneupweb. Today for example our new website just went live. We’ll officially be launching new services later this week. Stay tuned for some other new adventures later next month. So I thought I might check out what the Fire Dog promises for us search marketers in the coming year. (I promise, no Jean Dixon-esque remarks about Ashton or Demi.)
Overall Commerce Suffers
Good news for us search marketers really. Our services will be in greater demand as businesses try to efficiently reach every customer and reduce marketing budgets. Other more financial astrologers point to our industry’s growth—SEMPO expects 43 percent growth to $5.75 billion in 2006; Safa Rashtchy, at Piper Jaffray touts 41 percent growth but estimates the total industry at a whopping $14 billion for 2006.
Professions Thrive, Peaking in Spring & Summer
Apparently there’s a lack of water in the upcoming fiery year, which means that communications dry up along with commerce. Balance that against a penchant for pros to thrive. I interpret that as, “amateur commercial communicators have a triple whammy against them.” So be professional; focus on best practices and earning your client’s long-term loyalty. As for spring and summer… Well, from an internet retailer perspective, spring is a good time to start natural campaigns for the 2006 holiday season. And summer is the time to deploy A:B Labs research for your holiday pay-per-click campaigns. Often our B2B clients have new, approved marketing plans and budgets in spring, especially those that use the calendar year as their fiscal year.
Ahh… Loyalty & Kinship
Man’s best friend is the pinnacle of loyalty and the year of the Fire Dog supports reliability, faithfulness and fidelity. During the upcoming year, “great things are accomplished with kin, not alone.” The rugged individualist won’t have the faculties to prosper. Great for us. I’m still high off of the teamwork that went into our new website. Our dedicated, loyal colleagues are driven. And we’ve had some big hairy goals, requiring a lot of hard work. Plus, our recent growth means we have lots of new Oneupweb team members here, supporting our new services. And more are on the way. (Check out Careers for open positions.)
I’d like to point out that our industry could use a dose of kinship and team work. Search engine reps and paid search managers need to work together, proactively, continuously. Those of the industry focused on grousing about competitors—you’re boring and no one’s listening. Spammers—you’re all alone in the desert and you will perish, eventually.
Thank you to those in our industry who’ve worked to improve our collective credibility and professionalism. I’m talking about those tireless SEMPO board members, industry pundits who discuss best practices and journalists covering success stories.
Looking forward, the Fire Dog will be good for professional search marketing teams using best practices.
