When I started in the search engine marketing game I put SEMPO on a pedestal because some of the industry’s greats were behind the organisation, from Kevin Lee to Bruce Clay and Gord Hotchkiss, to name a few. To young search marketers these are the rock stars of the industry, they were there in the trenches when it all started with Alta Vista and Geocities websites and they have continued to lead us into the next era of online marketing.
In discovering SEMPO and seeing that these were the people that pioneered the organisation, I thought, this is where you need to be to dive into the industry, meet other search marketers and grow professionally. So, that’s what I did – I started to explore the companies that were members of the organisation, I read the blogs and articles featured on the SEMPO website and I decided to invest in one of the courses, Advanced Search Advertising (now appears to be discontinued).
SEMPO: Taken Off My Pedestal
I found that even though many large players in the industry associate themselves with the organisation and are even circle members, the SEMPO fan base appears to be shrinking rather than growing. I’ve met more than one company who has decided to drop membership level because they do not feel the value justifies the membership cost. I realised that even though there is a niche group of people who are intimately familiar with SEMPO, there is an greater number of search marketers who have never heard of SEMPO and others who do not understand its value.
In exploring the resources on the SEMPO website, they seemed to be lacking and out of date, with the most recent media center articles frozen in 2005. I was dismayed at the results and so found myself using SEMPO as a resource less frequently.
In the midst of all this, I was undertaking a SEMPO course that dubbed itself ‘advanced’ so I had high hopes for the skills that I could develop. The basics were covered well but the examples and industry references were out of date, referencing as far back as 2004 with no follow up references. I began to wonder how frequently these courses are updated. Working in an industry that thrives on change, SEMPO courses could certainly do with an infusion of some heavily overdue changes.
Where to From Here?
On Twitter, sempoglobal has 573 followers and is itself following 25 people. Need I say more?
How hard is SEMPO trying to engage with search marketers or make itself known?
SEMPO needs to decide what it wants to be and for whom? If it wants to serve search marketers, the approach needs to be more sophisticated and valuable – remember, these are people who pore through blogs, webinars, conferences, books, networking, you name it. Where does SEMPO fit into this educational picture? Its courses need to be cutting edge for it to even make sense for agencies and companies to invest in the material.
What is SEMPO really? Where’s the direction? The passion? Search marketing is not an industry of half measures; people love what they do. If search marketers could see where SEMPO wants to go, they would certainly be more willing to help it get there. We need to kickstart SEMPO’s engine, because in this industry, if you stand still, you start moving backwards and then it’s game over.
@Christian: I appreciate your comment and respect your perspective. What is important to understand from my post, is that I support SEMPO and believe that SEMPO could play a very influential role in the search marketing industry. However, we need to first critically evaluate SEMPO’s current position in the market, ascertain where we want to take the organization and then make a plan to do so. Being complacent or putting on a smiling face when things are not so rosy, is not going to solve the problem. You’ll notice that I use ‘we’ rather than ‘they’, because I believe that the more people who get behind this organization, the easier it will be to implement change.
I am completely turned off by anyone throwing anyone or any organization under the bus, so to speak. True criticism is not about this, but rather professionally speaking about a topic and offering a perspective that intelligently puts a POV forward. Ultimately, until you place yourself in someone elses’ shoes, you cannot give a real perspective as a whole.
Not to discount your experience, this is important too.
And for the record, I am not an SEMPO member, or an employee/employer.
Cheers
@ Frank: I think the problem, as with most thing is money. It is a non-profit organisation which means that the people who put some effort into SEMPO are doing this in their own time.
Maybe SEMPO needs to come up with some interesting and compelling ways to entice search marketers to invest in SEMPO. It needs to be a win-win scenario
@ Andy: I too was surprised to see such low Twitter figures – there’s a real opportunity for SEMPO to actively seek out search marketers by following these people. In this way, people may become exposed to SEMPO and start following SEMPO in turn and even using their resources
As with anything it’s always about what you put into an organization but it appears as if SEMPO is putting nothing into itself so it will likely fade off into the sunset and have no power or influence in a rapidly advancing and expanding space.
I am shocked at the Twitter follower/following figures, it’s a really poor effort on their part which is resulting in areally poor return.
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Sounds like a textbook case of resting too far back on those laurels.
The Twitter stats you mentioned are a real blow – most people in the industry are talking about the importance of engaging with people. That’s a real failure to do so.
Hi Marc!
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I think this is the first step, we need to get SEMPO back into search marketers consciousness and then SEMPO needs to give search marketers what they need from this type of organisation.
I’ve had similar expectations and experiences as well. When first jumping into this field one of the first things I did was sign up as a SEMPO member.
Now looking back, I probably got more real-life, applicable knowledge out of local meetups, tight-knit blog communities and personal networking at conferences.
I still hold SEMPO in high regard, but they really need to look to the competing options out there to see how they can attract and engage both new and experienced search marketers.
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