In Catalyst’s “Performance Marketing Perspective” blog series we’re interviewing thought-leaders and experts from across our team to weigh in on changes, opportunities, and challenges in performance marketing. You’ll hear from paid search directors, SEO managers, programmatic leaders, and more as we share how brands can maximize the success of their performance marketing campaigns.

Today’s post features Catalyst’s Director of Organic Search, Jennifer Kenyon. Jennifer has over 13 years of experience in the search engine marketing industry, and throughout her career, Jennifer has helped many Fortune 500 clients use SEO to maximize website performance and drive business results. Jennifer has worked across multiple verticals including luxury, CPG, pharmaceutical, and more. Jennifer recently graduated with a Master’s Degree from Northwestern University’s Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) program.

Interviewer:

What’s on the horizon for digital marketing and how should marketers be preparing?

Jennifer:

It’s voice search for me. I see all of the voice assistants in the marketplace, like Cortana, Alexa, Google Assistant, and I think it is just something that’s still pretty underrated. I think there’s more that we as marketers could be doing to prepare for voice search and optimize for voice search. I’m not sure if people know exactly how to do that yet or what exactly that’s going to look like, but I think it’s something we need to keep on our radars.

Interviewer:

Over the next 12 months, what would be one specific thing that you think marketers should be doing to prepare for voice search?

Jennifer:

You have to keep the customer journey in mind and remember that people write and speak differently.  I would recommend thinking about the types of questions people will be asking, and then perhaps integrate FAQs into your website content, things like that.

With voice search, the queries will be more like “find” and “do” queries. For example, trying to get somewhere, how do I get from A to B? What is the weather like in Framingham? Things like that.

Interviewer:

What challenges are most prevalent among marketers today and what are some things marketers can do to overcome them?

Jennifer:

I would say that not being able to overcome internal silos continues to be a significant challenge. There is not enough integration across teams. Everyone has to focus on not only the best way to reach your customer, but also ensuring consistent messaging that is customer centric. We need to be reaching customers at every step in the customer journey. To do that, teams need to be sharing and integrating their findings. They need to be communicating better.

We had a pretty good integration example on one of my teams here at Catalyst. We recently incorporated paid search learnings into our SEO campaign, and as a result, our click through rates improved significantly. It’s an example of how more integration can improve business results.

Interviewer:

How do you think integrated marketing has changed over the last couple of years?

Jennifer:

It’s evolved as the customer journey has evolved. We have relied so much on the traditional purchase funnel, but now that’s outdated because the way we research and buy products has evolved. Marketers need to adapt to that better. We’ve gotten into the habit of looking at things linearly, but really today it’s more circular.

I also think integrated marketing goes beyond things that we normally think of. It’s wrapping communication around the customer. It helps them move through various stages of the buying process. Instead of operating in silos, you’ve got to get every part of your company, even going down to administrative functions, to focus on the customer.

More Thought-Leadership from Jennifer Kenyon

On the Blog

• TechSEO Boost: “The State of Technical SEO” Recap
• TechSEO Boost: “Amping AirBNB” Recap
• Catalyst’s Trailblazer Tuesday Presents: Hitwise
• Social Commerce – Combining Social Media and Shopping

Search Engine Watch Articles: 

• Luxury Marketing Search Strategy, Part 1: Consumer Mindset
• Luxury Marketing Search Strategy, Part 2: Strategies and Tactics
• Luxury Marketing Search Strategy, Part 3: Integrated Marketing Communication