The 10 Truths Every CMO Should Know About Search Marketing

Last week I attended Search Engine Land’s SMX East show in New York City. What a great time of year to be in New York. My first day there I attended a couple of seminars, day one was not the best for me, but the one that really stood out to me was The 10 Truths Every CMO Must Know About Search Marketing.....
What amazed me about this track was how trivial it was...if you are a CMO, Chief Marketing Officer, I would think you should already know what those 10 truths are.
1 - SEO is an ongoing process – as an executive in a company please don’t ask for miracles, you cannot just optimize your meta tags and think everything is “A OK,” now where are our rankings!!!???
2- The #1 position is not always everything and sometimes not even possible--- NO KIDDING!!! Multiple positions can and should be a blessing...
3 - The long tail is your friend --- if you are a CMO and do not know what the long tail is and that it can bring in extremely qualified traffic then maybe you should not be a CMO! Sorry just my opinion.
4 - Both paid and natural search are equally important. Ask yourself, do you want to increase brand awareness??? Well being seen more often will allow that and then some....
5 - Customers -- hear “their" language not "yours" -- yes by golly darn you betcha -- you should be speaking to your customers telling them what they WANT to hear not what YOU want to say!!
**SIGH** half way through what a CMO should already know!!
6 - Web pages are not the ONLY assets you need to optimize -- come on folks there are Press Releases, blogs, articles so much MORE than just the web pages which should be optimized and even bidded on at times in paid search arenas.
7 - Integration is a must! -- if you are NOT sending the same message in print, that you are on the web there is a serious issue, get it together!
8 - Tools simplify everything -- well I was hoping to get some golden nugget from this statement, and well I didn't, yes tools simplify everything and yes you should be using them to make your life easier, but is there a new one, a better one????? I didn't get anything from this one other than if you are able to utilize tools to make your life easier and it does not have a negative affect on your consumer then good for you ... I already knew that – **SIGH**
9 - Bid on brand terms - if you are not doing this you are completely missing the boat ....enough said..
FINALLY – Number 10!!!
10 - Set goals -- ya think??? All CMO’s should know that goals need to be set, but you need to understand what you are trying to accomplish before you set those goals, be clear, and don’t be unrealistic, please!
Someone told me there were 11 things a CMO should know but I didn't buy it, this pretty much covers it unless someone else can think of something I might have missed. If so, please do chime in!!!