Punam is an SEM Consultant who has over 10 years of experience in digital marketing industry. She worked in Canada for Canadian and US clients from different industries and verticals. Over the years she has managed campaigns from different industries with various budgets along with providing training to the clients. She managed the PPC campaigns for Real Estate, Retail, Automobile, Industrial Equipments, Financial software services, etc. Punam is also a trainer and speaker in the digital marketing field.
How did you get into Search Engine Marketing?
Punam: After finishing my MSc in Computer Science, I started my career as a Software Engineer with Eastern Software’s in Delhi. In 2002 moved to Canada but that time software industry was going through tough time and didn’t get good opportunity in that industry. Luckily joined a Start up company who offered Internet Marketing Services. It sounded really interesting and I joined that company and from there got into Digital Marketing. Since then learning and implementation is going hand on hand.
What makes Search Engine Marketing an essential subject for Entrepreneurs, Marketing Professionals and Students? Please share separately for each of these profiles.
Punam: Multi platform is a reality now with PC, Tablets & Smartphone’s. We are consuming content on the move in multiple devices. As Entrepreneurs we have no choice but to go where the consumer is. It is challenging. But small & big brands are on their way of adopting this.
Search engine marketing is one of major & essential pillar under digital marketing umbrella. Business can’t ignore their presence on the Search Engines like Google, Yahoo or You tube etc.
By understanding the scenario for current market requirement, with good knowledge of Search Engine Marketing increase the marketer’s value. Qualified and good digital marketers are in huge demand!
Students get handy information and other’s experience Online. In future they would be either consumers OR service/ product providers. Either way they need to understand the Online Marketing Industry to make their life easier.
Please share top 3 mistakes committed by organizations in leveraging Search Engine Marketing.
Punam: Mistake Organizations are making in their Search Engine Marketing is that their ‘marketing goal’ is not aligned with their overall business goal. SEM expert or agency should be the part of marketing or sales planning to better understand business requirement and can make changes to their strategies accordingly.
Sometime the top management of the company doesn’t have the understanding about how digital marketing works so their efforts, budget and resources still doesn’t produce the desired results.
Another mistake I see that there is an absence of a plan to track competitor moves.
What are the key Search Engine Marketing topics you cover in the training program that you lead at Digital Vidya?
Punam: During SEM training we cover from basics to advance of Paid Advertising.
In our SEM training we teach about the SEM platforms such as Google Search & Display Networks, Remarketing, YouTube along with Mobile Advertising.
It starts from understanding what the paid advertising platform is, where the businesses can advertise. Then we go deeper on how to create the paid campaign, about the best practices to get better ROI. Then we discuss about campaign performance tracking using reporting platform. We also cover about how we integrate our paid advertising reports with analytics.
List top 5 takeaways of the Search Engine Marketing course you lead at Digital Vidya.
Punam: With Digital Vidya SEM course –
- Participants will understand how to define SEM goals in alignment with their business goals
- Understanding about Paid advertising. Deep understanding of Google adwords platform, Search Network and Display Network, Remarketing, Youtube ads, etc
- They will be able to create adwords campaign with complete understanding for best practices to follow while creating their ad copy, landing pages, etc
- They will be able to track their conversion or leads
- They will learn the adwords reporting platform and also how to connect adwords with Google analytics for better understanding of their traffic.
In your experience, what are the key advantages of ‘instructor-led, online’ delivery format?
Punam: The major advantage I feel, with this kind of model is that one can join course without any boundary limitations and can get their doubt clarification live from the qualified and industry experience trainers.
Moreover with the busy schedule and time limitation, one saves commuting time going to a physical centre, especially in today’s traffic.
What challenges do you face and how do you overcome them while delivering an online course?
Punam: Not seeing the participants is one of the challenge in the first session as you don’t see their faces and can’t judge how much everyone is getting or how much everybody is involved in and not able to understand what’s’ going on in their mind.
I start my session with an introduction, including their profile and expectations from the course. This practice makes me understand about my target audience and I optimize my presentations and case studies accordingly.
What are the top 3-5 trends you foresee for Search Engine Marketing in 2016?
Punam: In 2016, SEM trend will be more towards push marketing (such as display advertising) then the Search Network Marketing. Under Display Advertising, trends like Dynamic Display Ads will boom because it provides new opportunities for advertisers to target and then re-target their audience in a smarter way.
SEM Mobile Advertising will skyrocket. Options like Voice search will take up the mobile marketing. Voice search will show the answer to the people’s call up query. This will change the picture of traditional Google search.
