Again, old topic but thought I would elaborate anyway. Search engine marketing is in a period of hyper growth in the marketplace. According to a recent quote (can’t remember from whom) I heard at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose, the growth of paid search rose 38% from 2005 to 2006; and in 2009 will become over a $10 billion industry. Keeping these statistics in mind, it is imperative for marketers to take paid search serious, include it in their marketing strategy and find ways to integrate search with other demand generation and/or direct marketing initiatives.

Some common examples include integrating search with any upcoming news releases. If your company is releasing a new product, service or initiative, it would be wise to ensure that you have a search campaign ready to go so when consumers read the news release and search for that particular term, you are ready for them. The same strategy can be used for any offline advertising as well.

Having access to future media plans are also helpful. This will give you adequate time to plan for a search campaign. For example, say your advertising team will be serving banner ads on Marthastewart.com. One idea would be to use Google’s Site Targeting feature and also serve contextual ads on Marthastewart.com during the same time frame.

Regardless of how you do it, integrating search is imperative. It’s not rocket science, nor is it anything new. I just found an article on ClickZ that was written well over a year and a half ago and some companies still can’t figure it out.

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