You get what you pay for – unless you choose not to.  Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company and employing a world class search agency, or a Mom and Pop paying for a la carte search services, it’s essential that you get every drop of value for each dollar you pay to your marketers. While this may sound like a no-brainer, more clients than not are investing in search and then under-utilizing its value.

I’ve seen many clients pay top dollar for exactly what they should be paying for: SEM, SEO and Social Media.  They buy in to what we sell them, but then create hurdles that can limit our ability to be effective in all areas.  We have the knowledge to move our clients forward comprehensively; yet many of them do not engage us as strategically as they should for what they pay us to do.

Brand new, multi-million dollar sites go up all the time without organic optimizations built in, big money is spent on PR pushes that are not supported by Social Media and medical bombs are dropped on pharmaceutical companies who must scramble to react in the digital space.  All of this can be avoided when clients are fully engaging their SEM, SEO and Social Media contracts.  So what is involved in getting the biggest bang for your search marketing buck?

Steps to getting your money’s worth:

1. Include your marketers in every initiative BEFORE it launches.  Guaranteed if they’re worth what you pay them, they’ve seen it before and will have ideas on how to not only support that initiative, but on how to stretch that budget even further.
2. If your PR team is going to launch a major (or minor) campaign, include your search team BEFORE it happens.  We can push teasers in paid ads, help you promote it on your Facebook or MySpace pages, guide you in blasting it on Twitter and make sure that the shiny new landing page you push live to support the event is perfectly optimized to rank organically.
3. If you’re paying for Social Media, use your Social Media marketer.  Let them guide you on what content and updates go up on Facebook or Twitter before they go up.  As with anything, damage is easier prevented than repaired.
4. You’ve paid for that organic contract; include your SEO team in your site enhancements or redesigns.  Organic optimizations do not have to slow down a launch if you’re employing the right SEO team.
5. A comprehensive digital program should include some form of proactive reputation management.  If you’re not getting it, find out why.

In this economy, it should become common sense for clients to take full advantage of the services that they’re spending precious dollars on.  As search marketers, we want you, our clients, to fully engage and inform us because ultimately, our success is contingent upon your success.