RippedRead

When the boss can’t find your site in Google, or discovers AdWords, or reads an article in the Wall Street Journal or runs into some smartaleck who asks about MyFace or SpaceBook, it’s time to add to staff. Because the web programmer doesn’t have time, the marketing gal has got a full-time job doing print ads or direct mail or TV (or all three), and although so much online marketing is “free” or cheap, someone has to take the hours to do it. So a job description and a list of tools will give some depth to your dangerously flip answer to “Well, can’t you just get some links or something?”

First, check out Jeremiah Owyang’s list of web marketing tools, 36 items long, updated for 2008 (because, amazingly, new tools continue to be invented). Jeremiah’s blog on Web strategy fits well with his current job as senior analyst at Forrester.

Then compare it with this list of duties in an Animal Planet job posting :

“The marketing specialist will work closely with the VP, executive producers and producers of Animal Planet Interactive to develop and execute marketing campaigns designed to drive visitation and loyalty to the Animal Planet web site. The Marketing Specialist will focus on grassroots, viral, and word of mouth marketing to drive visitation to Animalplanet.com. The marketing specialist will also work closely with the Animal Planet network communications team, programming, production, marketing and new media to implement marketing strategies; collaborate with other internal departments, including network’s research, ad sales, affiliate sales, corporate communications and other network U.S. communications staff; and working closely with outside producers, agents and talent for Animal Planet.

“Responsibilities:

1. Promote Animal Planet’s overall digital content portfolio and specific digital media content offerings (blogs, widgets, games, online video, etc.) in online media.
2. Build and maintain relationships to secure coverage with key entertainment and vertical bloggers, magazines and websites.
3. Secure editorial placements on major online portals (AOL, Yahoo, MSN, etc.).
4. Submit content offerings for awards and lists (i.e. Online Journalism Awards, Best of the Web).
5. Secure mention of Animal Planet in major trend features covering the web.
6. Build awareness, buzz and affinity for Animal Planet’s talent on social networking sites (i.e. MySpace).
7. Develop and maintain presence of Animal Planet’s video clips on major user-generated content sites (i.e. YouTube).
8. Serve as a liaison with marketing, online, interactive media and programming departments to leverage all digital resources and assets.
9. Monitor and evaluate new technologies and promotional vehicles to ensure that Animal Planet is on the cutting edge of new innovations in the digital media space (i.e., the next YouTube/Facebook).
10. Collect data and evaluate performance of promotional vehicles and provide reports on successes and trends using key measurement techniques on the web (i.e. BlogPulse, Google Trends, Yahoo Buzz Index, etc).”

Oh (I think at this point I would be justified in saying “oy”)– and don’t forget the basic outlines of the marketing job in any medium, as defined by Forrester and Jeremiah (and annotated by me):

1. People (listen, observe, question, understand)
2. Objective(s) — define
3. Strategy/plan
4. Tools — select, prioritize to fit strategy and meet objectives
5. Integrate with other parts of the business
6. Measure
7. Improve

Great. I’m trusting you to get this done for our new product launch Monday.