Apparently Sequoia Capital had a meeting with its portfolio companies this week where they gave them some grim advice for how to weather the bad economy. One of the talking points that stood out for me from this report of the meeting:
In a downturn, aggressive PR and Communications strategy is key.
To continue on my self-serving post series, I interpret this as a strong recommendation to focus on high ROI marketing efforts like SEO. If their is huge uncertainty in the market, customers are going to look a lot harder before they buy, and trust is going to become an increasingly important factor in the decision process. Ranking high in Google for key terms is definitely an indicator of trust for many consumers.
2 Response Comments
This is definitely a self-serving post, but rings true nonetheless. I don’t think any startup should be spending hundreds of dollars on a traditional press release. Retaining a PR agency for thousands of dollars should be considered a cardinal sin. Employing SEO will definitely generate stronger ROI than using outdated PR techniques.
I have been getting contacted by many more real estate agents & mortgage brokers as of late looking to get higher rankings to help weather out the dry spell many brokers have been experiencing…
A couple years back I was offering free SEO to top producing agents in exchange for a commission on each house they helped a consumer buy or sale.
Normally that would be illegal, but since I am a licensed real estate agent in California I can get away with it.