Dave Davis of RedFly Marketing: An Interview
Dec 17th, 2007 by msdanielle
Dave Davis of RedFly Marketing was kind enough to answer some interview questions for me regarding his search engine marketing business, and included some tips on what to keep in mind for those of you who are thinking of branching out and creating your own consulting start-up. Thanks again, Dave!
You and your partners operate RedFly Marketing, which specializes in search engine marketing services. At what point did you decide to start your own company and how quickly did it take off?
Thanks for interviewing me Danielle. I think it should be the other way around! We actually started as a web design agency (which is still going) and an increasing number of our clients were looking for not just a great looking website, but a great looking website that could be found in the search engines. Organic SEO was something we were very good at. Getting our site to the number one organic spot for “web design” in our country specific results proved that. Offering it to clients as a service was a no brainer.
After a few years of design and SEO combined we were getting so many tender requests for SEO and PPC management that we decided to break up the marketing side of the company into a separate entity. RedFly Marketing was born. Word of mouth is such a powerful form of marketing that we needed to scale quickly while maintaining the focus on our current customers. It worked well and we now manage over one million Euros in advertising spend for our clients per month.
I found your blog through searching for PPC resources and it’s a great resource. When was it started, and how has blogging helped your company?
Social media is a very powerful tool. I knew that before I started blogging. I actually had a travel blog for years (and it’s still alive somewhere!) and knew the audience one could get publishing regular useful and interesting content. Business blogging is different. It’s all well and good telling your visitors that you know what you are talking about on your website, but blogging about case studies and providing helpful information to those that are not quite ready to become clients is a different story and shows you really know what you are talking about.
Our top five largest clients found out about us and signed on as a result of them searching for a solution to a problem they were having and us providing it for free on our blog. Our two biggest sources of new clients are now word of mouth and our blog.
Are there any black-hat SEO or PPC tactics that you’ve used in the past that you find humorous now and would like to share? Any significant ones that you’ve heard of that are humorous that are no longer used?
There is too much risk in using black hat techniques on client sites and accounts so it is a big no no. In fact, we agree to follow all search engine guidelines in our contracts. In the past, probably the closest thing to black hat (which is not black hat at all) was using the digitalpoint coop network. In it’s day, this produced some seriously fantastic results (think number one position for “cheap mortgages new york” or “myspace layouts” or “download ringtones” or “free ringtone”). We had those number one positions at one stage before the search engines caught on.
You recently attended PubCon in Las Vegas, and I know you said it was well worth the trip from Ireland. Can you share some insight on what you gained from the conference, and what others can gain from similar conferences?
I think the sessions at PubCon are very much for in-house SEOs and marketers as well as those that have been in the industry for a few months. The real value as I am sure you know comes from the contacts that you make and the networks you build for…various reasons. While it was a very long trip, the friendships made was completely worth it.
When you come from a country where the online marketing scene is extremely small, it is important to get to know on a personal level the big players and the bigger picture. It was fantastic to meet all the people I admire, who have taught me so much and who have literally got me where I am today. The value of the trip was one hundred times more than the cost. At least.
What is a big challenge that you face as an SEM consultant, and how you go about resolving it into something positive for your client?
Like any industry, there are quite a few. The first that springs to mind which I have a lot of experience with is client/potential client education. We receive a lot of tender requests and when we go to meet with the potential client, we find ourselves battling with the client (usually a larger organization) to convince them that they can benefit from online marketing. We no longer have time for this and now focus on tenders where the client is already aware of the benefit.
The biggest challenge however is actually finding people that that want to or can work in the industry. Because online marketing is not yet a full blown college degree, many people simply do not know that it is a career avenue they can pursue. Finding someone, especially in Ireland, that is passionate and knowledgeable about the industry is almost impossible. We are always on the lookout for new recruits. If you grow bored of SoCal, there’s always a place for you here!
What words of wisdom can you share with search engine marketers who are considering starting their own consulting business?
Always diversify you business by running your own affiliate campaigns, your own ecommerce store, your own content network. This way you have a vested interested in keeping up with trends in the industry and you are usually first to know when a major shift happens. It hits you straight in your own pocket and this keeps you on your toes. This also means you can adapt a client campaign before a client even knows there is anything wrong. I’d say about a 40-60 split is pretty good.
Make sure you know how to deal with customers. Make sure you can manage expectations properly. Customers are trusting you with their business. Treat it as your own. If you can, work on a performance basis. It keeps everyone happy.
Do not forget your legacy (read smaller) clients. They are the ones who got you where you are.
Thanks for the interview Danielle. If you or your readers have any questions, I will try to answer them as best I can and I don’t bite.
Feel free to leave comments and/or questions, or visit RedFly Marketing’s blog here.
Recommended RedFly Marketing Blog Reads:
- 10 Ways to Increase Your AdWords Quality Score
- Dynamic Keyword Insertion - The Ultimate Guide
- 10 SEO Tips Everyone Should Know
- Do You Make These 12 AdWords Mistakes?
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Thanks for posting Danielle! I’ll send it some love in a later post.
The additional links are very much appreciated too
thank YOU, dave! perhaps i should write a post about the value of deep-linking?
Or perhaps the value of optimizing titles to contain your primary keywords to get maximum value from deep links like what you just provided. (Does that make sense?!)
yes, “relevancy is key” comes to mind. optimizing titles can be pretty hard for publishers, and i know there is mystery around how to do it properly (i.e. kw research). then trying to get valuable, relevant incoming links to those pages is even harder but so worth it if u can get them. hmmm i will be outlining this tonight to see if i can formulate something… thanks
Good interviewing..
I get some tips from this interview..
i’m glad you enjoyed it. this was my first interview on this blog and i’m going to be doing a lot more. crafting the questions is a bit challenging for me, but it’s great when you have an insightful interviewee to round it out well
Great Interview D . . . I can tell you put a lot of thought and time into it!
thanks, gare! coming up with interview Qs is hard. i hope my next one turns out well too
Good interview, but I’d like to see much more in-depth stuff on social marketing. This seems to be the way to go these days, in internet marketing.
feel free to leave questions. thanks!
great interview! totally what i needed to get inspired!
Hello,
Now a days business enterprise rooted in the Internet has withered because of a lack of a targeted search engine marketing plan. First, you need to understand the basic concepts of SEO. Absent this understanding, when it comes to your hopes of developing a targeted search engine marketing campaign, you will be shooting blindly.
Nice interview. What made me laugh though is Dave struggling to find staff in Ireland, I live on the Isle of Man and by default every webmaster/web designer (or anybody who has ever looked at a web page) considers themself an SEO expert!
That’s exactly my point… “considers”. It doesn’t mean they have the first clue. There are hundreds here too offering the “full whack” service. Design, development, SEO, PPC, SMO, analytics consulting the list goes on. How can a one man show have sufficient knowledge in all disciplines to offer those services effectively?
They can’t, I think it’s come about as an extension to the world of software development where the “average” programmer considers themself an expert in 40 different technologies (just cos they’ve heard of them)! I would have thought though that these crackers full whackers would jump at the opportunity to work in a company like yours? I suppose that’s what I was laughing at really, I assumed any sort of vacancy in this area would receive literally hundreds of applications.
Hahaha, great analogy. You are right though, the applications come through thick and fast but there’s not one that jumped right out. I’d be happy if they had limited knowledge but showed an interest in the subject but alas, no such luck.
Really interesting interview. Thanks!
Anymore in the pipes?
hey andrew, glad you enjoyed it. i have another really awesome one coming up, but i’m not going to post until the holidays have subsided. keep an eye out!