I recently tested the waters around Pittsburgh for a position in interactive/online marketing. Pittsburgh has a abundance of media houses of all shapes and sizes. Some focus on the design others are strictly marketing and there is a defined few, that have interests in pushing the limits of their clients on and offline marketing crusades , to the edge of technology.

The first reaction to the “sandbox” was shock. I visited the sites of the ladder group of aforementioned companies, and found that most had, only applied about half of what they sell to their own site and marketing efforts. This seemed to be a case of “the plumber has the leakiest house”! Now I understand that when running and supporting a media house your own needs are always trumped by the needs of the client, but c’mon just finish the basics (SEO-title, keywords, and a full description), this only takes a couple of minutes and is actually PRO-Active. After I got over the initial shell shock, I pursued to explore all the nooks and cranny’s of a couple of key players (to be named later). I paid especially close attention to the “Team” pages, introducing the cast and crew. This again only led me to believe that Big Names make Big Ideas. The dossier of alot employees stressed their prior affiliations to major marketing agencies and big name brands. Don’t get me wrong if you were part of the team that made a little guy a household name then, kudos, but was it the person or a process and team that made this success? The big brands are the easy companies to re-brand and market, try a 2 truck plumber with a limited service area and budget. These are the true success stories. Without the success of the little guy who will afford the big name brands? I will continue to generalize and say that most of the popular agencies have a stories where they took a rag-to-riches from the ground up. Why not use these types of REAL PEOPLE stories to show your personal accomplishment. I would love to have a client that has a 6 figure/quarter marketing budget, if i couldn’t make them a ROI than I should revisit my choice of professions.

Time to rap this up, it is a bit disheartening to see that true innovators, who are working challenging themselves to get more with less and allow all-technology to be the muse of web 3.0, be overlooked because they didn’t get the big name client. Look further than the resume` and focus more on the contributions achieved when there wasn’t a big budget and a big name attached. Look at the everyday businesses who demand more from a SEM than just bidding and linking.

Tags: Punch Lines //