Getting management buy-in for SEO spend

Despite its power over brand visibility online, SEO can be overlooked by managers, who may be less experienced in working with the benefits of SEO at its most powerful and effective.

So when it comes to securing management buy-in, it can feel like quite a challenge.

There are a few misconceptions that contribute to this overlooking of SEO, but with the right strategy, you can bust those myths, educate your management team on its huge benefits, and ultimately secure that all-important buy-in.

What you need is a strong, clear plan that will demonstrate the potential of SEO to drive long-term growth for your brand. This article will guide you through the most vital steps to communicate that value, leverage data to support your case, and get the buy-in you need:

• Why is SEO overlooked?
• Educating your business on SEO's power
• Data is your ally
• Test your budget: prove your theory
• SEO and PPC: how they help each other

Why is SEO overlooked?

Any digital marketer will tell you that SEO plays a powerful role in any marketing strategy. It solidifies your brand visibility online, drives engaged leads to your website and also helps out your PPC quality scores in the process. But many managers have never worked in SEO specifically and may be unaware of just how powerful and useful SEO can be.

Budget
There’s also the inaccurate belief that SEO is a cost-free element of marketing. “Pay-per-click advertising” has the clue in its name, but SEO can look to the untrained eye like a practice that doesn’t require much of a budget, if any at all. Of course, you know that for any SEO strategy to work, you’ll need the flexibility and freedom that a healthy budget provides.

SEO Tools and Technologies
So what are you spending that budget on? Again, this is something that can be overlooked by management. You’ll need resources including:

Tools:

Google Analytics
Google Search Console
SEMrushAhrefs

Technologies:
Schema Markup
AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)
CDNs (Content Delivery Networks)

Many of these SEO tools and technologies require an upfront or ongoing cost, which may be small on its own, but will accumulate when you start stacking multiple tools for a more efficient workflow. 

People-power
If you have an experienced team working together to reach your SEO goals, you’ll speed up your route to success, and increase the efficiency of your SEO services overall. Simply put, there’s a need for skill personnel, so your managers need to understand that SEO is rarely a one-person job.

Maintenance
Much like any marketing effort, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to finding the perfect strategy for your brand’s SEO. You need the budget to maintain and update your SEO over time. Refining and upgrading your strategy after your initial launch, bringing in more leads and conversions as a result. Some managers believe SEO is more of a one-stop overhaul, that once rolled out, will simply do its job without ongoing support. Of course, you know better!

Educating your business on SEO’s power

Your challenge lies in your ability to demonstrate the power of SEO to your business, through its potential to improve ROI, enhance overall marketing efforts and establish your brands presence online. Here are a few areas to bring up in conversation to really drive these points home.

Importance of Organic Search
We know how vital the role of organic traffic is as part of your overall digital strategy. If you can demonstrate this, perhaps in comparison with paid traffic, you’ll be highlighting one of the most powerful elements of SEO. Showcase the projected long-term benefits of this union between paid and organic to really make your point.

SEO as a Revenue Driver
It’s vital that you demonstrate SEO’s impact on lead generation and conversions. THe bottom line of most marketing campaigns is the ability of your strategy to bring in revenue, so this is a key metric to focus on.

You could do this through sourcing examples of businesses that have benefited from a significant boost in their ROI from SEO specifically. Or better still, bring one of your previous clients' cases to light and show what you’ve already achieved through your SEO efforts.

Building Awareness
Aside from painting out those key metrics and running plenty of numbers past your team, more in-depth and thorough explorations of the nuances of SEO can go a long way in showcasing just how much goes into an SEO campaign. Conduct workshops and training sessions for your team to give yourself time and space to let them discover all that SEO has to offer, beyond graphs and spreadsheets. This more hands-on approach could be the difference between a “yes” or a “maybe” for some of the more sceptical coworkers in your company.

Data is your ally 

As much as you being incredibly enthusiastic and singing the praises of SEO can be enough to convince some of your team to get behind SEO, as far as buy-ins are concerned, most people need metrics as proof of your success. Here’s what to lean into when pitching:

Leveraging Analytics
99% of the information you need is already stored neatly in your Google Analytics, so make use of this huge resource. There will also be other data analysis tools that you may have used already, so combine the two to show current traffic and potential growth metrics that are specific to your existing accounts.

Highlight key data such as organic traffic, bounce rate, and conversions. This simplifies the datastream, highlighting what is really important, and what will translate in the minds of marketers and company team members who aren’t already familiar with SEO.

Competitive Analysis
You’re in the market of SEO to try and out-perform your competitors. So make a part of your pitch about them, comparing your SEO performance with your most striking competitors.

This is partly aspirational, placing your brand identity alongside brands that could be globally recognised, legitimising your need for SEO in the process. Or it could be viewed as highly practical, demonstrating the competitive advantage gained through effective SEO using real-life data and analysis.

Projections and Forecasts
Your projections for future growth are probably what’s going to cinch the deal, at least in the eyes of anyone investing in you. Provide data-driven forecasts on potential traffic and revenue increases, but ensure they are backed up in every possible way with accurate data from your campaigns and industry. Use historical data to validate your projections and build credibility to your argument. 

Test your budget: prove your theory 

You’ve sourced the data, you’ve got the insight, you’ve qualified your predictions. Now it’s time to prove your theories of what you can achieve with your SEO buy-in.

Pilot Projects
A pilot project is a small, focused SEO project designed to demonstrate the impact of your theory. A test-run on a smaller scale that allows you to prove the effectiveness of your strategy.

If you take the time to do this, make sure you closely measure your results and document improvements in traffic and conversions as the pilot progresses. This is all leverage to back up your pitch, and is one of the most concise ways to demonstrate its value.

Clear KPIs
Set specific, measurable goals for the test budget. If you keep the scale of the pilot project small, you’ll have less pressure for massive improvements and can instead focus on realistic goals that are attainable within a short timeframe. You want results that you can actually measure and prove. Not over-reaching goals that don’t reflect the restrictions of a smaller budget.

Iterative Improvement
Use these initial results to refine your existing strategies and scale-up your marketing proposal. Demonstrating how the successes and improvements from your pilot project can continue to have a positive impact on a larger scale is key.

SEO and PPC: how they help each other

With PPC being the go-to for many digital marketing companies, it’s another example of a useful existing element of marketing that fits beautifully with your SEO goals. Make this work in your favour by showcasing how PPC elevates SEO, and how they complement one another.

Synergy Between SEO and PPC
It’s a useful starting point to explain how SEO can reduce paid search costs by improving Quality Scores. You already understand this relationship between the two, but not everyone in your business may be aware of just how closely linked the two practices are. Highlight the benefits of a cohesive strategy combining SEO and PPC to showcase how SEO will benefit more than just SEO-specific marketing goals.

Shared Insights
Remind your team of the effectiveness of using SEO data to inform and enhance PPC campaigns. Two two go hand-in-hand, with each data set serving the other.

Finish up by illustrating the compounded effect of SEO and PPC on overall digital presence. WIth good SEO that has a healthy and flexible budget, your marketing efforts across each department will benefit from increased overall visibility.

Summary

In the increasingly competitive online space, harnessing the power of a strategic and thorough SEO marketing plan is vital to any business looking to stay ahead of the competition. But with big plans comes a big budget requirement. Through educating your management team on the value of SEO and taking the time to demonstrate that value through test budgets, care-studies and data, you can secure that all important support, and get the budget you need.
 

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