Search engine marketing is a pretty new fangled industry, even more obscure than the internet sector in general. Most laypeople are probably only dimly aware of our existence, and fewer still would be able to clearly explain exactly what it is we do. Heck, our own mothers might not be able to tell you what we’re all about.
But since Mother’s Day is just around the corner, we thought we might as well give’em a shot! We asked the mothers of Reprise Media employees to explain our jobs to us. All moms were invited to participate; some of them, however, don’t get “on the computer” that often (we know, we know, we should call more). What remained was…well, take a look (names are withheld to protect the maternal).
A few of our dear moms were happy to help, but didn’t know what to tell us:
“I’m afraid I would be of no help to you regarding your request, as I have absolutely no idea what you do in your job…If you can fill me in, I would love to know. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.”
Oy, guilt. Some others also didn’t know what to tell us, but took a stab anyway:
“You do something with computers and marketing in New York City. Don’t you work on email with Yahoo?”
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“You are a search engineer for Reprise. You are also into Media. You try to get all these people to want to sign up for the media thing. You have to get enough people to sign up for emails.”
We even had an IM savvy mom…who harbored ‘tech bubble’ type suspicions about our activities:
Reprisemom6345 (8:42:52 AM): You sell space on the web right or wrong lol.Reprisemom6345 (8:43:43 AM): Why do you want to know is it a trick question?
Reprisemom6345 (8:46:10 AM): what i really think is that you play video games all day on the web and check out sports on the web lol
Reprisemom6345 (8:46:24 AM): lol
Yeah, Ma, ROTFL. Oh, j/k!
Then, something weird happened…we ran into a batch of mothers who could almost be on the payroll (they’re not; we checked).
“Reprise Media is an internet advertising company.”
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“I think you have clients that want to advertise on the internet and your firm creates the ads and then attaches to different websites. Your job is to attach them to the websites.”
Definitely on the right track…
“…Also you do reporting for your account and keep them updated as to how many people logged on their site.”
Not bad. Not bad at all. But if we had to choose one mom who captured Reprise Media in a nutshell, it’s this proud parent:
“My son is a software architect who creates programs that allow companies to spend their marketing money wisely on the internet.”
Actually, *sniff*, we couldn’t have put it better ourselves. (P.S. the check is in the mail, as discussed).
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We’d like to thank all the moms who participated, and wish everyone a happy Mother’s Day.
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Related: Reprise Media Director of Marketing Anthony Iaffaldano offers tips for retailers on how to optimize their Mother’s Day campaigns here, on MediaPost’s SearchInsider (registration req’d) – he also needs ideas for a last minute Mother’s Day gift, so help a brother out.
