Wil is the Founder and Vice President of Innovation at Seer Interactive, and will be back at MozCon this year with his presentation: The 3 Most Important Search Marketing Tools…Your Heart, Your Brain, & Your [Small] Ego.
Ahead of the show, set to take place on July 12-14, 2021, we talked with Wil about the impact of 2020 on Seer Interactive, what challenges marketers must overcome when analyzing data, and the key insights he’ll cover in this year’s MozCon presentation.
Question: 2020 was quite a year, how did the Seer team adjust? What were some of your favorite projects?
Wil: We went through all the emotions :)
Everyone stayed healthy for the most part, that was always my focus — how are our teams and their parents doing? The focus was on helping people manage this time.
My favorite project was the work we did to help our clients use all their warehoused data to find quick places to trim spending… The fact that our data was warehoused for all clients made it easy to support them, as they were being asked some pretty tough questions about budgets and how customers are changing.
Question: You have a long history of mind-blowing presentations at MozCon, which always include innovative ways of looking at data and strategy. What’s your creative process?
Wil: I read. I like to go back to psychology and how people buy. I love reading books on marketing before the web existed. How can I think differently if I’m reading all the same things as my peers?
I love taking books that have nothing to do with search and apply those learnings to our day to day. I usually am finishing my presentations up until the last minute because I keep pulling data, finding new ways to add value, and deliver, then practice, practice, practice.
Question: This year, you’ll be discussing how marketers can transform how they think about data by tapping into three tools they already have access to: the head, the heart, and their ego. What is the single most important takeaway our MozCon viewers should walk away with from your presentation?
Wil: That tools are not competitive advantages, yet we all obsess over “tips and tricks” and “tools” — but the best tools are your brain, your heart, and your small ego.
Question: At last year’s MozCon, you talked about how CMOs and marketing teams can increase visibility by speaking the language of CEOs and CFOs. Will we see any of the same themes come through in your presentation this year?
Wil: Always. I think one of the values I bring is I try to help us better understand how to connect our work to how the C-suite makes decisions. You know — profits, revenue, leveraging existing assets, ROI, customer acquisition, etc. That’s a different language than rankings, canonicals, MSV, etc. I want to be a translator between the two.
Question: What do you think is the biggest challenge for marketers when analyzing data?
Wil: Limits of tools, tools have UIs — UIs are critical, but you don’t get the full power of the data because often it's been pre-processed for the average customer. That limits innovation, to me.
The other challenge is siloed thinking. Oftentimes, we aren’t thinking about how we could use paid data to impact technical SEO, or whether COVID positivity rate influences SEO, or if medicare.gov data can benefit local SEO. That is my world though.
Lastly, learning the tools that allow you to slice data and combine it and visualize it is a big hurdle.
Question: Who in the MozCon lineup are you most excited to watch this year? Anything else you are looking forward to?
Wil: I gotta pick one? If I had to, it's Ross Simmonds. When he speaks, the stuff just makes sense, but I haven’t been doing it. I always think, I wish I was more like that dude. :)
A big thank you to Wil for his time! To learn more about Wil’s upcoming presentation, see details on our other speakers, and to purchase your ticket, make sure you click the link below!
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