Canada, Search Marketing and Gord Hotchkiss.

Gord is magnificent. He lives in the middle of the forested province of British Columbia and leaves it regularly to speak about search. And wow is he speaking today!

Check this out about Search Marketing in Canada. Canada, It's Time to Clue Into Search!

Harsh Words but oh so true.......Here is my comment:

Gord - well said. I have always been astounded by two things:

1 - Search Agencies in Canada don’t think Canadian companies have money to spend on Search marketing like American companies do (it is the old insecurity thing)

2 - Canadian companies who sell in the US don’t know how to play the search marketing game.

In Vancouver, UBC has a degree in Internet marketing that has courses in search marketing. But, as far as I can tell from speaking for 5 years at the IIMA seminar series,brand managers are not educating themselves. I also spoke at the first SES Toronto and found the audience way behind the curve. I am so disappointed to hear that hasn’t changed.

Shouldn't Roots, Teleus, the banks (Scotiabank, etc), the stock exchange, the insurance companies want to be visible in search results and be willing to spend a portion of their very, very large advertising budgets on search?

Here is a get piece from an article in October 2005: (and still valid today)

Canada’s population is roughly 10 per cent that of the U.S. but in the recent Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list 53 of the fastest growing technology companies in North America are Canadian. That’s 11 per cent of the total.

So, Canadians, come out and play like the big boys/girls in the US, eh.

Disclaimer #1: I know that their are exceptions and apologize to those who spend a fair share of their time trying to convince Canadian companies to play.
Disclaimer #2: I am a Canadian who moved to California.