A.J. Lawrence’s 2010-2012 SEMPO Board of Directors Nominee Profile
With SEMPO’s bi-annual board of directors election approaching, I’ve decided to run. I hope to better represent with in SEMPO smaller SEM shops and freelancers. Search marketing is a fun, increasingly diverse, so as the “official voice” of us, search professionals, SEMPO needs to best represent all our diversity .
The other nominees from much larger firms are all incredibly worthy candidates (I’ve met, spoken and worked with many of them; I’ve even been in the trenches with both Rob Garner and, the one and only, Jeffery Pruitt, for various clients), but they are not the only faces of our industry.
Go to affiliate summit or pubcon, check out any of the bar camps, follow the blogs, dive into into real time data streams, you’ll see so much insight being driven from individuals, small companies, and startups. This is changing our industry. Search marketing is being driven from opportunities that larger companies can not always take advantage of. At the JAR Group, we are part of this, we work with our clients to drive value and the reason we know we are is that we share much of their risk by building performance based relationships. I would help drive a wider range of value for SEMPO’s membership by bringing my experience building a small firm and also the knowledge of what it is like to have been part of some of the largest interactive agencies over the past two decades.
Lastly, SEMPO needs to give back and create more opportunities for the individual members and employees of corporate members.
I was very lucky to have participated in many Taproot Foundation volunteer engagements. Here, at the JAR Group, we work pro-bono, with a great group of not-for-profits. We’ve been very lucky to have the opportunity to work with them, but these opportunities have given our team the opportunity to grow themselves. We have salespeople leading eCRM engagements, strategists developing online communities, and creatives being creative. OK, two out of three, ain’t bad. As our industry’s leading voice, SEMPO should be helping worthy organizations with the amazing talent we have and giving opportunities for those of us who are just learning.
So, if you are a member of SEMPO, please feel free to read my profile online with the other nominees’, otherwise feel free to peruse my profile and ask me any questions you may have.
And, please remember to vote (if you are a SEMPO member)!
General Background/Bio:
A.J. Lawrence has been a professional digital marketer since 1992 (and an amateur since 1982). He is experienced in developing multichannel marketing communications and search based efforts with equal focus on e-commerce, online lead generation, and brand development. A.J. founded the JAR Group in 2006 with the mission of creating an interactive agency that can provide a deeper level of thought, strategy and service to client engagements without “big agency everything else.” The JAR Group has advised small businesses as well as Fortune 500 companies. A.J. has managed, developed and marketed many major corporate digital brands from GE, Citibank, Cable & Wireless, Fairmont Luxury Hotels, Marvel Entertainment through MTV amongst many others. When not working, he can be found chasing his son and daughter, planning for the zombie invasion, and playing rugby in Prospect Park, Brooklyn.
He is also on the steering committee of NYU faces (Finding a Cure for Epilepsy and Seizures), a major epilepsy research and outreach foundation.
What major contribution will you bring to SEMPO and its membership?
Throughout my 18-year career in the online marketing industry, I have worked at both large and small interactive and search marketing firms like CKS, USWeb, MarchFirst, eXceed, Webstakes and iCrossing before founding my own search agency, The JAR Group, in 2006. I have bootstrapped the JAR Group into a 20 person (and growing - we’re hiring!) firm, with net revenue of over $3 million in 2009. As a result, I have big agency experience, but I also understand the challenges that small growing agencies face. As a member of the SEMPO Board of Directors, my main contribution will be to improve SEMPO’s infrastructure in order to foster inter-agency cooperation on research and increase opportunities for agencies to collaborate and connect with qualified freelancers and resources. I believe that to be relevant to its members, SEMPO needs to be on the cutting edge of the search industry. My experience and knowledge of search provides me with the ability to not only stay on top of industry trends, but also to help shape them. Ihave seen the evolution of search services and have been able to consistently adapt to them by providing innovative performance marketing solutions. With the founding of The JAR Group, an online marketing agency focused on SEM, I work to transform the traditional agency model by integrating search with services like affiliate marketing and social media, all on a performance driven basis for my clients. I am committed to bringing my experience of building a small but successful agency to SEMPO and will work to provide innovative solutions to internal industry challenges.
Why should people vote for you?
You should feel confident voting for me because I will represent the needs of small agencies and freelancers, while my experience with large agencies will enable me to find common ground between the two groups. I will bring you more value for your membership by increasing training, recruitment, and networking within SEMPO. My experience in social media and technology will allow me to suggest community improvements as well as applications to make it easier for members to get answers to industry questions. In this current time of economic uncertainty, I have led my company in developing very successful performance based efforts for our clients. I will help the SEMPO community and its members take advantage of performance based marketing as the issues and opportunities continue to develop.
Where do you think the organization should be in the next year?
My vision for SEMPO in the next year involves greater outreach to performance, affiliate, and social media marketers. As search converges with other areas of online services, I’d like to see SEMPO broaden its reach to include new members that will provide value to the organization, such as freelancers. I want to see an increase in networking and mentoring, as well as increased emphasis placed on joint research projects on the state of search engine marketing with more opportunities for individual members to contribute to projects.
Lastly, based on the successful pro-bono efforts of The JAR Group, it is my goal to introduce educational opportunities for the staff of SEMPO members by creating a volunteer program that will enable members to work with relevant not-for-profit communities that lack the capacity to invest in search marketing, but could greatly benefit from them.
