Marketing should drive your organization
Last week I was talking with a client who recently took a position at a new company. The new company was in the same industry that they'd worked in before. They were concerned about the lack of growth and poor revenue numbers for the product lines they managed. After some lengthy discussion it became apparent that nothing was wrong with their marketing tactics. In fact, they were implementing the tactics & programs that had previously driven growth.
The issue is a strategic one. The company wasn't positioned in a way that allowed them to differentiate from the competition. They didn't have a unique narrative that would persuade customers to choose them over the competition. They weren't the cheapest, and they weren't the biggest. They were a "me too" firm and had to work way too hard to win business. In their current incarnation, there wasn't anything unique about them.
The reality is that the only way they can succeed in their crowded marketplace is to re-orient their company. This means new messaging, but also operational changes that will re-inforce that message. And these changes are the real key to whether, or not they succeed. This is a big challenge for them. The marketing team has to drive major changes in the organization in order for their message to stick in the minds of their customers. They have to convince the internal skeptics that the risk in changing is worth it, and the risk in not changing is even greater.
Often you'll see a company re-brand and introduce a new message, but that's all that changes. This is great for the advertising company that charged for the re-brand, but it doesn't mean the company lives up to the message. And if the company doesn't meet the expectations of their messaging then consumers will see right through it.
Singing Squirrels & Happy Holidays
It's that time of year again. Time to fire up the yule log, cook up some latkes, and chow down on some fruit cake. And in the holiday spirit let's all gather round to listen to the timeless animated musical stylings of our very own Creative Director Jason Buff.
Jason recorded this track out of his home studio (distorting his voice to squirrel like registers), and then created & animated the squirrel of his holiday dreams.
Click Below to View the 2008 NeboWeb Holiday Greeting & We Hope You Enjoy:
What is Semantic Search?
Semantic search supplements and advances traditional search queries by utilizing several data points including XML & RDF data, demographic data, geographic information, and more to improve the accuracy of search results by adding layers of keyword context to the search algorithms. Thereby enabling search algorithms to go beyond the current search metrics of keyword-rich content and data, and instead begin to eloquently dissect the meaning of each word in the search query in correlation to the all of the words within the query as well as considering other available data points. This method weighs the relationship of each keyword in the query to each other, delivering a more sophisticated, relevant search result.
If we can truly establish and adopt better semantic standards for the Web, then search will become more accurate and context oriented. However, there is some doubt about whether the W3C framework for semantics will ever be implemented since there is not a clear benefit driving its adoption to the industry drivers.
We will be publishing future articles and blog postings on this in the over the next few months so stay tuned...