Innovation and Cost Drivers

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 by Jasdeep Jaitla
Intuition can guide you to the place of innovation, and analysis guides you to the method of innovation.

Driving down costs is the goal of every business in every industry. Identifying and nailing down Cost Drivers in a Interactive Media Agency is one of the most challenging aspects of Innovation due to the service model and diversity of projects. The more diverse the services and the more capabilities an organization has, the harder the cost drivers are to innovate. This is the challenge.

Create Measurability

In order to analyze data, you need to collect data. The first step is to establish a normalized set of information, and discover commonalities that you measure over time. It's difficult in service business models to identify measurable practices since commonality between projects may not exist. In contrast, it is much easier to find measurable actvities within consistent services. For example, in the realm of public service such as law enforcement, response times can be measured which can lead to innovation in terms of communication technologies, route mapping, and routine patrolling route generation to optimize the response times and measure improvements. In the same light, commonality and metrics need to be put in place so that you can innovate. Without this baseline set of metrics, most improvements are subjective and can be hit and miss.

Measurability and Interactive Marketing

Interactive marketing strategies and improved search engine optimization follow the same metaphorical principle. Because optimization is always a moving target, you have to establish a control on your marketing practices and only change a few independent variables at a time, such as keyword density, or keyword targeting in ads, in order to see their effect. In the case of organic search results, the effect of changes may take weeks or even months before they actually show results. To top it off, search algorithms and prioritization change "without notice." To discover these changes requires a scientific mindset for the search engine optimization consultants.

The cost drivers in Search Engine Marketing involve keyword market prices. Camping a commonly used keyword for PPC can cost you a fortune. Using longtail strategies and finding ways to effectively identify your product, service or company is the innovation point, and only good analysis and keyword research will get you there. Consistency is the rule of the game to establish and maintain hold of brand loyalty, market share, market segment, and also online in terms of keyword ownership, and search engine rankings.

Internet Application Development

With Internet Services, the identification of cost drivers needs to be built into the process by abstracting out parts of the process that show commonality and measurability. This should be the starting gate through which your innovation charges. Like online marketing, application development is a moving target. New technologies explode onto the marketplace on a regular basis, tempting you to change how you do business. Again by using a scientific approach, by controlling your process and making sure you change a few things at a time, you can drive changes from the right point of view rather than hype, and effectively make improvements on your cost drivers.

Visualizing Innovation

Site Search - Improves Usability Quickly & Affordably

Thursday, December 4, 2008 by Michael Kogon

Site search is yet another website search engine optimization solution that we help our clients with.  It is a relatively low cost way to improve overall site experience for users and can help drive conversion by quickly getting users to the content they want.  Onsite Search also alleviates website abandonment if users aren’t quickly and easily finding what they are looking for.

How can Definition 6 help?
• Add “Google-quality” search to your company’s public websites
• Brand it to look like your current site design
• Can be done using a SaaS or appliance approach

What can we deliver?
• Branded search box and results on your public website
• 2 hours of training on the search service or appliance admin interfaces

Estimated timeframe for delivery is 2-3 weeks.  Contact us today for more information: http://www.definition6.com/contact-us.aspx

Optimizing Video For Organic Search

Friday, November 21, 2008 by Chris Thornton

Lori Willard, a Definition 6 SEO Specialist, recently came across an article in Marketing Sherpa that offered a few excellent pointers on optimizing your videos for internet search engine optimization.

Here are a few key points to take away:

  • Host an SEO 101 Class for your video production team. Identify the keywords you would like to incorporate and discuss where they can be included.
  • Include the term "video" as a modifier in some of your keyword terms. When people search for videos they will typically include the term "video" in their search query.
  • Host each video on its own landing page. This gives you the opportunity to add keyword rich META tags in the html along with a unique URL for that page that includes specific terms related to your video. 
  • Write compelling titles and descriptions incorporating targeted keywords that add interest to your visitors.
  • Add a transcript or summary of your video in text along with the video itself. This is a great way to add additional content to your page and further incorporate your keywords.
  • Add an XML video sitemap to your website. Google will allow you to submit a list of URL's that contain your videos, video titles, along with a brief description.

In closing, video files are not only a great way to add another level of engagement to your website, they also can be an integral part of your websites search engine optimization solutions.

Read the complete Marketing Sherpa article here