Marketing in the Semantic Web
(“Semantic Marketing” / “Data Web Marketing”) Semantic Technology Conference June 16, 2009 Scott Brinker Marketing Technologist Email: sbrinker@chiefmartec.com Twitter: @chiefmartec Blog: http://www.chiefmartec.com

Deafening silence Sweet sorrow Controlled
chaos Organized mess Open secret Same difference Civil war Forward retreat Living dead Semantic marketing

What will marketing be like
in the semantic web? * * Depends on your definition of “marketing” and “semantic web”.

Official definition of marketing from
the American Marketing Association web site Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offers that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. (Approved October 2007)

Informal definition of marketing from
the top of my head Marketing is what you do to find and win new customers, grow your relationships with existing customers, differentiate yourself from the competition, and build a “brand” that helps achieve those goals.

Peter Drucker on marketing the
father of modern management * Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two — and only two — basic functions: marketing and innovation. * Drucker argued in a 1984 essay that CEO compensation should be no more than 20 times what the rank and file make — especially at companies where thousands of employees are being laid off. “This is morally and socially unforgivable,” he wrote, “and we will pay a heavy price for it.”

Marketing is continually evolving. In
recent years, that evolution has been accelerating — with more changes ahead.

Marketing as a mission spans
the specific tactics by which it is executed.

Marketing tactics,
circa 1900

Marketing tactics,
circa 2000

100 years of
progress?

Emerging marketing tactics, circa 2009
$1.4 billion of SEO in 2008 1,254 APIs and 3,852 mashups

Search engine optimization (SEO) and
web APIs for mashups are a qualitatively different kind of marketing tactic.

Even across …previous shifts in
marketing medium… tactics were crafted directly for human consumption.

These new tactics are different.
1st order: Directly crafted for computer consumption. 2nd order: Indirectly crafted for human consumption.

This opens the door to
data web marketing.

What is the semantic web?
from the W3C web site The Semantic Web is a web of data. The Semantic Web is about two things. It is about common formats for integration and combination of data drawn from diverse sources… It is also about language for recording how data relates to real world objects.

iro•ny, noun, ˈī rə- -
nē: Debating the meaning of “semantic web”.

What is the semantic web?
3 broad spheres Document Disambiguation Structured Linked Data Data

• Semantic technology that doesn’t
necessarily require Document publisher cooperation Disambiguation • Advances in text analysis for context and sentiment • “Semantic advertising” (popular interpretation) • Usually invisible to end-user • Top-down semantic web • Here today …no fundamental change to marketing behavior, however.

Semantic marketing is about data
—and the spread of that data. Structured Linked Data Data

Semantic Marketing = Data Web
Marketing * Is this a better name for it?

Marketing
loves
data.

…but it has only flowed
in. • CRM • Point-of-Sale • Market research • Web analytics

…really flowed in.

Semantic technology can help organize
this data… but again, no fundamental change to marketing.

Data web marketing is about
data flowing out. A simple yet revolutionary change in perspective.

Instead of data from the
channel… Data is the channel.

Marketing
will make
data sexy.

Why should marketing lead the
charge for data web adoption?

Somebody needs to consistently beat
the drum for data web initiatives.

Somebody needs to fund data
web support as an ongoing commitment.

Who has the incentive?

If the data web can
be used to: • help connect to new customers • strengthen relationships • differentiate from the competition • build reputation and brand

Who does that align with?

Informal definition of marketing from
the top of my head Marketing is what you do to find and win new customers, grow your relationships with existing customers, differentiate yourself from the competition, and build a “brand” that helps achieve those goals.

Marketing is willing to experiment
to achieve its goals.

If marketing can tie the
cause-and- effect of data web initiatives to the achievement of its objectives… …there’s sustainable sponsorship.

Marketing success will cause business
to embrace the data web.

So what exactly should marketing
doin the dataweb?

Missions for marketing in the
data web.

7 missions of data web
marketing: 1. Champion production of data for external consumption. 2. Drive semantic/data branding across the organization. 3. Distribute and promote your data. (SEO++) 4. Convert data web initiatives into business relationships. 5. Track and attribute semantic/data web initiatives. 6. Make your own data mash-ups. 7. Control data quality and protect data/brand standards.

#1. Champion production of data
for external consumption.

Not just “brochure data.”

Not (primarily) pricing data.

Semantic “bargain hunter” agents are
not attractive to most marketers. That vision of the semantic web is dystopian to marketers.

Marketing is all about avoiding
commoditization. • Price isn’t everything. • Only one lowest-cost provider. • Race to the bottom dynamics. • Specs aren’t everything. • Relationships have value. • Quality matters. • Context matters. • Service matters. • Trust matters a lot.

Pricing and product specifications don’t
do justice to the potential of sharing data in the semantic web.

Discover data that is valuable
in: • Domain of your expertise • Domain of your partners’ expertise • Domain of your customers’ expertise • Application of your product/service • Integration of your product/service • Benchmarking related results

“You should take an inventory
of what you have got in the way of data, and you should think about how valuable each piece of data in the company would be if it were available to other people across the company, or if it were available publicly, and if it were available to your partners.” — Tim Berners-Lee in Talis 2008 interview, answering the question from a CIO, “what does it mean, what should we do?”

Content Data is King

Ways to produce valuable data:
• Generate it internally • Collect it from customers • Collect it from partners • License it externally

Thinking about this kind of
data is hard — because it’s not been done before. But that’s the opportunity.

Hypothetical example: Major chain of
nurseries producing the leading reference of plant properties (climate, growth, soil, water, feeding, compatibility, etc.) — maybe specialized for a particular region.

Hypothetical example: Marketing software company
aggregates performance data across customers to offer real-time industry benchmarks. (With permissions of participants, of course.)

Look to existing “mash-up” APIs
as inspiration for data web ideas.

Goals: • Become the authoritative
source. • Popularize canonical references to your products, categories, competitive dimensions. • Build reputation, goodwill, brand.

#2. Drive semantic/data branding across
the organization.

Framing data with the right
metadata — your data brand standards: • Establish canonical URIs for products, properties. • Establish the organizing ontologies. • Determine the ideal granularity of data structures. • Embrace and extend existing external standards. • Encourage data linking in the organization (DRY). • Lobby for standards beyond your organization. • Maintain and evolve this architecture.

Building for linked data is
an art.

Linked data success depends on:
• Consistency • Logical organization • Stability • Trust Data consumers must be able to rely upon your data to use it as a foundation for their own applications.

Ontology
as
Strategy

Goal: Shaping the conversation in
your market space.

Semantic spin Framing references with
properties and nomenclature that are advantageous to your brand.

Do the names of things
really matter that much?

Ask these brands:

Our company is redefining the
market. A more literal interpretation of an old hype line.

First mover
advantage.

Authoritative references generate a positive
feedback loop, a virtuous cycle.

Gender bias in the semantic
web? A kind of semantic branding. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ will_the_semantic_web_have_a_g.php

There are fascinating parallels between
the concept of brands and the semantic web… but that’s a story for another day. http://www.chiefmartec.com/2008/03/brand-and-the-s.html

#3. Distribute and promote your
data. (SEO++)

Just as SEO was about
visibility (and ranking and authority) in the document web… …there will be an analogous need in the data web.

SEO++ because it’s an incremental
evolution of SEO practices now focused on data objects. Alternatives: Semantic Web Optimization (SWO) Data Web Optimization (DWO)

Spreading your data: • Build
external links to your data • Link reciprocally to other data • Increase the findability of your data • Optimize the format of your data • Shape and adopt standards • Promote your data in other channels

As with SEO, this mission
will require continual nurturing.

You want to join the
data graph.

You want your data to
be utilized.

You want your data to
help others find you. For example, embedding data into your primary web site, such as for Google Rich Snippets and Yahoo! Search Monkey.

And that’s going to get
harder as more data comes online.

Surface web: 167 terabytes Deep
web: 91,000 terabytes 545-to-one

Bridge your data with others
in semantic communities (data networks). Networks: • Global • Vertical • Private

Provide the glue to connect
to these different networks. This will probably be a little messy for a while.

A new kind of semantic
advertising Paid inclusion in other authoritative data networks. A.K.A. data advertising

Hypothetical example semantic advertising (data
advertising) semantic advertising (paid inclusion) I just made this idea up, so whether or not Calais actually does something like this is purely coincidental. Sponsored data

Goals: • Include your data
in more places • Get links to your data in more places • Win more overall visibility/authority

Data web marketing services are
a logical evolution for search agencies.

#4. Convert data web initiatives
into business relationships.

Information asymmetry will still be
alive and well. Data web marketing must strategically decide how much to share, when, and with whom.

Some data may be better
harnessed as an incentive for other business goals: • Become a subscriber • Become a lead • Become a partner • Become a customer • Become a data buyer

A continuum of data access
choices. access if you pay value access if you qualify access if you sign-up free access availability

Data for nothing and links
for free. (the SEO++ approach) Capturing value via visibility and authority.

Restricted “members only” data. Exchange
of value in permission marketing, or an added benefit to customers and partners. Capturing value via lead generation and customer acquisition/retention.

Data as a direct revenue
source. • Data more pragmatic in standardized format. • Paid data access as a stand-alone business. • Paid data access as a “add-on” business. Capturing value the old-fashioned way: people pay for it.

Balancing the trade-offs in data
value capture is a marketing decision.

Multiple “data packaging” options. The
same underlying data may be packaged differently depending on access level: • Granularity of data. • Depth of data. • Breadth of data. • “Freshness” of data.

Goal: Harness the value in
your data.

#5. Track and attribute semantic/dataw
eb initiatives. “data web analytics”

How do you measure the
success of semantic web/data web initiatives? What are the right metrics?

Different than web analytics because…
…clients are not necessarily browsers.

Cookies—a staple of web analytics—may
not be as prevalent in data access tracking.

Referrer—a staple of web analytics—may
not be as prevalent in data access tracking.

Tracking is also going to
be hard due to mashing and caching. How is data used and redistributed once someone gets it from you?

Count subscribers to data feeds
or visits to URIs. • Measures 1st-order reach. • Measures frequency of access. • Measures new vs. repeat access. • But maybe limited to IP address.

Time-sensitive or frequently updated data
is one way to encourage more visits to gauge usage.

Count inbound links to your
URIs. • Measure authority (DataRank). • Measure findability. • Limited by who indexes you.

New methods of tracking and
attribution? Particularly among cooperative parties?

Inspiration from Daniel Weitzner (MIT)
and the policy-aware web (PAW).

Goals: • Discovering what data
is popular. • Discovering who your data audience is. • Discovering how your audience uses that data. • Keeping track of competitors and comparable benchmarks.

#6. Make your own data
mashups.

Data web fluency is something
you learn by doing. You must use data to understand how to use data.

Applications and mash-ups are where
data surfaces into the visible web.

Leveraging data in your own
value-add mash-ups. • For prospects • For customers • For partners • For internal use mashable marketing

Mash-ups for prospects and customers.
To assist, educate, entertain, orinform.

Mash-ups beyond Google Maps.

Mash-ups for internal use. •
Market research • Customer monitoring • Marketing operations

Competitive intelligence mash-ups. Uncovering the
pros and cons of data web marketing.

Opportunities for “joint venture” data
web initiatives — your chocolate with someone else’s peanut butter (exclusively?).

Goals: • Cool applications for
your customers. • Advanced your own internal operations. • By doing the above, better understand how data is consumed to be better at producing it.

#7. Control data quality and
protect data/brand standards. “semantic police”

Data web marketing won’t be
magic. • Coordination challenges with distributed data management. • Rules about what can be shared, when and with whom. • Maintaining the accuracy of data (i.e., data entropy). • Refereeing conflicting data silos coming together. • Enforcing data brand standards.

Legal questions: Do we have
the right to share certain data? What are the liabilities from sharing data? Does sharing certain data constitute a risk to our intellectual property?

“Marketing” Determining how much data
to share… …or not to share. “Legal”

Agreement on data standards may
be contentious among stakeholders.

When data was in silos,
inherently fewer conflicts. As data web marketing grows, this will become a larger issue.

Remove bad or expired data.
It’s much more unattractive when the public has come in for U-pick-it data.

Detect misuse
and data theft.

Goal: Achieve balance between openness
vs. protection, distributed vs. controlled, standardized vs. loosely-coupled data relationships.

7 missions of data web
marketing: 1. Champion production of data for external consumption. 2. Drive semantic/data branding across the organization. 3. Distribute and promote your data. (SEO++) 4. Convert data web initiatives into business relationships. 5. Track and attribute semantic/data web initiatives. 6. Make your own data mash-ups. 7. Control data quality and protect data/brand standards.

Web 3.0 = Data Web
1.0

A more technical future for
marketing? A role for “marketing technologists” in the organizational DNA of the marketing department & agencies. The new leaders of data web marketing?

Thank you for running this
marathon presentation with me. Scott Brinker Marketing Technologist Email: sbrinker@chiefmartec.com Twitter: @chiefmartec Blog: http://www.chiefmartec.com