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Retail price inflation eases to 4.3% in November

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Retail price inflation eases to 4.3% in November

Annual shop prices inflation is at its lowest level since June 2022, a survey suggested yesterday.

Shop prices in early November were 4.3 per cent higher than they had been a year earlier, down from the 5.2 per cent inflation reported in October and from the peak of 9 per cent inflation ­recorded in May, ­according to the latest data from the British Retail Consortium and NielsenIQ.

Food prices inflation fell to 7.8 per cent, down from 8.8 per cent in October and marking the seventh consecutive month of ­decline. Food prices inflation is now less than half its peak rate of 15.7 per cent, recorded in April 2023, and is the lowest since July 2022.

Non-food inflation fell to 2.5 per cent in November from 3.4 per cent in October, continuing a downward trajectory from a peak of 5.8 per cent in May.

However, looming cost pressures threaten to push inflation back up again next year, the retail consortium warned. Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the trade body, said that retailers faced “new headwinds in 2024, from government-imposed increases in business rates bills to the hidden costs of complying with new regulations. Combining these with the biggest rise to the national living wage on record will likely stall or even reverse progress made thus far on bringing down inflation, particularly in food.”

The consortium’s figures, based on information for the first week of ­November, show that inflation ­was steeper for “ambient foods” — those stored at room temperature, such as tins — at 9.2 per cent than it did for fresh foods, where inflation fell to 6.7 per cent. Dickinson said this reflected a larger proportion of ambient foods being imported and ­affected by the weak pound, whereas lower energy prices had cut input costs for fresh dairy products, in particular.

She said the wider fall in inflation reflected retailers competing “fiercely to bring prices down for customers ahead of Christmas”, but “while health and beauty products saw price cuts as retailers rush to shift stock before Christmas, clothing prices increased as some retailers continued to hold off on promotional activity”.

India Vs Australia 3rd T20I Free Live Streaming: When and Where to watch IND VS AUS T20I series Live Match on Mobile Apps, TV, Laptop, Online

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India Vs Australia 3rd T20I Free Live Streaming: When and Where to watch IND VS AUS T20I series Live Match on Mobile Apps, TV, Laptop, Online

India Vs Australia 3rd T20I Free Live Streaming: With the aim of sealing the series in the five-match T20 International against the Kangaroos, Suryakumar Yadav-led Team India is all set to cross swords with Matthew Wade-led Team Australia for the third match of the T20I series on Tuesday, November 28. The venue of the match is Guwahati.

Overall Preview

ICC World Cup 2023 winners Australia are performing poorly in the ongoing T20I series, as they lost back-to-back matches to go 2-0 down. The first match was played on Thursday, November 23, and the second was played in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday, November 26. With two wins in a row, Team India is leading the series 2-0 and is aiming to seal it with a win at the Barsapara Stadium in Guwahati on Tuesday.

Previous Match Details: India Vs Australia 2nd T20I

Men-in-Blue dominated the second T20 match of the series. Prasidh Krishna and Ravi Bishnoi took three wickets each, and half-centuries from Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ishan Kishan, and Ruturaj Gaikwad led India to a 44-run victory over Australia in the second of the five T20 match series. Team India set a target of 236 runs and then restricted Australia to 191 runs for 9 wickets in 20 overs.
 
Here’s a quick look at the schedule, venue, live streaming, TV channel, and squad details of the third match of the IND vs AUS T20I series:

India Vs Australia 3rd T20I: When will the 3rd T20I match between India and Australia be played? Match Date

The third T20 match between India and Australia will be played on Tuesday, November 28.

India Vs Australia 3rd T20I: When will the 3rd T20I match between India and Australia start? Match Time

The third T20I match between India and Australia will begin at 7:00 pm (IST) on Tuesday, November 28.

India Vs Australia 3rd T20I: Where will the Ind Vs Aus T20I series 3rd match be played? Match Venue

The third match between India and Australia is scheduled to be played at the Barsapara Stadium in Guwahati.

India Vs Australia 3rd T20I: Where to watch the Ind Vs Aus 3rd T20I match free live streaming on Mobile App?

The third T20I match between India and Australia will be live-streamed on the JioCinema app and website for free in India.

India Vs Australia 3rd T20I: Where can fans watch the live broadcast of the 3rd T20I match between India and Australia?

Fans can also watch the third T20I match between India and Australia on Sports18 and Colors Cineplex.

Here’s the full schedule for the India vs Australia T20I series:

Thursday (Nov 23), IND vs AUS 1st T20I, Vishakhapatnam, 7 pm IST

Sunday (Nov 26), IND vs AUS 2nd T20I, Thiruvananthapuram, 7 pm IST

Tuesday (Nov 28), IND vs AUS 3rd T20I, Guwahati, 7 pm IST

Friday (Dec 1), IND vs AUS 4th T20I, Raipur, 7 pm IST

Sunday (Dec 3), IND vs AUS 5th T20I, Bengaluru, 7 pm IST

India Vs Australia 3rd T20I Free Live Streaming: Squad Details

India T20 Squad: Suryakumar Yadav (C), Ruturaj Gaikwad (vice-captain), Ishan Kishan, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar.

Australia’s updated T20 squad: Matthew Wade (c), Jason Behrendorff, Tim David, Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis, Chris Green, Aaron Hardie, Travis Head, Ben McDermott, Josh Philippe, Tanveer Sangha, Matt Short, Kane Richardson.

5 Simple Tips For SEO Success In 2024

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5 Simple Tips For SEO Success In 2024

Richard Gerrettson-Cornell, Founder & Managing Director of RGC Digital Marketing, who have been connecting consumers to brands since 1998.

SEO hasn’t just survived the onslaught of changes that digital marketing experienced in 2023; it’s become more important than ever before. Despite rapid technological advancements, Google’s continual refinement of its algorithms and an unprecedented level of online competition, the essence of SEO remains unchanged.

Your job is to bridge the gap between what search engines want and what your audience needs by ensuring your valuable content reaches them.

This is far easier said than done, and the challenge of ranking highly on search engines in today’s digital environment can be daunting. That’s why we’ve broken it down, giving you five easy tips for SEO success in 2024 and beyond.

Prioritize Your Content

There’s no two ways about it. Content remains the backbone of effective SEO. In an age of information overload where users are more impatient than ever, you’d probably agree that the best content is short, simple and straight to the point.

Hence, your content should be targeted and incorporate carefully selected keywords that are most relevant to your services. Be sure to adopt Google’s infamous E-E-A-T principle by infusing firsthand experience and genuine expertise in your content to build authority and trust with both Google and your readers.

On the technical side, don’t overlook the importance of properly structured content. Make your content easily navigable with relevant H1s for titles, H2s for subheadings, and H3s for further elaboration.

Provide A Quality Experience For Mobile Users

Mobile usability is no longer a luxury; it’s a fundamental pillar of SEO success. Nearly 60% of all website traffic across the globe is populated by mobile phone users, and that means your website simply must be mobile-friendly.

An absolute nonnegotiable is ensuring your website has a responsive design that adapts to all screen sizes. Beyond this, you’ll want to ensure your website has straightforward navigation and a clean user interface. Also opt for quality, minimalist images that don’t compromise speed or visibility. Always consider the size and location of your call-to-action buttons, and shift your most important content to the top of the page.

They may appear menial, but these small changes can be hugely impactful in delivering a quality user experience that satisfies web visitors and search engine algorithms alike.

Don’t Neglect Your Page Speed

We’ve all experienced that irritating and seemingly eternal wait for a slow website to launch, and chances are that you’ve grown impatient and visited a different website instead. Well, you’re not alone, it’s common for users to navigate away from a page when the loading time exceeds their patience. And that’s why page speed has become such a crucial aspect of SEO.

To speed up your website, use image compression tools to minimize the file size of your images, and opt for web-friendly formats like JPEG to ensure bulky files don’t create virtual bottlenecks. To take things a step further, you can also consult a web development team to streamline your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, removing any unnecessary characters that slow down your website. Don’t skimp on your web host either because a reliable service can make all the difference in achieving lightning-fast load times.

Optimize For Voice Search & Long-Tail Keywords

Too busy to type? Many users would agree. “Hey Google” has become something of a catchphrase in the 2020s, and the need to optimize for voice search has presented new opportunities for savvy search engine optimizers.

Spoken searches have created a plethora of new “long-tail” keywords with distinctively different and more natural wording with highly specific needs. Think “top organic coffee shops in Sydney” instead of “cafes in Sydney.” Importantly, these long-tail keywords tend to have minimal competition, and they’re used by highly engaged users.

Integrating these long-tail keywords into your content can be crucial in helping you dominate your field, showcasing your knowledge of your niche by expertly answering highly specific questions. Delve deeper into your keyword strategy and leverage the limitless opportunities created by voice search.

Start Small & Dream Big With Local SEO

Found yourself searching for a “plumber in North Sydney”? You’re part of a growing trend. Societal influences like Covid-19 and our preference for convenience have created a hugely localized focus in many searches. That’s why you’ll need to make local SEO efforts an integral part of your strategy in 2024.

So, how can you capitalize on this trend? Start by publishing your business in local listings and directories, and incorporate localized keywords into your content, like “restaurants in Bondi.” Most crucially, you should claim your Google My Business listing and keep it updated with all relevant information such as your hours of operation, location and services to ensure searches on Google Maps showcase your business.

I believe local SEO is no longer an option—it’s a necessity. Make it a cornerstone of your SEO strategy, to help your local engagement soar.

Monitor, Revise & Repeat

Much like Rome, a successful SEO strategy isn’t built overnight, but neglect can lead to its decline. The road to SERP success is a marathon, not a sprint. It demands a holistic, long-term approach that must be consistently evaluated. Regularly consult tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics to gauge your progress and make data-driven adjustments. Staying complacent is not an option; continual analysis and timely revisions are your bread and butter in the ever-evolving landscape of SEO.


Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?


How to Master AI and Lead the Future of Content and SEO

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How to Master AI and Lead the Future of Content and SEO

 

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with John Janstch

  • [01:08] What sets this era of the content game apart for you?
  • [01:32] You once said AI was evil, what triggered your shift in that perspective?
  • [04:36] How does Content at Scale outshine other similar tools?
  • [06:20] In what ways does AI excel in content writing that can challenge even human writers?
  • [07:56] What guidance do you have for content writers looking to embrace AI?
  • [09:50] How can we encourage individuals to view content as a central element of their business strategy?
  • [10:56] How do you create content that generates results?
  • [13:01] How does this AI tool optimize for SEO and what formats can it use?
  • [15:04] What’s your advice for marketers looking to repurpose existing content effectively?
  • [16:18] What’s the best way to start exploring Content at Scale?
  • [18:15] Where else can people connect with you and learn more about your work?

Get Your Free AI Prompts To Build A Marketing Strategy:

 

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!

 

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the DeskTeam360

Desk team 360 is the #1, flat-rate, digital marketing integration team, that helps small businesses and marketing agencies with graphic, web design, and on-page marketing services.

 

 

 

After shoppers’ habits have changed, malls try to figure out what comes next : NPR

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After shoppers’ habits have changed, malls try to figure out what comes next : NPR

Many retailers have cut back their physical presence in the age of online shopping — leaving dying malls in their wake. But by thinking outside the box, some old malls are finding new life.



STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

The way America shops has changed over the years, which you can see in what’s left of our shopping malls. A short distance from my home, a whole shopping center has just been torn down in the last few months. One industry group forecasts that at least a quarter of malls in this country will close in the next few years. Deena Prichep reports from a mall in Portland, Ore., that is trying to figure out what comes next.

DEENA PRICHEP, BYLINE: The Marshalls at Lloyd Center was a classic anchor store – 32,000 square feet, two stories. Full disclosure – it’s where I bought my sheets. But now there are no racks of discount jeans. There are kids.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Just – can you pick out the strap?

PRICHEP: Shooting arrows, sewing their own clothes…

(SOUNDBITE OF SEWING MACHINE)

PRICHEP: …Making movies. Tony Deis is the founder of Trackers Earth, an organization which used to be known as an outdoor camp. Now they’re also at the mall.

TONY DEIS: We had somebody tell us to check out the Lloyd Center. And at first, I was like, wait a minute. What?

PRICHEP: Then he realized it made a lot of sense for kids and their parents.

DEIS: They want good parking, and this is the place to do it. But as time goes by, sometimes during the summer we’re going to have warmer weather events, and we might even have days where the AQI due to forest fires isn’t great.

PRICHEP: And the ghost of an old department store makes a lot of sense for that. The Lloyd Center, like malls across the country, has lost major tenants. But alongside the empty storefronts, there’s a new independent comic store, the occasional roller derby pop-up and a theater performance in what used to be a Victoria’s Secret. Turns out the rotunda where the bras were displayed has surprisingly good acoustics.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DIANE KONDRAT: (As Winnie) What a joy, in any case, to know you are there, as usual, and perhaps awake.

PRICHEP: Diane Kondrat is playing Winnie in this Samuel Beckett play. She spends the entire performance in front of what used to be the fitting rooms. This sort of reimagining of the mall is happening across America because America has a lot of malls.

ELLEN DUNHAM-JONES: I think almost any expert you talk to is going to say we overbuilt the malls.

PRICHEP: Ellen Dunham-Jones directs the Urban Design Program at Georgia Tech. She says America has twice as much mall space per capita as any other country in the world.

DUNHAM-JONES: We’re at a point now where more than a third of the 1,500 properties are no longer functioning as malls.

PRICHEP: Some have just been bulldozed, but some have been filled with things you can’t get online.

DUNHAM-JONES: So we start to see more gyms, more grocery stores. But in general, really, the No. 1 reuse of malls has been to just convert them to office space.

PRICHEP: Health care and education compete for the No. 2 spot. But Dunham-Jones says you also see housing and paintball.

DUNHAM-JONES: There’s a mall in Massachusetts that their former Macy’s is going to have cultivation of marijuana on the second floor and retail sales on the first floor.

PRICHEP: Buying weed or seeing an existential play where you used to do back-to-school shopping can be an enjoyably disorienting experience. But can that bring in the money to maintain these giant buildings and giant parking lots? At Portland’s Lloyd Center, Kristan Kennedy showed up on a Friday afternoon to see a performance piece at the mall’s skating rink.

KRISTAN KENNEDY: You can see that there’s a infinity symbol carved into the ice. That’s part of the bigger thing in this particular mall where artists have been taking over some spaces.

PRICHEP: Kennedy is the artistic director at Portland’s Institute for Contemporary Art. She appreciates how the mall is taking the bones of what’s left behind and playing around, building something new.

KENNEDY: And, yeah, that feels like America, like failure and invention simultaneously.

PRICHEP: Maybe, like many malls, this one can’t be saved, or maybe it’ll remain a haven for creativity or office space or something we can’t even yet imagine.

For NPR News, I’m Deena Prichep in Portland, Ore.

Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

AI for Business Texting: Enhance Your Communication Strategy

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AI for Business Texting: Enhance Your Communication Strategy

AI’s transformative impact has grown across all aspects of our lives.

From anticipating retail trends with predictive analysis to revolutionizing healthcare diagnostics and even interacting with Siri and Alexa, AI is remarkably shaping our world.

Russia Faces Oil Trade Tensions In Asia Over Currency Disputes

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Russia Faces Oil Trade Tensions In Asia Over Currency Disputes

The oil trade between Russia and Asia, particularly India, is experiencing serious difficulties due to a currency clash that shows no signs of a prompt resolution.

What Happened: As Reuters reported, trouble brewed in July when India, the largest seaborne oil purchaser from Russia, demanded to pay in rupees. Russian oil suppliers, adhering to unofficial instructions from the Russian central bank, were unable to accept the Indian currency, leading to a near standstill in trade activity.

The situation worsened in mid-August when leading Russian oil companies considered redirecting tankers transporting up to one million tonnes of oil intended for India to different destinations, two sources revealed. A temporary remedy saw cargoes paid for using a blend of the Chinese yuan, the Hong Kong dollar shifting to yuan, and the UAE dirham, which is tied to the U.S. dollar.

Nonetheless, the challenge of finding a dollar substitute persists. This dilemma affects buyers in Africa, China, and Turkey, who are the primary purchasers of Russian oil. The problem is particularly pronounced for India, which accounts for over 60% of Russian seaborne oil.

See Also: Donald Trump Jr.’s Thanksgiving Critique Of FBI Stirs Controversy: ‘Why Do You Hate Our Brave Law Enforcement Officers So Much?’

Why It Matters: Since Western sanctions were imposed on Russia last year, Moscow has moved away from dollar and euro transactions. The Russian central bank can’t function in dollars due to sanctions, and Russian exporters shun the currency to make it difficult for the U.S. and other Western governments to track trade.

The issue is further complicated for Russia as India promotes the use of rupees within its borders and has set stringent exchange rates for converting rupees into other currencies.

India’s foremost refiner, Indian Oil Corp (IOC.NS), is having trouble settling certain payments, primarily for the purchase of Russia’s light, sweet Sokol grade from the Sakhalin 1 project. Russian officials and oil executives have urged Indian buyers to pay in Chinese yuan, which is more beneficial for Russia but politically delicate for India.

This currency clash is also an aftermath fallout of the shifting oil market dynamics post the Russia-Ukraine war that began in late 2022. Since then, Russia’s oil exports to China have escalated, reaching a record high in May.

Read Next: Trump’s Lead Over Biden Surges In Latest Poll: Political Analyst Shrugs Off The Number But Highlights A Scary Prospect

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ByteDance fires hundreds, slashes games arm in major retreat

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ByteDance fires hundreds, slashes games arm in major retreat

ByteDance plans to cut hundreds of jobs in gaming and wind down its showpiece brand Nuverse in a major withdrawal from the sector, handing a victory to rival Tencent Holdings.

TikTok’s owner will fire several hundred people, unwind projects under development and weigh potential sales of existing titles, people familiar with the matter said. The Chinese company intends to announce the move on Monday, one person added, asking to remain anonymous discussing a private deal.

The closure marks ByteDance’s biggest retreat from a once-booming gaming industry dominated by Tencent and its smaller foe NetEase. The startup, known for short video platforms TikTok and Douyin, has gradually scaled back its gaming ambitions in the post-Covid era after failing to grab market share from Tencent. The Beijing-based firm is considering selling Shanghai Moonton Technology Co, a high-profile studio it acquired for $4 billion in 2021, Bloomberg News has reported.

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“We regularly review our businesses and make adjustments to center on long-term strategic growth areas. Following a recent review, we’ve made the difficult decision to restructure our gaming business.” a ByteDance spokesperson said. Reuters earlier reported on the move.

ByteDance, founded more than a decade ago by Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo, grew into an internet leader worth more than $200 billion thanks to the virality of TikTok and Douyin. In recent years, it bought studios and exclusive distribution rights to titles, hoping to get into the games business much as it disrupted social media players from Meta Platforms to Tencent.

The startup’s pullback comes as the Chinese mobile gaming sector — the world’s largest — struggles to regain its Covid-era heights during a global downturn. Sector leader Tencent however has managed to sustain growth, driven by its industry-leading portfolio as well as resilient consumption in cheaper segments such as online entertainment.

But games creation is a notoriously fickle business. Since last year, ByteDance began to shutter in-house studios and slash development jobs, after shifting its focus to core businesses like short-video and e-commerce. This month, it also cut almost a quarter of its staff at virtual-reality arm Pico.

One of ByteDance’s biggest hits is Crystal of Atlan, an action role-playing mobile game it debuted to much fanfare over the summer. Globally, the TikTok owner publishes the hit card game Marvel Snap, which is developed by US studio Second Dinner.

Despite its best efforts, Tencent remains the undisputed leader of the sphere. The company, which benefits from the enormous user traffic that flows through its all-in-one messaging service WeChat, has amassed a large library of content both in China and abroad through acquisitions.

© 2023 Bloomberg

Hardik Pandya’s return to Mumbai Indians sparks hilarious memes

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Hardik Pandya’s return to Mumbai Indians sparks hilarious memes

Hardik Pandya’s all-cash move to Mumbai Indians is complete, and the trade deal has already sparked a flurry of memes on social media.

India’s all-rounder played a key role in MI’s four triumphs in the IPL between 2015 to 2021. His return is expected to boost the team’s chances of winning the IPL title in 2024.

Mumbai Indians’ decision to bring back Hardik Pandya required them to make some difficult financial decisions. With only Rs 15.25 crore remaining in their purse after player retentions, the team was facing a financial crunch. To accommodate Pandya’s hefty salary, the Mumbai Indians had to consider trading away another big-name player, Cameron Green.

Nita Ambani said, “We are thrilled to welcome Hardik back home! It’s a heartwarming reunion with our Mumbai Indians family! From being a young scouted talent of Mumbai Indians to now being a team India star, Hardik has come a long way and we’re excited for what the future holds for him and Mumbai Indians!”

Speaking about Hardik’s return, Akash Ambani said, “Seeing Hardik back at Mumbai Indians makes me very happy. It is a happy homecoming. He provides great balance to any team he plays. Hardik’s first stint with the MI family was hugely successful, and we hope he achieves even more success in his second stint.”

The decision by Gujarat Titans to initially retain Hardik Pandya before finalizing his transfer to Mumbai Indians was unexpected and created quite a stir in the IPL world. This move came just before the IPL 2023 mini-auction, which is set to take place in Dubai on December 19.

Initially, Gujarat Titans announced their list of retained players ahead of the IPL 2023 mini-auction, and Hardik Pandya’s name was on that list. This came as a surprise to many, as it was widely expected that Pandya would be released by Gujarat Titans and would then be available for the auction.

However, just days before the auction, Gujarat Titans and Mumbai Indians reached an agreement to trade Pandya back to his former team.

Fans of the Mumbai Indians are delighted with the signing, and they have been taking to social media to express their excitement. There are also many memes circulating online, poking fun at Pandya’s former team, the Gujarat Titans.

“ Here’s how the trade happened,” a user wrote. Another one commented, “Christopher Nolan watching the trade deal of Hardik Pandya.” “Hardik counting his money :,” a third user wrote.

Also Read: Maruti Suzuki to hike prices of cars from January due to increased cost pressure

7 Hidden Opportunities To Increase Your Company’s Value

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7 Hidden Opportunities To Increase Your Company’s Value

Denis Sinelnikov is the CEO of Media Components and Curis Digital, an award-winning, full-service digital marketing agency.

You’ve worked hard to build your company to where it is today. Now it’s time to carry it to the next level. Before you look at your next offering or your next big marketing push, take stock of the hidden opportunities in front of you. Let’s look at the basics of your company—your brand, your clients, your team, your processes and your partnerships—to find seven ways you can increase your company’s value before your next campaign.

Strengthen Your Brand Presence

Do you have a clear, strong message that defines your brand and what you offer? While you want your brand to be appealing to a wide audience, don’t let a catchy slogan be your only message. Avoid jargon and overgeneralizations that can hide your strengths. Instead, focus on the areas where you excel above your competition. Make sure that consumers know why they should choose you over your competitors.

Establish Your Credibility

As you work to strengthen your brand presence, consider your credibility. How do you look to your clients and vendors? Do you have a good reputation for the work you do? Are you known for treating employees and business partners well? Your reputation is important, so don’t ignore the reviews you get from clients, vendors and employees.

Make sure that you’re also presenting a brand image that is clear and trustworthy. Strengthening your brand presence (above) will help you there, but to turn that presence into credibility, you must push further. Make sure that you’re visible online, that your website and social media presence are polished and uniform, and that you have a recognizable presence on reputable sites—including on Google. Take control of your Google Business Profile and ensure you get reviews from your clients. When you show up in search, ensure that your good reputation shows up with you.

Improve Company Morale

Make sure that your team has a strong, positive opinion of their jobs, you and their workplace. Don’t assume that your employees are happy or satisfied just because you meet the basics—pay and benefits. Ask them what they enjoy about their job. If you only hear about the basics, be worried. Find out what would take them beyond being happy to stay with your company and incorporate their feedback into your offerings. By listening to what your team wants, you can build morale and turn your company into a talent-attracting workplace.

Build An Experienced Management Team

Most midmarket businesses rely on the owner for overall operations, decision making, customer satisfaction, product development and business partnerships. If this is you, you need to begin building a management team that can take on some of these responsibilities for you. Building a strong management team does more than take worries off your shoulders. It allows you to bring the experience of others to your business and take advantage of new insights and opportunities for growth.

Be Strategic About Your Partnerships

Don’t merely have business partners. Build strategic relationships with your business partners. From your supply vendors to your digital marketing agency, create relationships that don’t merely meet your needs but also build up your company’s strength.

When you create or refresh a partnership, be specific about what you want and what you have to offer. Let a company know why they should partner with you and how you can benefit them beyond being someone who pays an invoice or provides a service. How do your services and products—or how you use their services and products—increase their presence and reputation?

This may mean cutting ties with some business partners. If you have a vendor whose services or products fall below expectations, they can hurt your reputation with your customers. Likewise, if you provide services or products to a company that doesn’t put them to the best use, they can harm your reputation with other companies and consumers. Build up your partnerships, and don’t let a lagging partner bring you down.

Build for Scalability

We’ve all heard the adage, “More work than I know what to do with is a good problem to have.” I’m going to tell you now, though, that this is not a good problem. If you’re experiencing growth you can’t handle, it’s because you didn’t build for scalability. Establish systems and processes that can grow as your business grows. Because while we all want to be in demand, failing to meet that demand leads to reviews like “Doesn’t return phone calls” on Google and Yelp.

A scalable system will make it easy to:

• Add new customers and clients.

• Onboard new employees and empower their productivity.

• Increase production and services you provide to meet demand.

Listen To Your Clients

I recently spoke to a business owner who was dissatisfied with a popular reputation site. The site offered them a pitch about building their brand platform on the site, but the pitch left a bad impression on the business owner. Why? Because the site was hyper-focused on ads and reviews but ignored what the business owner needed, which was a good place to generate new business leads. The site could have met this need. It’s a strong platform with a good reputation among consumers. However, because the representative didn’t ask the right questions about what the business needed and didn’t listen to the anxieties the owner had, they failed to win the business owner over.

The lesson is simple: Don’t just focus on what you offer. Listen to what your clients want. What are their anxieties? What do they need? Ask these questions and demonstrate to the client how your services can meet their needs and how you can calm their worries and anxiety.

I’ve only touched on seven opportunities to strengthen your business. While you may have other ideas specific to your business, these seven are the bedrock of company growth. By building up your brand, business relationships, processes and client relationships, you can create a foundation that allows you to grow and excel.


Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?


New technique can accelerate language models by 300x

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New technique can accelerate language models by 300x

Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.


Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a new technique that can significantly boost the speed of neural networks. They’ve demonstrated that altering the inference process can drastically cut down the computational requirements of these networks. 

In experiments conducted on BERT, a transformer model employed in various language tasks, they achieved an astonishing reduction of more than 99% in computations. This innovative technique can also be applied to transformer models used in large language models (LLMs) like GPT-3, opening up new possibilities for faster, more efficient language processing.

Fast feedforward networks

Transformers, the neural networks underpinning LLMs, are comprised of various layers, including attention layers and feedforward layers. The latter, accounting for a substantial portion of the model’s parameters, are computationally demanding due to the necessity of calculating the product of all neurons and input dimensions.

However, the researchers’ paper shows that not all neurons within the feedforward layers need to be active during the inference process for every input. They propose the introduction of “fast feedforward” layers (FFF) as a replacement for traditional feedforward layers.

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FFF uses a mathematical operation known as conditional matrix multiplication (CMM), which replaces the dense matrix multiplications (DMM) used by conventional feedforward networks. 

In DMM, all input parameters are multiplied by all the network’s neurons, a process that is both computationally intensive and inefficient. On the other hand, CMM handles inference in a way that no input requires more than a handful of neurons for processing by the network.

By identifying the right neurons for each computation, FFF can significantly reduce the computational load, leading to faster and more efficient language models.

Fast feedforward networks in action

To validate their innovative technique, the researchers developed FastBERT, a modification of Google’s BERT transformer model. FastBERT revolutionizes the model by replacing the intermediate feedforward layers with fast feedforward layers. FFFs arrange their neurons into a balanced binary tree, executing only one branch conditionally based on the input.

To evaluate FastBERT’s performance, the researchers fine-tuned different variants on several tasks from the General Language Understanding Evaluation (GLUE) benchmark. GLUE is a comprehensive collection of datasets designed for training, evaluating and analyzing natural language understanding systems.

The results were impressive, with FastBERT performing comparably to base BERT models of similar size and training procedures. Variants of FastBERT, trained for just one day on a single A6000 GPU, retained at least 96.0% of the original BERT model’s performance. Remarkably, their best FastBERT model matched the original BERT model’s performance while using only 0.3% of its own feedforward neurons.

The researchers believe that incorporating fast feedforward networks into LLMs has immense potential for acceleration. For instance, in GPT-3, the feedforward networks in each transformer layer consist of 49,152 neurons. 

The researchers note, “If trainable, this network could be replaced with a fast feedforward network of maximum depth 15, which would contain 65536 neurons but use only 16 for inference. This amounts to about 0.03% of GPT-3’s neurons.”

Room for improvement

There has been significant hardware and software optimization for dense matrix multiplication, the mathematical operation used in traditional feedforward neural networks. 

“Dense matrix multiplication is the most optimized mathematical operation in the history of computing,” the researchers write. “A tremendous effort has been put into designing memories, chips, instruction sets, and software routines that execute it as fast as possible. Many of these advancements have been – be it for their complexity or for competitive advantage – kept confidential and exposed to the end user only through powerful but restrictive programming interfaces.”

In contrast, there is currently no efficient, native implementation of conditional matrix multiplication, the operation used in fast feedforward networks. No popular deep learning framework offers an interface that could be used to implement CMM beyond a high-level simulation. 

The researchers developed their own implementation of CMM operations based on CPU and GPU instructions. This led to a remarkable 78x speed improvement during inference. 

However, the researchers believe that with better hardware and low-level implementation of the algorithm, there could be potential for more than a 300x improvement in the speed of inference. This could significantly address one of the major challenges of language models—the number of tokens they generate per second. 

“With a theoretical speedup promise of 341x at the scale of BERT-base models, we hope that our work will inspire an effort to implement primitives for conditional neural execution as a part of device programming interfaces,” the researchers write.

This research is part of a broader effort to tackle the memory and compute bottlenecks of large language models, paving the way for more efficient and powerful AI systems.

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The 90-Day CMO and Cross-Channel Acquisition Strategies That Scale

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The 90-Day CMO and Cross-Channel Acquisition Strategies That Scale

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with John Janstch

 

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Ryan Stewart, a prominent fractional marketing officer (CMO) and a seasoned expert in the world of multi-channel marketing strategy. With over a decade of experience in his toolkit, he specializes in helping clients build out cross-channel acquisition systems using a mix of owned, earned and paid tactics. Over the last 13 years he’s worked with companies like Target, Jeeter and Shopify to implement performance marketing campaigns. 

Ryan has made it his mission to lead businesses towards unprecedented growth through this unique approach, and during our conversation, he generously shared the secrets behind his successful strategies.

Key Takeaway:

In today’s complex marketing landscape, Ryan emphasized the vital role of a fractional CMO in steering your business towards success. He broke down the core elements of his 90-day approach that consistently delivers remarkable results. If you’re ready to revolutionize your marketing strategy and unlock unprecedented growth for your business, this episode is a must-listen. Ryan Stewart’s expertise and insights promise to redefine your approach to marketing in the digital age.

Questions I ask Ryan Stewart:

  • [00:47] How do you define fractional CMO?
  • [03:18] What are the main challenges for those attempting the fractional CMO model?
  • [07:17] What is you cross-channel acquisition strategy?
  • [11:13] Why is video an important part of your content strategy?
  • [14:00] Where does AI fit in the content and strategic realm?
  • [17:30] How deep into financials and metrics do you get before taking a client on?
  • [19:01] What makes your method so different from others?
  • [20:58] Are there any overlooked channels or platforms worth exploring?
  • [22:02] Where can people learn more about your work?

More About Ryan Stewart:

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Connect with John Jantsch on LinkedIn

 

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the DeskTeam360

Desk team 360 is the #1, flat-rate, digital marketing integration team, that helps small businesses and marketing agencies with graphic, web design, and on-page marketing services.