Bringing The SEMPO Sexy Back

SEMPO: Taken Off My Pedestal

I found that even though many large players in the industry associate themselves with the organisation and are even circle members, the SEMPO fan base appears to be shrinking rather than growing. Ive met more than one company who has decided to drop membership level because they do not feel the value justifies the membership cost. I realised that even though there is a niche group of people who are intimately familiar with SEMPO, there is an greater number of search marketers who have never heard of SEMPO and others who do not understand its value.

In exploring the resources on the SEMPO website, they seemed to be lacking and out of date, with the most recent media center articles frozen in 2005. I was dismayed at the results and so found myself using SEMPO as a resource less frequently.

In the midst of all this, I was undertaking a SEMPO course that dubbed itself advanced so I had high hopes for the skills that I could develop. The basics were covered well but the examples and industry references were out of date, referencing as far back as 2004 with no follow up references. I began to wonder how frequently these courses are updated. Working in an industry that thrives on change, SEMPO courses could certainly do with an infusion of some heavily overdue changes.

Where to From Here?

On Twitter, sempoglobal has 573 followers and is itself following 25 people. Need I say more?

How hard is SEMPO trying to engage with search marketers or make itself known?

SEMPO needs to decide what it wants to be and for whom? If it wants to serve search marketers, the approach needs to be more sophisticated and valuable " remember, these are people who pore through blogs, webinars, conferences, books, networking, you name it. Where does SEMPO fit into this educational picture? Its courses need to be cutting edge for it to even make sense for agencies and companies to invest in the material.

What is SEMPO really? Wheres the direction? The passion? Search marketing is not an industry of half measures; people love what they do. If search marketers could see where SEMPO wants to go, they would certainly be more willing to help it get there. We need to kickstart SEMPOs engine, because in this industry, if you stand still, you start moving backwards and then its game over.