How to deliver projects on brief, on time & on budget:

Businesses of all sizes embark themselves on thousands of projects each year for new products and services. Unfortunately, most of them are doomed to fail immediately, or at launch, because the original criteria of success were not met. Some project failures lead to delayed product launches. Such as the Airbus A380, others like the Big Dig in Boston, that went way over the budget. These examples, as well as the results of survey after survey shows that some businesses have not been able to figure out how to consistently get the products and services delivered on brief, on time and on budget with the highest quality. The risk of the failure is that the projects can result in lost profits and lost customers.

For approved projects, managers must work within strict budget limitations with marginal room for error. The dirty little secret is that projects are rarely delivered on budget. Poor planning, resource distractions, and scope creep almost always see to that.

Therefore here are my 8 steps to deliver a project on brief, on time and on budget

1) Listen to your client

-Listen carefully to your clients wants and needs so you can after make them match with the customer’s wants and needs

-The client will decide if the project goes or not, so be very aware of what they are looking for

2) Ready to deliver?

-You need to know where you are to know where you are going

-Define what will be included and what won’t be. Create the MoSCoW list. (Must, should, could, would)

-Get your business and IT teams ready for the action

-These will allow you to estimate resource, needs, costs and time lines

3) What if it is not working?

-Establish a strict change control

-In this stage the “must-haves” and the “nice-to-haves” list can lead you to failure if you are not realistic when making it

-Make sure that the list stays in budget

-Be ready to change strategies if they are not working for you or for the client

4) Cheer them up!

-Motivate your teams

-Define tasks and responsibilities

-Set reasonable expectations

5) Divide the project plan

-Create smaller projects within the plan that your team is working on

-Set small deadlines

-Be disciplined and work methodically towards the end

6) Train your team early

-If your IT and business teams don’t fully understand a new program or application, the project will be in jeopardy

-You need to train them before and regularly during the project development in order to be successful in the deliverance

7) Test, test and test!

-Test early and often

-Testing is the best way to uncover and correct errors

-You can use:

*Usability labs

*Focus groups or online surveys

*One on One

*Journey tracking

*Task completion test

8) Be adjustable

-There is more than one way to reach the goal, so be prepared and willing to make the necessary changes to deliver your project on brief, on time and on budget.

-If your project involves creating a web site don’t forget to see your checklist to make sure you tick them all!

-Checklist:

-Educational

-Informative

-Supportive of creativity

-Aesthetically pleasing

-Rewarding

-Satisfying

-Helpful

-Easy to remember

-Easy to learn

-Have good utility

-Effective to use

-Efficient to use

You must also always take into account, during your project development the Legal considerations such as:-Privacy and data protection

-Accessibility

-Copyright

-Service Contract

-Defamation

-Tax

-Suppliers and SLAs

-Client/agency

And for last GOOD LUCK!

References:

http://blog.method123.com/2008/08/20/deliver-projects-successfully/

http://www.mymanagementguide.com/project-delivery-management-tips-how-to-deliver-projects-successfully/

Here's my favourite digital marketing creative ever and why

“Reasons to believe” Coca-Cola ad:

I like this ad first all because of its message, I believe it is really well structured because it appeals to people’s emotions; they talk about a current topic which is world crisis in every sense, political, economical and social. Also the use of kids in this ad works in making you feel full of hope. The ad portraits a positive image of the brand, it portraits coca-cola as a brand for the people and as a way of sharing the good things of live. I also believe that the ad does not have a specific target, by this I mean, that the ad is made for everybody, even if you don’t drink coca-cola you will fell identify by this commercial because of the current topic they touch. Another interesting and efficient element is the channel mix they used, this commercial is shown on TV, facebook (social networks) and you can also find it in the SEO channels. As I said in my previous posts I believe that a channel mix is the best marketing strategy because it has more reach than just using one channel.

Another important element is the creativity of this ad. I see it creative in the fact that they put kids singing while images of the bad things that happen in the world are juxtaposition by the good ones, which in fact are more.

The success of this ad, and of most of the coca-cola ads, is that it has value for the consumer, it meets their wants and needs and it is also successful for the channel mix strategy.

Channels to reach Digital Natives

How to select the most appropriate channels to reach digital natives?

Choosing channels is always an important step in a digital marketing strategy and also in a traditional one. The channels are the medium through where we will promote the product, brand, etc. Since there is a broad quantity of channels you will want to narrow down the ones that are really useful and the ones that met your SMART objectives. Remember quality matters more than quantity.

In this case I will talk about the useful channels to reach a specific audience that is the digital natives, these audience enjoy and know everything about the digital era. They live and breathe digital.

Criteria for choosing:

-Audience: In this case we already know which audience we want to engage. And it is the digital natives.

-Budget: You really need to know how much money you are willing to spend in your digital marketing strategy, don’t be fooled by the fact that creating a web site or setting a twitter account is free, this tools need constant maintenance and you will probably have to pay for someone to do this.

-Reach: You will want to know the reach of your strategy in terms of audience and customer analysis.

-Measurability: You will need to measure how well is the strategy going, how much traffic is your web site receiving or how many tweets have you got. You will also take into account the participants insights by using the research tools available for this.

-Conversion: is about what your participant will find in your site, for example. If the participant goes to your web site and he doesn’t find what he is looking he will go away in a few seconds and might not come back.

Despite the fact that choosing channels for a digital Marketing strategy is extremely linked to what your objectives are I am going to give some examples of the channels that I think suit better for the digital natives.

Following the journey that the participants make when they get online makes it easier for you to know exactly what they want or what their online behavior is, facilitating your strategy so it can met their needs.

Channels for Acquisition:

-Acquisition is about building traffic to your site.

Useful channels:

-SEO (search engine optimization) Google

-SEM (Search engine marketing) Google, yahoo, bing

-Online Ads

-PR (public relations)

-Mobile

Engage:

-It is all about the experience the audience get. Make them feel like participants not viewers. You need to involve them with your site, let them share, vote, explore. It is everything about how you present your content to create value for your customers.

-Social networks

-Personalized e-mails

-Customer service and support

-E-newsletters and promotional e-mails

Remember! Is not only about building but also about maintaining, Optimizations always have to play an important role. You need to test, learn, adapt, update and monitor your channels.

http://www.cim.co.uk/mycim/Files/Digital%20Engagement.pdf

http://www.smartinsights.com/

How to cook an effective Digital Marketing Strategy

Ingredients:

-Ideas

-Your business

-Digital and traditional marketing strategies

-Creativity

-Objectives and goals

-Budget

-Audience

-Channel Mix

Preparation:

Planning a digital marketing strategy is like cooking any recipe of your preference, why? Because you need all the ingredients in order to cook it in the right way and to create a good meal!. Is the same procedure to plan a strategy, you need the right ingredients in the right measure to obtain a successful business, that’s why when planning a digital marketing strategy there are steps just like in a cooking recipe that need to be applied in order to be successful.

Although the online marketing strategies are very important and effective, A successful digital strategy integrates the right digital communications tools with traditional communications which remain essential for success with a market-leading website. However not all the elements of marketing are applicable to all the business, the elements are used depending on the audience, the type of business and of course the budget.

My first step for a digital marketing strategy is to set the goals and wants for your digital channels; you need to know exactly what you want, what do you want to get out of it and of course where do you want to go. Step number two is about defining your plan and your strategies; what tools will you need or use.

Then you will need to review the current performance and capability of your own previous work or if you don’t have any, of other business’s performance.

After doing this, you will need to set your target market, in other words, who is your audience, who is this made for. When all of this is done, you will need to develop and engage your online proposition, put your words into action.

If you haven’t done it before, creating a website could be a very useful tool for your business, however you will need to track it and test it to see how its performance is going and to check on the participants insight with the research tools available for this. To get ranked at the top in major search engines is always a good form of getting customers attention. When your website is ready you will want to promote your business in a channel mix, this will make it more known and successful, for example you can use the website but also social networking, mobile apps, research engines, among others, of course all this mix have to be linked together so the participants can be aware of their existence and can also use them easily. My last step is to keep on tracking your online marketing elements so that way you can always improve the site, the customers experience and you can also engage more participants.

1. Set goals and wants for the digital channels
2. Define and plan your strategies
3. Review current performance and capability
4. Define target markets
5. Develop and engage online value proposition
6. Create a website
7. Tracking and testing
8. Research your audience insight with the research tools available
9. Digital channel integration (develop the channel mix)
10. Improving site and customer experience effectiveness

Reference:

http://marketing.about.com/od/internetmarketingstrategy/a/internettips.htm

http://econsultancy.com

http://www.marketingtips.com/internet-marketing/best-internet-marketing-strategies.html