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

Now that we know and understand how to start a digital marketing campaign according to my last posts, it is time to consider the technical aspects to make it happen: the time, the money and to make it concise.

First, we need to identify what is a successful project or what element does it contains?

According to the book Fast Forward MBA in Project Management in a successful project you can identify the following:

1. Agreement on goals        
2. A good plan
3. Progress measurement
4. Constant Communications
5. Management Support
6. Controlled scope

I found the article How to deliver Projects Successfully that describes 5 useful tips to accomplish your goals.

Now that we identify what do we need to create for a successful campaign, it is time for us to understand our project in order to put our hands on it and start working.

DEFINE WHY------> PLAN WHAT-----> PLAN HOW & WHEN  ------> DO IT!

                                                                                                        

What kind of project do we have? Do we have one that has an ending (Waterfall) or do we have one that the ending is hard to define (Agile)? These two project methods look like this:

WATERFALL                                AGILE

DEFINE

“Begin with the end in mind”

                        Stephen Covey

Start whit a Project Charter that will describe WHAT & WHY.

This charter will help to optimize:

• Your communication and internal marketing tool
• Build an active agreement and commitment
• Force an initial scope decisions
• Get management support and resources

In this step you will have to define all the elements of your company that will generate a spending. This way you will break down your entire budget and will be more visible for you where is the money going and for what, helping you to have track over it.

PLAN

An effective planning will reduce rework, in other words loosing time. That is why planning is a very important step in our process.

7 questions to create the Plan:

• What are we creating?
• What task must be done to create it?
• Who will do what?
• What will it take to do each task?
• How do the task fit together?
• What could surprise us?
• How will we execute and control the project?

Here you will include a Timesheet document that will help to finish all your tasks on time and improve your time management. This Timesheet will describe what task has to do each one of your team members and when do they have to accomplish it.

EXECUTE & CLOSE STEPS

Check the Roadmap as much as you can just to make sure that everything has being done on time, according to the timetable we established in the beginning.

Hopefully this will help you guys, talk to you next week!

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http://www.shawsystems.com/information/sevensteps.pdf

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-6092293/Delivering-projects-on-time-risk.html

http://www.spspro.com/resources/Post-Deliv%20Prjs%20on%20Time%20and%20Budget-PMI%20Eugene%20Mar%2008.pdf

MY FAVOURITE DIG MKT CREATIVE.

This week I will talk about my favourite marketing creative, in other words the idea that puts everything together for the campaign, so it can help you as an example for you projects guy. The Dove campaign for real beauty.

 Why is it my favourite? Well, because it doesn’t only promote a product and made profit for the company but tried to change a negative issue of nowadays society.

The campaign was launched in 2004 as a result of a study done by Unilever that said that only 2 per cent of 3300 women and girls from 10 different countries considered themselves beautiful and that 90 per cent will change something at least one aspect of their physical appearance, It was aimed to fight anorexia and low self-esteem in time where `skinny chic´ and size 00 was the height of fashion and where the sense of beauty was shift to an unreal one (to photoshop syndrome).

Dove marketing director Phillippe Harrouseau, after saw the results of the studies, concluded:

“It is time to redefine beauty! Our mission is to make more women feel beautiful every day by broadening the definition of beauty”.

The ad does not only promote Dove products but also their own fund the Dove Self-Esteem Fund .

Audience: All women.

Objectives:

• Increase sales of Dove beauty and new product lines.
• Create dialogue, debate, and discussion about the true meaning of beauty.
• Create a call to action for consumers to join the movement through website.

Tactics:

• Dove launched a global advertising campaign in Oct. 2004. The ads consisted on showing images of women that contradicted our idea of beauty.
• Each ad directed the audience to the campaigns website www.campaignforrealbeauty.com.
• TV commercials: Commercial aired during the Super Bowl 2006.

• Website:

Audience can visit www.campaignforrealbeauty.com and participate in dialogues, discussions, and download research studies about beauty, and see what women around the world say about the subject.

• Coverage in the news.
• A commercial competition for Dove in 2007, the winner appeared in a famous TV show.

Evaluation:

• In the summer of 2005, the Dove campaign received nearly four hours of broadcast time. More than 60,000 people visited the CFRB Web site.

• During the summer of 2005, the campaign also secured coverage from 62 national television programs.

• CFRB also received feature coverage in high-profile print outlets, landing the cover of People magazine.The campaign received more than 1,000 placements in print, Web, television and radio, far exceeding expectations.

• The campaign generated more than 650 million impressions during the summer of 2005.

• According to Dove, sales for the products featured in the ads increased 600 percent in the first two months of the campaign.

• As of June 2005, more than 1 million visitors had logged onto www.campaignforrealbeauty.com and shared their thoughts about the campaign.

Awards.

• PR Week’s Consumer Launch Campaign of the Year 2006
• PRSA’s Silver Anvil ‘Best of’ Award 2006
• Grand EFFIE Award 2006

But of course like in everything there is someone that tries to see the negative side on things, the campaign has received criticism for capitalising on women’s low self-esteem just to make profit and also they have said that even though they showed “normal” women they still being to head turners with smooth skin, straight teeth and no cellulite.

There is an article in the BussinessWeek  online version that criticises the campaign here is the link:  Surprise! Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" ads actually kind of fake

NOW IT IS YOUR TURN TO EXPRESS YOUR VIEW OF THE CAMPAIGN!!

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/educational/teachable_moments/campaignrealbeauty.cfm

Principles of Marketing Fifth European Edition Test Bank, 5/E 
Philip Kotler,  
Gary Armstrong,  
Veronica Wong, Aston 
John Saunders Financial Times Press
 2009.

RIGHT CHANNELS FOR DIGITAL MARKETING

Digital Natives: The young generation that was born or grown surrounded by the digital technology, therefore it is natural for them.

This Modern society group has shifted their perception of identity and reality; a digital identity and an open participation has become an essential element to participate in almost every kind of online exchange. As a consequence, younger generations have changed their communication process for a shorter and faster way that makes it less personal.

You need to take this into consideration in order to get the right digital channels succeed in your digital strategy. You have to choose your channels and tools considering the needs and desires of digital identity, privacy, creativity, sharing and advocacy, in other words: engagement, enrichment and empowerment, that is what digital natives are looking for in the web.

“There are several layers to the changes we are witnessing captured in our report, from the behavior of individuals and their media consumption habits, through to new opportunities and threats to marketers and communicators as different digital challenges emerge and are adopted.”                                                                            Drew Benvie, managing director 33 Digital

The next video is a conference done by Professor John Palfrey explaining what is a digital native. 

In the blog Net Gen Skeptic there is an article that defines digital natives based on studies done in the UK.


TOP 9 DIGITAL CHANNELS

1. Display Advertising: Placing ads on affiliate websites in order to create branding awareness and generate traffic. (Banner ads, video ads, interactive ads, overlays.)
2. Email Marketing: collecting email addresses and send them email messages. (email newsletters, brand building emails)
3. Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC): Bidding for placement at search engines to earn visibility and traffic. (Google, Yahoo)
4. Online PR: Generating media from primarily online outlets to get branding and traffic. (PRNewswire, PRWeb, Internet media focused PR)
5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): earning rankings in the organic results of SEO. (keyword research, on-page optimization)
6. Affiliate Marketing: Incentivizing other sites to push your product in exchange for share of the revenue. (Commission Junction, in-house affiliate programs)
7. Social Media Marketing (SMM): To have visibility and more traffic through social media platforms. (Facebook Group pages, Twitter marketing)
8. Viral Content Campaigns: Generating creative content that will spread your brand or product. (Linkbait production, viral videos, guerrilla marketing)
9. Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO): To convert audience in order to get more leads, signups, customers. (click-through-rate improvements, purchase-process simplification).

ARE YOU A DIGITAL MARKETING OR IMMIGRANT ?

www.slideshare.net/hblowers/strategies-for-digital-natives.  

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/so-called_digital_natives_not_media_savvy_new_study_shows.php

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/a-checklist-to-choose-which-internet-marketing-channel-is-right-for-your-business

YOUR ONLINE MARKETING STRATEGY !!!

You have already your product and you Website, now it is time to create the marketing strategy for it.

Your online marketing strategy will help you to set up your goals, helping you to have a proper vision of where do you want to go and also give a review of the present situation. You have two types of marketing strategies:

Short Term: Purchasing Advertising
  • Participating in Forums
  • Search Engines

Long term: Opt-in Lists
  • Blogging
  • Social Networking Sites
  • Social Bookmarking Sites
  • Giving Away Freebies
  • Article Marketing
This article that will clarify a little more this topic, if you still have doubts click it Better Internet Marketing Structure.

The steps you need to considered when creating your online strategy are:

1. Have a profile of your company/organisation:

SWOT

• The Internal capabilities, resources and processes of the company
• The review of the company in the marketplace.
• The competitive environment demand and behaviour, the competitor strategy and the relationship with suppliers.

PESTLE

• Assessing the current contribution of the Internet.
• MKT effectiveness.
• Customer research

Online Revenue Contribution

SMART objectives

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Timed

Balanced scorecard: semi-standard structured report supported by proven design methods and automation tools that can be used by managers to keep track of the execution of activities by staff within their control and monitor the consequences arising from these actions.

Leading Performance Indicator: is a metric, which is suggestive of future performance. The benefit of leading indicators is that they enable managers to proactive action to help shape future performance.

Lagging Performance Indicator: is one where the measure indicates past performance. Lagging indicators enable corrective action to be taken.

Once you have identified this info. You can start building your online MKT strategy.


2. Have a good Website platform.

Your marketing strategy must be based on the function of your Website; the website should have an appealing design for the target audience. Some advices would be: nice design (same font, appealing images, maintain similar colours), contact info. (to get more info. Of the audience), a Blog (to stay in contact with audience) and follow the Google Quality Score.

3. Start planning your way through the online market.

After you have finished your Website, start promoting it. I will advice you to follow the online tools I have in my second post, but I will summarize the main ones for you.

• SEO (search engine optimization).
• Keyword generator
• Long tail, negative, phrases, broad and local keywords.

“SEO is by nature a cross-functional exercise. It involves many different departments, all working together towards a common goal. An SEO initiative severely tests the communication and cooperative capabilities of an organization. It requires Marketing, IT, product managers and often legal to all work together, and the faster they can do this, the more positive the results will be. In the most competitive categories, it’s a full out and ongoing war. The companies that can respond and adapt quickly will win that war. The ones mired in bureaucracy and butt covering will inevitably sink in the rankings.”

Gord Hotchkiss, President, Enquiro

• SMM (Social Media Monitored)
• PPC (Pay Per Click)
• Online Ads

Hope this info has helped you in developing your Website. For any other info don’t forget to contact me, and share with us other elements you may think will help to build your online MKT strategy.

See you later guys…

Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice (Financial Times (Prentice Hall) Fiona Ellis-Chadwick , Mr Kevin Johnston, Richard Mayer.

http://www.davechaffey.com/Internet-Marketing/C4-Strategy/leading-lagging-performance-indicators-ecommerce.

http://www.interactivemarketinginc.com/top-10-marketing-strategies.html