Email Marketing & It’s Positive Effects

Email MarketingWe all have witnessed and are still going through the torture of bulk marketing emails that we receive on a daily basis. Some companies think that flooding people’s inbox with email marketing will be of great help to their business but the truth is totally different. Companies try to sell their products by sending thousands of email to consumers daily which mostly goes in trash or spam messages. They believe in bulk emailing and follow no proper marketing strategies.

It is important to understand growing trends and align your marketing strategies according to changing demographics. The new trends and ideas are needed to make things work and do wonders in your business. Till 2010 the bulk emailing was a success but now people have become technology friendly and have many options like mark as spam in their emails. So it is important to target the right audience at the right while you send a marketing email.

It is wrong to say that email marketing does not hold any value now but the truth is it is more effective than any other social media website or app. The only requirement is proper homework about the target customers and the right use of strategies is needed to make them work. Email marketing has certain advantages on the businesses if they put in efforts to maintain their online image as importantly as they manage their physical identity.

The important points are to be kept in mind while doing Email marketing as it will give a competitive edge to the company:

  1. Email marketing is the most cost effective way of marketing your business, products or services.
  2. It is the most time-saving option that a company can adapt.
  3. In email marketing, nothing is printed to posted to consumers so that is why it is also environmentally friendly.
  4. According to latest trends businesses has introduced an option to subscribe and unsubscribe on their websites. This controls the fake audience because a consumer who is interested in your products will ultimately subscribe and by doing this company can send their deals or any update of the business to the selected and prospective customer only.
  5. Through email marketing, you can convey messages to your consumers in the form of text, images or videos. It will be a kind of business branding.
  6. You can introduce your promotional deals through emails by sharing links it will be an easy option for consumers.
  7. Companies also introduce after sales service offers to their consumers through emails which create customer loyalty in the mind of consumers.
  8. Emails are read by the specific number of people and some special gentry which ensures customer loyalty to the company because they will read email at the time that suits them.
  9. Through benchmarking reports that are easily available on the internet you can also do the comparison with your competitors.

Email marketing is still the most effective way of communicating from business to consumers and also from business to business. In other words, it is the most sophisticated form of connecting to your customers or peers.

Marketing – An Underrated Tool

Marketing – a tool known to many as that which can single-handedly bring you new customers and give your business a massive reach. Regardless of whether you run a major partnership or little endeavor, promoting arrangements are required with the end goal to convey it to progress. It can be strenuous and but the exhausting of every second is worth much more and brings far better results than anything else. Advertising your very own business does not need to cost you a lot of cash. Since the advanced advertising world is presently extending, there are huge amounts of savvy arrangements that you can use to advance your image and additionally your administrations and items. Here are some great methods to advertise and market:

Social media marketing – not costly and but more powerful than any other tactic. The use of social media aids a great deal because of its popularity and use in every generation today. It aids to pave the ways both graphically and internationally. Social media play a pivotal role in promoting our venture. For advertisement, another authentic and effective way of boosting our business is email marketing. This strategy is used to educate customers about business and products. Which ultimately lessen the time as well as the paper trails which are quite expensive and less reliable. Another marketing solution for an effective business one should create an official company website which comprises relevant and valuable content to drive maximum traffic towards it, increasing the network on the whole. This will increase customer acquisition indirectly. For the successful business one should not underestimate the power of opponents such as the bloggers and social media influencer which always act as the ultimate risk for the company as well as for products. For advertisement, one should smartly catch the attention of the relevant person related to its niche. Following this, write them a personal email about the company and its products. For grasping the attention one should make their customers’ your brand ambassadors. As William Arruda gave his three-point agenda for turning your customer as brand ambassador. Three step milestones are getting engaged, Get enamored and Get enthusiastic which are important and also useful to spread your business. One should build a strong reputation and brand and also the strong nerves are needed to handle the risk and making the effective risk management strategy to avoid issues. No matter how difficult it can be to implement, it is still one the most cost-effective and long-term reliable market strategy that a company could make use of.

Distinctive promoting systems will enable you to develop your very own business. It requires a considerable measure of investment and tolerance before you discover accomplishment in everything that you do. Try to give out your best dependable and have a key intend to pursue. In this way, utilize these impactful showcasing apparatuses made reference to above, for these will totally be of assistance in conveying advancement to your business. You can undoubtedly execute these techniques regardless of whether you are on a tight spending plan, so simply ahead and act now.

Secret Lies in Collaborative Work Spaces

You often wonder how crucial is the environment of the office? The answer lies in observations and countless statistics that prove the importance of a balanced and positive environment in the success of businesses, be it small or large. The fact is that the office environment speaks for itself.

When it comes to project management, an environment that is collaborative and enthusiastic keeps the team aligned to its goals and tasks which eventually leads to successful delivery of outcome.

The reinforcement and impact of such an environment are often underestimated in project management. Below is a set of strategies that a project manager should implement to ensure that the environment at work maximizes productivity and success.

  1. Appreciation and positivity:

When a team member performs well at a given task, appreciate. Give appreciation where it’s due even if it’s for something as small as submitting work on time or working overtime to finish work. Appreciation might seem insignificant but in the long-run, it fosters positivity among team members and increases their self-confidence which is vital to producing a better quality of work. Moreover, appreciation pushes team members to do even better next time. However, constructive criticism should also be given where needed without degrading or insulting any of the team members. Lastly, the variety of opinions and think tanks always lead to improved and enhanced results.

  1. Build Rapport and Communication:

There should be a solid and well-built rapport between upper management and the team. The concerns, suggestions etc from the team members should be effectively communicated to the upper management. Also, feedback from the upper management should also be conveyed to the team members so as to ensure a two-way flow between the two units. As the gap between seniors and juniors diminishes, a positive change can be definitely noticed as that makes the team members feel that their opinions and words hold value. Moreover, communication between everyone involved in the project should be constantly using an email or dashboard. Communication gap can be eradicated by giving every member the confidence to share their input and being concise and clear about their thoughts. No office environment can succeed in suffocating conditions where members are not allowed to share or discuss.

  1. Set Realistic Goals and Expectations:

Do not overburden the team with the excessive workload. It’s often assumed that working under pressure yields better results. That is an utter misconception. Working under pressure diminishes the quality of work. The key to brilliant project outcome is assigning tasks to each member with realistic deadlines that give them time to experiment and do as well as possible. However, it cannot be denied setting bars high occasionally helps members grow their skills and come out of their comfort zones to discover their hidden talent.

  1. Follow a set of rules:

Every member of the team, regardless of his/her position, should and must follow the rules made and set. Standard processes and rules regarding every project help the team members stay connected about the project and keep them on the same page.

Oracle Primavera Contract Management

Contract management is actually a process of managing contract creation, to execute and analysis so that it maximize financial and operational activities/performance at the organization while reducing the financial risk at the same time. Contract management is considered as a time-consuming process of an organization which facilitates the needs of the contract management system.

When two companies wish to do a business with each other they decided to enter into a contract. This contract specifies the activities and the terms through which they will fulfill their part of the agreement. The contracts affect the organization profitability due to an emphasis on the revenue and expenses. When the contract is poorly handled, the organization may lose their thousands of dollars. So the effectively managed contract can help to build a strong and powerful relationship in business and it can pave a way to greater profitability over the long term but only if it is managed correctly.

When the right contract management strategy is implemented so that an organization can enjoy many benefits. That is the expected business benefits and financial returns, the supplier can be cooperative and can be responsive to the organization needs, there will be no contract disputes and also the delivery of the services will reach the level of satisfaction. Contract management is important for an organization as it brings a number of benefits to an organization. It helps a business to purchase the products and services at a reasonable price. The process of contracting is important so your business has always a team of extended partners on which your business can rely. It helps your business to grow, without hiccups and it is only destined to grow. The practice and also use of contract management aid the business with skills and knowledge to manage the processes efficiently. not only this but it also ensures that your businesses get paid on time. So for the project management, it is necessary that you choose the professional managers like one that  Primavera can provide to the businesses from efficient contract management. Primavera contract management is completing the projects on schedule and within budget and it demands complete project control.

Primavera contract control management is a document management and project control solution that helps to increase the efficiency while reducing the schedule delays and risk. With the help of this accurate and up to date information is always accessible. Primavera contract management is an integrated solution that combines the project management with the capabilities of Primavera P6 enterprise project management for the complete control of the project of the business. With the help of Primavera contract management, you can make sure that everyone at the organization, whether they are employees or subcontractors, is working for the success of the business. For the company managers and the owners, there is nothing more essential that the productivity and output of their employees. It manages and links the people, team and projects so that one can manage every aspect of the project lifecycle- from the planning stage to the last deadline.

Email Marketing – A Guide for Newbie’s

Email marketing is essentially a digital marketing strategy where an organization sends email to customers and prospects. If done right, it can get organization loyal and consistent customers. It is one of the things that many organizations do not get right. It’s easy and has nothing technical but there are so many things to keep in mind to not it fail.

The significance of Email Marketing:

Email marketing is one of the key aspects of successful campaigns. In today’s tech-oriented world, it is one of the things that cannot be neglected. Despite the growing social media in today’s time, email is still a top prioritized communication channel. It is one of the platforms that nobody likes to be spammed (BEWARE! No unsolicited spamming) and hence is free of chaos, unlike social media platforms. Online sales have many advantages and bring much more loyal customers than real life sales. It is one of the safest and efficient methods for running campaigns.

Primary Goal of Email Marketing:

While the idea of jumping right onto it seems appealing, it’s wrong. You have to first set a goal, think about it, work on it and then decide what your emails will be about. You cannot and must not include any and every random detail in email because people tend to get bored with subscription email and can unsubscribe anytime. Your emails must serve a single purpose. Take a look at emails of some notable websites to get a hang of the idea.

Build a Contact List:

It’s time to build an email list and decide the audience at which your campaigns have to be targeted. For example, it’s useless to send a teenager emails about new business opportunities. Either you create a list using your known contacts or construct a new list from scratch. Building a new list means you have to offer customers an incentive. People don’t subscribe to something new unless there’s a great offer.  Discounts, giveaways, updates of sales are a few of the exciting incentives that can get people to sign up for email subscriptions. Other options include a pop-up option of subscription on the website to get people’s attention. By following these key aspects, offering incentives for subscribers, you can easily build an email list with a new yet interested audience that can soon become your loyal customers.

Select and Create Your First Campaign:

Campaigns can be of various natures. Your options include a monthly newsletter, an invitation to attend an event, updates about new things available and sales, an announcement of a new feature etc. You have to select a campaign that suits your organization and decide accordingly. When it comes to structuring your campaigns, there are a few things that need to be taken care of. Firstly, the emails should not be long. It has to be sort of an advertisement that Is short and easy to read. Secondly, it should be of interest to your entire audience. Lastly, make sure your emails are easy to access and convert. With these done right, you can eventually get better results. Make sure you measure your results.

You’re good to go!

Why Project Managers are Seen as Less Likeable for Businesses?

project-managersThe answer to the above asked question can be very simple, but first you need to understand the mindset of stakeholders who wants to get maximum results with minimum expenditures. Many people today see the project manager officials as providers of low value with high administrative cost. They also perceive that they are doing little to improve project delivery, which is indeed not true.

We will discuss the facts here.

The general state of the project management is not improving; the recent increase in project manager officials hasn’t changed the facts as well. According to estimation, organizations worldwide waste around US$122 million every year, this survey was done by PULSE, and was done according the expenditure of US$ 1 billion being invested for every project. The previous records show that it is the increase of 12 percent according to the gone years.

The question arises here, why there is a huge gap between the presence of project manager officials and the project success rate, as the success rate is declining, according to the stated facts?

Indeed the question is somewhere among the project managers.

Here are some of the reasons summed up for the failure of project managers and what the people in lead role of project management can do about it?

The first thing to ponder upon is repeated processes or redundancy over efficiency during project development lifecycle.

This can be explained by an example, let’s just take an example, in an organization there are multiple PMOs, functional PMOs, such as IT, business, finance PMOs etc. these multiple layers of PMOs will cost the portfolio manager an exaggerative cost, expenditure will be huge, excessive time, energy, utility etc in order to fulfill the requirements and requests of multiple functional project manager officials.

The thing that needs to be understood, there is more power and value in centralizing and standardizing portfolio information. The executives should have a clear insight into each and every part of the ongoing process to have a clear understanding of what and how the decision should be made.

Before appointing PMOS the things that should be taken into consideration is whether there are areas that have the same type of oversight and control.

Another major step is taking into account the difference between talent and template, how it is done is the next biggy.

The part where PMOS lack is they rely on templates rather than originating skillful teams. Teams that is skillful in all aspects.

In order to contribute to the project’s success, the portfolio management processes need to be repeatable. They should sustain for quite a good span of time. And need to be successful in demonstrating measurable impact; these all will clearly add value to a business by generating a successful project and making you and your team a success. The project manager leads lack when they try to enforce the process instead of having the right and skillful people at the place to help the success in project development and execution.

Understanding Agile

A major thing when managing a project is understanding agile, which is very important for adding value to the business.

Agile + project management or project management + agile; as project delivery methods have evolved over the time. It has changed a lot of things; the special focus is now on leadership, different approaches have emerged. Such as hybrid approach, in which traditional waterfall approach and iterative agile approaches are used together. The reason is today the project managers need to contend with budgets, financial forecasts, release schedules, as well as business case benefits. Another big reason is aligning implementation of products with other projects across the organization.

agileSo one way or another, project managers today need to have a sound knowledge of what is agile and how it effects the product development phase. A frequent question that comes up is whether the industry needs a project manager who knows agile, or some agile leads who can handle traditional project management practices.  In today’s world we need both.

Agile development is an umbrella term for several iterative and incremental software development methodologies.

It should be kept in mind that a project manager will oversee an agile delivery process. So it is very important that a project manager start their journey with competency, this journey may include beginning with training in agile methods. As the journey continues shadowing an agile lead to see how the iterative process works is also very crucial.

As you advance in the process, you come to the understanding of terms such as agile metrics, alignment of agile both to testing and to release process. As well as the people factor, that is also very important.

Agile leads needs to understand project management as this may lead to more successful projects and adds value to business.

What’s your take on that? Do you think organizations today need agile leads who know project management?

As the journey continues, a project manager will soon see what sort of projects can be best delivered.

Regardless of the delivery approach, a linkage to enterprise approach is required. Experience with iterative methods used to quickly deliver and shape solutions. They have a strong business analysis background. That is majorly shown when defining user stories on the team member’s part. In the near past these abilities or skills were sufficient but as the time changes many of the things that were once part of the waterfall model, needs their agile counterparts. The things like schedule, budget, product quality, and business case realization are of great importance and are necessary tools in agile process. These include the complexities of the contemporary delivery.

These all things compels the people in agile lead role to acquire skills in traditional project management as well as agile methods in factors like estimation, forecasting, resource management, technical requirements, as well as testing and the development tool implementation practices. Developing these skills the people in agile lead roles to give better quality and successful projects that will enhance the business value.

What Does Enterprise Function Support Means and Why it is Needed?

erpSome common enterprise functions of any enterprise involve the efficient management. The management of organizational resources, such as finances and other such entities. Other resources such as employers, suppliers, customers, and partners are also included. And assets such as equipment, material, parts, supplies and properties. While it can be safe to say that technology intensive systems,  such enterprise resource planning commonly known as ERP, have come to represent the most cost- efficient way, these are the functions that chief executives and business leaders turn to in the hour of need, widely known as ‘back office support functions’.

In what circumstances they are needed is a question, commonly asked, when the top priorities for an enterprise are cost containment, cost avoidance and efficiency improvement. These are the functions widely worked on.

Other enterprise functions may include,

Business value alignment, business process optimization, shared services and outsourcing advisory, information system for enterprise function etc.

The most important of these are information system for enterprise function; enterprise resource planning can be understood by these,

The first and most crucial one is business process re engineering and requirement definition.

Others may include steps like, project management of ERP implementation.

Enterprise architecture and technology integration consulting, organizational change management, transition to steady state operations.

Now the question arises why these enterprise functions are needed and how they have a big impact on project management, as discussed above the things like project management of ERP implementation is very important.

As the approach of hybrid product delivery is enhanced, the consideration of adding value to one’s business is widely implemented through alignment of resources. Most important of the considerations include, speed at which the iterations are produced by agile process, the other things include business and technology complexities, as well as the increasing expectations of customers.

The reason for their need is such enterprise functions are considered as the key to success by today’s agile heads. The enterprise functions as mentioned above, such as resource management and portfolio management etc. there are other traditional enterprise delivery disciplines that are considered as key to success. Other frameworks such as scaled agile framework commonly known as ‘SAFe’ are also considered key to success in today’s project management practices by the people leading the agile processes. The agile heads today are people who have sound and impressive knowledge of both new and traditional knowledge of processes needed for project management.

Talking about “safe” as the new big thing, it is indeed the nest generation thing for project managers and it has enhanced the prospects of managing processes. And why is that so?

The answer to this is it had identified the critical need to have all the enterprise functions in place. The enterprise functions are all engaged for all kinds of deliveries that are need of the existing hour.

Enterprise functions can be of great help for both project managers as well as people in agile leads by helping them in developing successful projects.

Agility in Project Management

agility-in-project-managementAs the title of the article suggests, we will be talking about agile project management in this article. First we need to understand, what agility in project management is.

The agile movement seeks alternative to traditional approach in project management. The agile approach help teams respond to unpredictability through incremental, iterative, work cadences and empirical feedback. Agilest propose alternatives that are more fruitful for the project development phase.

The first step should be to make scrum practices the method for doing the work.

The main questions that arise here is

What is scrum?

Why is scrum?

Who is scrum for?

Scrum is an agile framework, which is consistent with the value of agile manifesto.

It is a team based approach used to deliver value to the business. Delivering value is the most important step. In scrum, team members work together to achieve a single goal. Which is a shared business goal; this framework promotes interaction which is effective.

The first step after selecting scrum is to get a shared business goal; further major steps are discussed below,

  • Figure out how to do the work
  • Does the work
  • Identifies what thing is getting in it’s way
  • Takes responsibility of getting out the things blocking their way
  • Focusing on the scope
  • Working with other parts of the organization to control the things which are not in their control.

This focus on scrum is considered critical.

A very important step is centralized collaboration, for example if your team consists of 30 members working in group of ten as three different team units, choose a single tool for communication such as Skype, line or Whatsapp, whichever is easy and accessible to all the members. And for documents, create Google drive or googleDoc, that would be of great help.

Creating a product backlog, which is a key reference tool for the committee or team involved in the development phase.

Planning how to perform the work is a crucial thing, the individual team members must be instructed to break their user stories into tasks that help them do their work effectively, it helps them feel ownership and make accurate tasks. For example, the tasks can be scheduled one day’s work over four sprints. This is in four weeks total. Allowing the team to get momentum and keep the flow going, this would a great step towards breaking down of the tasks in accordance with the need of the development phase, and acquiring the shared goal.

Scrum requires a working finished product goal after as the result of every sprint. A scrum’s team goal is to create a product increment after each sprint.

Meeting regularly with team leads, this will help you in ensuring whether the teams are working on the required tasks and in the required way, team leads should be asked such kind of questions,

  1. What has my team finished since last meeting?
  2. Are there any obstacles in the team’s way?

What needs to be done before the next meeting.

How Project Management Training is Important?

Training is a very essential tool in any kind of resourceful work. If you do not train your employees in right way; there are more chances of work go wrong and can cause downfall to your organization. The presumed goal of training software project managers is to equip them with the knowledge and competencies that will help them to be successful in different domains regarding the domain of Software project management.

project_management

These will not guarantee success but make success more likely. Over the years, the notion of success has expanded greatly from simply meeting requirements, delivering on time and not exceeding the budget to include a plethora of other success criteria. In fact, what success is; often changes many times during the project. This and many other facets of software project management frustrate and perplex untrained software project managers since most enter into this role untrained.

This article presents what anecdotal and experimental evidence has shown software project managers need to know that can be conveyed via training programs. Today’s software project manager can also benefit from this information to overcome many of the misperceptions about nearly everything regarding software project management.

The need of the hour is managing adequate issues of software engineering projects that cannot be done without the use of software project management. The importance of adequate management is becoming more apparent with each passing day. Usually in organizations the project managers are not trained at all or are poorly trained. This article examines what we now know is needed to successfully manage software engineering projects and how education can help transfer this information.

Software project management represents a paradox within the software engineering community.

It has been described as being more vital to software project success than all other factors combined, yet there are still no conferences or journals devoted to this topic. In fact, international conferences on software engineering rarely list software project management as a topic in the call for papers topic list. Finally, we are slowly realizing what other knowledge work related professions have known for a long time – project managers are not born, they are made – through education. The problem is that there is no general agreement on what knowledge and skills a software project manager needs in order to be successful. In fact, we have yet to agree on just what success in software engineering is. This article examines what software engineering project managers need to know, what skills they must possess and how these may be acquired through education. The resources cited are not restricted to software engineering alone as there is a lack of research in this subject.

Before we move to the training part we need to know what software project managers actually do. The tasks they carry out are.

According to a very successful and renowned CEO Robert Townsend, the most skillful and capable person in a team should be made a manager. Because of his caliber of carrying out the underlying tasks and managing what needs to be done when.

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