Project phases

August 11, 2021August 10, 2021 Aline Vieira Deixe um comentário

The project life cycle is the path for your project from start to finish. Each project phase builds toward the subsequent phase and helps to create a structure for the project. To recap, the main phases of the project life cycle are: initiating the project, making a plan, executing and completing tasks, and closing the project.

In this reading, we will summarize each phase of the project life cycle.

The project life cycle

Initiate the project

In this phase, ask questions to help set the foundation for the project, such as:

Who are the stakeholders?
What are the client’s or customer’s goals?
What is the purpose and mission of the project?
What are the measurable objectives for the team?
What is the project trying to improve?
When does this project need to be completed?
What skills and resources will the project require?
What will the project cost? What are the benefits?

Make a plan

In this phase, make a plan to get your project from start to finish.

Create a detailed project plan. What are the major milestones? What tasks or deliverables make up each milestone?
Build out the schedule so you can properly manage the resources, budget, materials, and timeline. Here, you will create an itemized budget.

Execute the project

In this phase, put all of your hard work from the first two phases into action.

Monitor your project team as they complete project tasks.
Break down any barriers that would slow or stop the team from completing tasks.
Help keep the team aware of the schedule and deliverable expectations.
Address weaknesses in your process or examine places where your team may need additional training to meet the project’s goals.
Adapt to changes in the project as they arise.

Close the project

In this phase, close out the project.

Identify that your team has completed all of the requested outcomes.
Release your team so they can support other projects within the company.
Take time with your team to celebrate your successes!
Pass off all remaining deliverables and get stakeholder approval.
Document the lessons you and your team learned during the project.
Reflect on ways to improve in the future.

Key takeaway

Each phase of the project life cycle has its own significance and reason for existing. By following the project life cycle, you’re ensuring that you are:

Capturing the expectations of your customer
Setting your project up for success with a plan.
Executing project tasks and addressing any issues that arise
Closing out your project to capture any lessons learned.

Popular project management approaches

August 10, 2021August 10, 2021 Aline Vieira Deixe um comentário

The Waterfall is a traditional methodology in which tasks and phases are completed in a linear, sequential manner, and each stage of the project must be completed before the next begins. The project manager is responsible for prioritizing and assigning tasks to team members. In Waterfall, the criteria used to measure quality is clearly defined at the beginning of the project.

Agile involves short phases of collaborative, iterative work with frequent testing and regularly implemented improvements. Some stages and tasks happen at the same time as others. In Agile projects, teams share responsibility for managing their own work. Scrum and Kanban are examples of Agile frameworks, which are specific development approaches based on the Agile philosophy.

Scrum is an Agile framework that focuses on developing, delivering, and sustaining complex projects and products through collaboration, accountability, and an iterative process. Work is completed by small, cross-functional teams led by a Scrum Master and is divided into short Sprints with a setlist of deliverables.

Kanban is both an Agile approach and a tool that provides visual feedback about the status of the work in progress through the use of Kanban boards or charts. With Kanban, project managers use sticky notes or note cards on a physical or digital Kanban board to represent the team’s tasks with categories like “To do,” “In progress,” and “Done.”

Lean uses the 5S quality tool to eliminate eight waste areas, save money, improve quality, and streamline processes. Lean’s principles state that you can do more with less by addressing dysfunctions that create waste. Lean implements a Kanban scheduling system to manage production.

Six Sigma involves reducing variations by ensuring that quality processes are followed every time. The Six Sigma method follows a process-improvement approach called DMAIC, defining, measuring, analyzing, improving, and controlling.

Lean Six Sigma is a combination of Lean, and Six Sigma approaches. It is often used in projects that aim to save money, improve quality, and move through processes quickly. Lean Six Sigma is also ideal for solving complex or high-risk problems. The 5S quality tool, the DMAIC process, and the use of Kanban boards are all components of this approach.
Despite their differences, these project management methodologies require communication and collaboration among various teams and aim to deliver projects on time and within budget.

Copywriting

August 9, 2021August 9, 2021 Aline Vieira Deixe um comentário

Do you know what copywriting is?

Copywriting is the process of producing persuasive texts for Marketing and Sales actions, such as the content of emails, websites, catalogues, advertisements and sales letters, for example. The professional responsible for developing the text (also called a copy) is known as a Copywriter.

More important than selling is to convey information that your audience wants to see and that adds value to them.

7 Copywriting Tips for You to Use in Content Production

Know your audience

This is one of the essential points of good copywriting. After all, you can only convince your audience to take the desired action if you know them, know what they need, and understand how to communicate with them.

Offer something “extra” for your reader

If you want to initiate or intensify your relationship with your audience, don’t start by asking them for their information. Instead, do the opposite and offer something to these people, preferably something you know creates value for them.

Prove what you are saying

It’s no use trying to sell a product, service or idea to people if you can’t prove what you’re talking about. After all, why should they trust you?

However, if you can confirm what you say, mainly through testimonials, your personas will see what you say with new eyes — after all, if other customers have trusted you and are getting results, why shouldn’t they do the same?

So, while you show that other people are having success with your solution, you are already positioning yourself as someone who understands your market and shows you what you are doing to solve your persona problem.

Assume mistakes

This tip may seem like a shot in the foot, but it can be a real asset to your copywriting company. Of course, we are not encouraging you to make mistakes but to accept them when the situation is necessary.

In this way, you will create a kind of connection with your personas, showing them that, like everyone else, your company is also liable to make mistakes.

It will overcome adversity to have a trusting relationship with its audience — and you can even use the situation to offer compensation to your Leads and customers. Want more transparency than that?

Offer something limited

Offering your product, service or content as something unique and exclusive will create urgency in your target audience to get it. Furthermore, it is crucial to add value to the customer to offer some competitive advantage and in a limited way.

You can, for example, send emails informing the Lead or customer that you have released a trial on your product for free, but only for the first to download specific content.

Make the Lead/Customer agree with what you are saying

If you talk directly about the features of your product or service, likely, many Leads and customers will not even listen to what you have to say.

But if you instead talk about the problems the Lead/Customer is facing and show that you can help solve them, the situation completely changes. That’s because, by making your audience identify and admit their problems and doubts, you naturally encourage them to seek solutions that address a particular situation. The key, in this case, is you who offer it.

Tell stories

The famous storytelling is not a technique used by chance: through stories of your company or your customers, your personas will be able to create identification, sharing fears, fears, anxieties, abilities, challenges and achievements with the stories they read/see.

Thus, it is very likely that other companies will see the value in a particular solution when they realize that different businesses have gone through the same journey and been successful.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What is Copywriting?

Copywriting is the process of producing persuasive texts for Marketing and Sales actions, such as the content of emails, websites, catalogues, advertisements and sales letters, for example. The professional responsible for developing the text (also called a copy) is known as a Copywriter.

How to do Copywriting?

The purpose of Copywriting is to persuade the target audience through mental triggers. Therefore, to make a good copy, it is vital to consider the following motivations: reciprocity, social approval, affection/affinity, authority, commitment and consistency, and scarcity.

What not to do in copywriting?

Some of the main mistakes are: creating an incoherent text with grammatical errors and poor language, not building a trusting relationship with the public, putting too much information that can confuse the reader, using too much jargon, and talking only about the product’s characteristics/service without highlighting the real benefits it brings to customers.

What is Microcopy?

Microcopy is a small text piece intended to instruct, convince, and alleviate the reader’s concern. In this way, it reduces friction and makes it easier to carry out the expected action. Microcopy is widely used in buttons, forms and instruction fields.

Maybe one letter is for you

June 20, 2021August 17, 2021 Aline Vieira Deixe um comentário

Portuguese Edition

During the beginning of the pandemic, I had to confront myself to deal with my anxiety, fears and traumas. From this experience, my first book was born, available only in Portuguese at moment.
The English version will be released soon on Amazon.

In the book “Maybe one letter is for you”, Aline decided to undress to rebuild her “I” after countless pains experienced.
In this context, the book brings reflections and teachings for the reader to rethink his own life and glimpse a plurality of new beginnings.
Knowing yourself deeply can bring complex traumas to be overcome. However, it is a
necessary process.
The author immerses herself in self-knowledge when she opens “Pandora’s box” to face her ghosts. In addition to exposing himself, he performs an emotional cleansing and deals with their traumas differently: he writes to them.
The themes covered in the letters are common and deal mainly with relationships and inner fears that we carry without realizing them.
The reader has the opportunity to review their concepts concerning people who have gone through their life, re-evaluating new paths. The book makes you feel involved in waiting for a letter and, simultaneously, eager to see the outcome of this emotional cleaning.

Are you curious?
Coming soon.

Protein Balls

March 29, 2021March 29, 2021 Aline Vieira Deixe um comentário

Ingredients:

1 cup dates (pitted // if dry, soak in warm water for 10 minutes, then drain well)
3 Tbsp all-natural salted peanut or almond butter
1/4 cup dairy-free dark chocolate (roughly chopped) or whey protein
2Tbsp coconut
2/3 cup gluten-free rolled oats or almond flour

Instructions
Pulse pitted dates in a food processor or blender until they’re in small pieces or it forms a ball .
Add oats, chocolate, chia seeds and peanut butter and pulse or mix until combined. You want there to be consistently small pieces but not overly processed.
Carefully roll into 1-inch balls (29-30 grams per ball), using the warmth of your hands to mold them together. Should yield 14-15 balls (amount as original recipe is written // adjust if altering batch size).
To set, pop in the fridge or freezer for 15 minutes. Otherwise, eat as is! Will keep fresh in an air-tight bag or container for up to a week. Freeze for longer-term storage.

Marketing Models & Frameworks

February 9, 2021February 7, 2021 Aline Vieira Deixe um comentário

Frameworks are guidelines containing instructions for the execution of your plan. They guarantee that you will deliver the proper content to your customers.

Marketing models by Dave Chaffey :

Race Marketing model: is commercial based on a performance improvement process – it encourages a data-driven marketing approach that defines KPIs that digital marketers should include at each stage for setting targets, reviewing results using analytics and summary dashboards and continuous optimization.

Customer journey map: is a visual representation of the customer journey. It helps you tell the story of your customers’ experiences with your brand across all touchpoints

Digital business model:A digital business model might be defined as a model that leverages digital technologies to improve several aspects of an organization.

SWOT Analysis: SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, and so a SWOT analysis can be used as a tool to assess these four aspects of your business.

Porter’s Five Forces: Porter’s Five Forces Framework, first published in Harvard Business Review in 1979, is a method for analysing competition of a business.

Mckinsey 7’s Models: You can use the 7-S model in a wide variety of situations where it’s useful to examine how the various parts of your organisation work together. For example, it can help you improve your organisation’s performance or determine the best way to implement a proposed strategy. The framework can be used to examine the likely effects of future changes in the organisation. Also, you can apply the Mckinsey 7-S model to elements of a team or a project.

Strategy: This is your organisation’s plan for building and maintaining a competitive advantage over its competitors
Structure: It is about how your company is organised
Systems: daily activities and procedures that staff use to get the job done.
Shared values: these are the core values of the organization, as shown in its corporate culture and general work ethic. When the model was first developed.
Style: the style of leadership adopted
Staff: the employees and their general capabilities
Skills: the actual skills and competencies of the organisation’s employees.

Sostac: is an Acronym for the 6 basic elements of the Marketing plan: Situation, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, Actions and Control.

SOSTAC provides a clear structure, that is simple to remember and to explain to others that covers all the stages needed to create and implement any type of business or marketing plan.

AIDA

AIDA is an acronym that stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. This model describes the customer journey in stages from the moment a consumer first becomes aware of a product or brand through to when they make a purchase decision, this process is called the customer journey,

4 p’s

The 4 P’s of Marketing refer to the 4 key elements compromising the process of Marketing a product or service.

Product
Price
Promotion
Place

The 7’ps of the Marketing mix

The 7 Ps are a set of recognised marketing tactics, which you can use in any combination to satisfy customers in your target market.

Product: This refers to a physical product, a service or an experience.
Place: Where you choose to distribute or allow access to your product or service.
Price: How much does your product or service cost? The price you set should reflect your customer’s perceived value of your product.
Promotion: refers to your advertising, marketing, and sales techniques. This could mean traditional advertising, via TV, radio, billboards, etc., or more modern methods, like ads within web content, ads on a podcast, email marketing or push notifications.
People: Employees. Those people who are involved in selling a product or service, designing it, managing teams, representing customers…
Processes: describes a series of actions that are taken in delivering the product or service to the customer which means assessing aspects such as the sales funnel, your payment systems, distribution procedures and managing customer relationships.
Physical Evidence: evidence that a service or purchase took place and proof or confirmation of the existence of your brand.

The Ansoft Matrix: is a tool used by companies to analyze and plan their strategies for growth. Basically, this matrix shows four strategies that can be used to grow, also analyzes the risks with each strategy.

The four Ansoff Matrix strategies:

Market Penetration
Product Development
Market Development
Diversification

The BCG Matrix: is a framework created by Boston Consulting Group to evaluate the strategic position of the business brand portfolio and its potential. The horizontal axis of the BCG matrix represents the amount of market share of a product and the vertical axis represents the growth rate of a product.

Questions marks: products with high market growth but a low market share
Stars: products with high market growth and a high market share
Dogs: product with low market growth and a low market share.
Cash cows: product with low market growth but a high market share

STP stands for: segment, target and position.

The STP model consists of three steps that help to analyze your offering, also the way that you communicate to specific groups.

Step 1: Segment your market
Step 2: Target your customers
Step 3: Position your offering

This model is useful because it helps you identify your valuable type of customer, develop products and marketing messages that will suit them. Also, this allows you to engage with each customer better.

8 D’s: The 8Ds is a problem-solving approach, aimed at uncovering the root cause of an issue and solving the problem.

Design
Demand
Didactics
Distribution
Duty
Direction
Diary
Dialectic

DRIP

The DRIP model supports the marketing communication plan. It was introduced by Chris Fill in his book “Marketing Communications”. A lot of the articles in this blog are based on that classic read and it is a must for all novice marketers. The DRIP model is very useful for setting broad communications goals. The abbreviation stands for: Differentiate, Reinforce, Inform and Persuade.

The DRIP can be used in a marketing campaign for either new or existing products. Each of the elements needs to be carefully analysed. They need to be clearly communicated to the targeted audience.

The Six Is: describe what makes digital marketing different from traditional marketing, including reaching a global targeted audience.

The Six is standing for :

Intelligence
Interactivity
Individualization
Integration
Independence of location
Industry Restructuring

8 D’s

This framework may help to get over the deficiency communication that has restricted marketing knowledge dissemination. The 8 D’s stands for:

Design
Demand
Didactics
Distribution
Duty
Direction
Diary
Dialectic

Emerging technologies

February 7, 2021February 7, 2021 Aline Vieira Deixe um comentário

New and emerging technologies have the capacity to change our lives. If they are used correctly, they can improve the way we live, work, and do business. If misused, they can create problems ranging from a small disturbance caused by automated software to a large scale security breach.

Rapid developments and adoption of these technologies in the enterprise are contributing to the digital transformation that slowly started some years ago. And so, year after year industry analysts identify the technology trends that will shape and disrupt businesses in the next few years.

Remote work and automation will flourish in 2021, among other interesting trends.

New Technology Trends for 2021

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Edge Computing.
Quantum Computing.
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.
Blockchain.
Internet of Things (IoT)
6G.
Nanotechnology
Omni-Chanel
Cybersecurity
Wearable Technology
Chatbox
Voice

The top three technologies (AI, 5G, and IoT) stayed the same, just changed order. New to the list this year were NLP and quantum computing, replacing 3D printing and drones in the top 10 from last year. Artificial intelligence is certainly going to have an important impact on the near future. Grand View Research projects the AI market will reach almost $391 billion by 2025, while ResearchAndMarkets predicts the AI in IoT devices market will surpass $105 billion in North America alone.

Emerging Technologies in Marketing: What You Must Consider

AR, VR, and chatbots are three of the hottest emerging technologies. Here’s what you must know when incorporating them into your marketing programs.

1. VR for Storytelling

VR is little more than window dressing if it can’t immerse customers in the storytelling experience. Immersive VR has the power to create memories for the viewer that is as real as an actual real-life experience. I’d argue that it has the potential to deliver significant value to customers and some brands are already figuring out exactly what that looks like.

2. Drive Memorable Experiences with AR

AR experiences can improve customer engagement and keep people coming back for fresh content.

Renowned beauty brand Estée Lauder knows this all too well. Leveraging AR, Estée Lauder gives customers the ability to experience a variety of virtual makeup products with no product sample required.

3. Take Engagement to the Next Level with Chatbots

While traditional chat interactions typically take place on brand sites to help facilitate customer service conversations, chatbots can fill needs far beyond customer service.

Chatbots are all about assisting the user – be it queries posed by voice, text or even images – to help them perform general tasks like ordering a pizza or shopping.

References:

https://www.simplilearn.com/top-technology-trends-and-jobs-article

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/emerging-technologies-marketing-what-to-consider/273103/#close

Marketing Management Concepts

January 2, 2021January 2, 2021 Aline Vieira Deixe um comentário

Marketing management is the activity of managing processes, people and marketing strategies in order to generate value for the market and meet organisational goals and objectives. Philip Kotler, in his book Marketing Management: The Millennium Edition says that marketing management is the art and science of choosing target markets, satisfying their needs and building a profitable relationship with them, through analysis, planning, implementation and control. These processes are part of any type of management in the routine of a business, be it business, financial, people management, etc. The difference is that here they are applied to marketing, which covers a multitude of activities aimed at the market.

When we talk about marketing, we immediately think about advertising and product promotion, but the area covers much more than that. Within marketing, there are also market research activities, pricing, product design, distribution strategies, press relations and many others. With so many activities in one area, how do you put all this in order? The marketing manager usually leads marketing management – that organises and aligns all these activities, and the people involved so that they have the best performance in the market and help the company achieve its goals.

Marketing Concepts involves identifying consumer needs and wants, then producing products. There are five marketing concepts :

Production concept : Consumers will favor products that are cheap and available

Product concept : Consumers will favor products that are cheap and available

Selling concept : Consumers will not buy enough of the firm’s unless it undertakes a large-scale selling and promotion effort

Marketing Concepts : Understand consumer’s needs and deliver satisfaction better than competitors

Societal Marketing concept : Deliver value to customers in a way that maintains or improves both the consumer’s and society’s well-being.

Mince Pies

December 15, 2020December 15, 2020 Aline Vieira Deixe um comentário

What you need:

225g/8oz Odlums Cream Plain Flour
125g/4oz Shamrock Golden Caster Sugar
100g packet Shamrock Ground Almonds
125g/4oz Butter or Margarine (room temperature)
1 Egg (beaten)
A little water, if necessary
450g/1lb Jar Mincemeat
Icing sugar

How to:

Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas 6. Lightly grease patty/bun tins.
Put flour, sugar and ground almonds into a mixing bowl and mix well together.
Rub butter/margarine through the dry ingredients. Add the egg and water, if required and mix to a soft dough.
Turn onto a lightly floured board and gently knead.
Cover with cling film and keep in fridge until ready to use. The pastry will keep for about three days.
Roll pastry on a floured board and cut rounds or stars with a cutter to fit greased bun/patty tins. Put a teaspoon of mincemeat in each and cut a lid from remaining pastry to put on top. Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.
Dust with icing sugar.

Freezing Tips:

Pastry: When made wrap in cling film and keep in fridge for up to 3 days.
Uncooked Mince Pies: Wrap the baking bun/patty tin with the uncooked Mince Pies in cling film and freeze. When frozen remove the Mince Pies from the tin and return to the freezer wrapped in a plastic bag. Will keep for up to 6 months
Cooked Mince Pies: These will keep in the freezer up to 3 months wrapped in a plastic bag.

Author: Aline Vieira