Business Process Management System

As a search engine optimisation specialist, you are more often than not tasked with improving the rankings of an existing website – essentially working with what you have been given. But implementing SEO web development from the very beginning of a site build will ensure it launches with many of the necessary elements in place.

It is your chance to have some influence from the ground up, and help fully integrate SEO web development best practices – but this doesn’t have to mean sacrificing a nice design. Web developers and SEO consultants can work together to deliver a website that fires on all cylinders.

Guidelines For Effective SEO Web Development

Essentially, good SEO web development involves carefully considering the information architecture and the overall design, to assist the build of a site that looks good, but is easily found by the search engines. The best practice rules of good search engine optimisation do change, but the following few guidelines are a good place to start.

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Create clean, valid code – search engines appear to prefer code that is simpler and more semantically defined and in accordance with W3C standards.

Avoid duplicating content – you should not have duplicate content on multiple domains, or within the same website. If you have different versions of a URL to incorporate different global markets, they should re-direct to a main domain.

Avoid splash pages like the plague – yes they look great (sometimes) but they effectively block search engine spiders and are not good SEO practice. If a web developer or client is keen to put one in place, you should strongly recommend they don’t and that they exercise their creative muscles elsewhere on the site.

Don’t be lazy about alt tags for images – if images are described well, it tells the search engine more about the content of the website and all images should have alt tags, including logos. It’s also accessibility best practice, as it’s not great if site readers can only state ‘image 1′ ‘image 2′ and so on.

Header tags are a vital part of SEO web development, and should be used appropriately on each page of the site – the most important keywords should be used in a ‘h1′ tag. However, the titles should not be stuffed with keywords as this is considered bad practice – they should be clear, well written and precise.

Building A Search Engine Friendly Site

The importance of building a search engine friendly site is clear, as many web users fail to look past even the first page of results – we live in an impatient world. An SEO professional can ‘fix’ a site that isn’t achieving great rankings in the search engines, but a far better option is to get involved at the grass roots level of a development and really have an influence.

Harvey is passionate about getting you the best search enginge optimisation advice possible.
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It used to be that marketing was approached introspectively, focusing solely on what the organization produced or delivered. Today successful organizations focus on understanding markets, consumers, and other external factors that shed a whole new light into the organization.

With the advancement of technology and communication mediums in marketing, with the large amounts of data we are now able to collect, and the evolving science of evaluating marketing performance, marketing has transformed into the most valuable tool for many fast growing businesses.

With tightening budgets, and the need for fiscal accountability on funds dedicated to projects and services, marketing measurement has yielded considerable revenue gains for those organizations that have taken advantage of this powerful practice.

According to a recent survey of over 400 organizations, those who have embraced and implemented performance management marketing techniques into their decision-making process not only have experienced greater impact on revenue, but also tend to be leaders in their respective markets. Despite this parallel, most companies fail to take advantage of this practice.

So why is it important to measure marketing performance? Because it enables your organization to measure, understand, and continuously improve your marketing efforts. And over time, with continuous marketing performance improvements, your organization will become a leader in your market, translating performance data in ways your competitors haven’t begun to think about. Here are five best practices for implementing a marketing performance management system that drives high growth and simplifies decision making.

1. Gain Senior Level Buy-In

It is critical that senior level management and executives buy into a marketing strategy for performance. Studies have shown that senior level management that places value in leveraging marketing performance data into overall strategy increase their organization’s chances for success. Compound this with strong marketing leadership that is able to translate the marketing strategy into action and these organizations are often able to quantify extraordinary results through marketing performance management. In a recent survey by CMG Partners, 71% of companies that are successful in marketing performance management also reported having strong senior level buy-in. Despite these convincing numbers, most did not have marketing performance management processes in place.

2. Align Performance to Business Objectives and Strategic Goals

Just as it is important for organizations to align their information technology systems to their overall strategy, it is equally important to align your marketing into your strategy. With strategic alignment, organizations can identify which marketing strategies are successful and better understand the impact in which these strategies play into organizational objectives. Companies that excel at implementing marketing performance management strategies align their marketing strategies and measures with organizational objectives and goals.

3. Target Investments Based on Marketing Analysis

Making targeted investments in people, technology and data systems is essential to implementing a marketing performance management system that drives growth and improves decision making. Like measuring performance in other areas of the organization, the science in effectively applying marketing performance management is being able to filter out which measures are key to organizational growth among the many metrics that are out there. But in order to get the key data that drives these decisions we must first have systems in place that are capable of gathering and analyzing the data. For the many organizations that do not have these systems in place, a starting point may be to train or hire staff with the skill sets to implement an effective performance management system and develop a plan for sharing this knowledge throughout the organization.

4. Develop a Processes For Analyzing Marketing Performance and Taking Action

Just as processes and process improvement is essential to a growing organization in a rapidly changing market, implementing and managing a process for gathering, reporting and analyzing marketing performance data is essential for driving organizational growth and leveraging marketing data. When developing the processes it helps to ask the following questions “are we gathering the right information?”, “are we analyzing the information completely?”, “what strategies are working and why?”, “how can we leverage these strategies that are working?” The most important thing is making sure that your organization is taking action on the information it currently is able to provide. I know of many organizations that have very few systems implemented, that are using marketing performance information to increase sales and sustain growth.

5. Leverage Marketing Performance Enterprise-wide

As your organization applies marketing performance management best practices and processes and begins to excel at collecting and analyzing marketing data and applying action you can extend these efforts to other areas within the organization so that you can be strong at marketing in all aspects of your organization. The majority of companies that excel with their marketing performance practices are leveraging the insights and implications beyond the marketing function. This includes improving cross-functional alignment and results in improved decision making, budgeting, and planning. In addition, many organizations are using their measures to improve the customer experience across numerous functional areas.

Since many small businesses start online, they may begin focusing on online marketing, where you maximize profits in areas that provide strong returns, measuring such things as brand perception, downloads, content preference, promotion interest, etc. Then, as that business grows they may want to extend marketing performance management to macro level metrics, such as campaign effectiveness, customer satisfaction, market share, etc. As the organization becomes savvier at analyzing marketing performance data they may extend their focus to micro level, or action-level metrics such as task completion, marketing efficiency, process performance, decision accuracy, etc. Look for future articles describing in detail the metrics associated with marketing performance.

Victor Holman is a performance management expert who provides fast, simple and inexpensive ways to transform organizational performance.

Check out his FREE performance management kit, which includes several templates, plans, and guides to help you get started with your next initiative.

Victor’s Complete Lifecycle Performance Management Kit is a turnkey organizational performance management solution consisting of a web based organizational performance analysis, 7 guides, 39 templates, 600+ metrics, 35 best practices, 48 key processes, a performance roadmap and more.

Learn all about performance management at The Performance Portal
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ERP implementation best practice is centered on the intelligent planning and strategies adopted by an organization before the implementation of a new system. It is needless to elaborate the benefits and essentiality of ERP in an organization, but ERP implementation best practices should be followed strictly in order to succeed in its implementation. Many a times, it has been observed that many organizations face a debacle in implementation or the ERP fails to deliver the expected outcome. This results primarily due to wrong software selection or expecting high returns from the ERP. Organizations implementing ERP have to wait for sometime for the expected ROI as it takes more than one year for every organization to utilize ERP to the best possible limits. Sometimes the time taken and cost of implementation may run beyond estimation producing unexpectedly low returns.

Some of the best practices of ERP implementation can be summarized as:

1. ERP implementation requires intelligent planning and organizations opting for it should devote 4-5 months time in proper planning and budgeting. They should test all the features of the new system like customizations, business processes including the security measures.

2. The organizations should study carefully about their requirements and set clearly defined targets. They should spend time in analyzing the software and its functions and maintain clear communication with the vendors in every step of implementation and operation.

3. A team of experts having sound technical background should be hired to monitor each and every step of ERP implementation. The team should ensure proper functioning and credibility of every process.

4. Proper distribution of resources among the team members and employees is another important step in implementation led by an efficient project manager.

5. The organization should select the critical business process and specify the requirements to the ERP vendor. Priorities must be specified, and the product should ensure accuracy of the specified business processes. The organization must be ready to adopt technological advancements and new strategies.

6. In order to achieve the expected ROI, the organization should be aware of the costs and the main functional areas. The organization should carefully estimate the hidden cost and maintenance cost of ERP implementation.

7. Proper training of the in-house staff is absolutely necessary for ERP implementation. The organization should select the best staff and hire expert consultants from outside to acquaint them with the new system.

8. The organization should be efficient in sorting data during data migration. This is an important step in ERP implementation, and efficient data management is required to sort out the necessary and unnecessary data.

9. A risk management team should be formed to detect the loopholes in ERP implementation in order to avoid major disaster in the future. In case of any trouble, this team must act promptly to solve the crisis.

Find the list of top ERP Vendors and choose the right ERP vendor. Also know SAP HR Module. Read information about Disadvantages of ERP.
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Disasters and other business disruptions are not uncommon, unfortunately, and most managers are surprised by this. Fires, tornados, earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes are frequent events throughout parts of the US and beyond – and these are just the naturally occurring events. Add to these human errors, accidents, and power outages and the likelihood for a business related disaster is fairly high.

A Gartner report suggests that 40% of small and medium-sized organizations that cannot retrieve data lost in a disaster within 24 hours will eventually close. The US National Fire Protection Agency reported that 43% of companies that suffer a fire never resume business.

Many industry-mandated and regulatory best practices today require a written business continuity (BC) or disaster recovery (DR) plan. Even industries that do not have restrictive regulations in place can realize significant customer loss after a disaster. In short, a well thought out disaster recovery plan can make or break the success of a company facing a disaster, and more importantly the plan needs to be updated and tested regularly.

Disaster recovery is not necessarily a daunting task, but rather involves relatively simple and inexpensive technologies. These technology solutions are widely available, reasonably priced, and fairly well known, and include:

An assortment of cloud-based and managed-service options
Low-cost virtual tape libraries or disk-to-disk solutions
Communication solutions encompassing Wi-Fi, smartphones, social networks, cellular and shared online environments

While simple in nature, a good disaster recovery plan does require proper preparation and ongoing maintenance to ensure success. Since disasters by nature are unexpected, the technology needs to be ready and updated, tested. And, the disaster recovery plan needs to have the full commitment of the entire organization – especially senior management.

With the proper time and preparation, you can rest more comfortably knowing that you have the right people, data, and plans. These six best practices should help in that endeavor:

Get a thorough business impact assessment
Source qualified disaster recovery and/or business continuity planners and project managers
Invest the appropriate time, money and resources, which will vary depending on your business model and vertical
Plan for alternate lines of communication
Test often and thoroughly and make changes as needed
Keep your plans accurate, current and using the best technologies your budget can provide

Today, almost every organization is dependent on computerized information systems – for better or worse – for electronic data management and commerce. While streamlining business processes, it has also created huge liability for companies that are unprepared for a disaster. Don’t risk it!

Dive into greater detail on the 6 disaster recovery best practices, and start preparing your organization.

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Lead nurturing is a concept that has gained immense popularity amongst marketers in the recent past. Until then it was the same old story of passing the buck –the marketing automation passing the leads, irrespective of their readiness, to sales team who followed-up hot leads leaving the rest to gather dust. Neither the sales team nor the marketing team was making any constructive effort to turn the leads into sales.

The sales and marketing teams are the lifeblood of any organization, and therefore their working together as a team is essential for business growth. This realization led to the emergence of a new business process called Lead Nurturing.

What is Lead Nurturing?

As more and more leads started slipping through the fingers of the sales team, enterprises and organizations gathered their wits and decided to implement a method that guaranteed more sales and conversions. Lead nurturing is the process of developing a positive long-term relationship with leads/prospects through meaningful dialogue, and then tracking their development into sales opportunities.

Lead nurturing, as the name implies, is the practice of nurturing raw leads till they become sales-ready. And this process led to the revamping of the relationship that was shared by the sales and marketing teams. The lack of interaction, which was the root cause of all the problems, was nipped in the bud and more collaborative efforts were made possible.

In this process, marketers categorize leads based on their sales readiness and pass on to the sales team, only those leads that are ready to purchase. And the prospects that are not ready are nurtured to create interest in the products or services offered. The sales team on the other hand, makes great progress as they have only hot leads to follow-up on, and if any hot lead turns warm, it is directed back to the marketing team to be nurtured. Thus, with lead nurturing, enterprises can ensure maximum sales success.

Lead Nurturing Best Practices

Having understood the significance of lead nurturing in the B2B marketing world, let us also take a look at some of the best practices in lead nurtiring that can bring about the desired results.

Understand Prospect’s Interest Level

When developing nurturing campaigns, ensure that you are well aware of your prospects’ likes and dislikes.

Have Meaningful Interactions

Ensure that your interaction with prospects is useful to them.

Avoid Sending Generic Content

Since each prospect is unique, never send generic content to all the prospects. Instead, develop content that matches the role or industry of prospects.

Timing

Timing is a crucial factor in the lead nurturing process. It is always necessary to strike a balance between under and over-interaction. The best option would be to ask the prospects about their preferences i.e. to let them decide how often they should be contacted.

Different Storyline

Adopt a different storyline for your communication during different stages of the buying cycle. This helps in achieving better results.

When Developing Emails

Ensure that the content developed is brief and to the point. However, it must focus on one topic and must necessarily include one call-to-action.

The secret of effectively carrying out the lead nurturing process is to think from the perspective of prospects. This coupled with lead nurturing best practices can help marketers achieve better results and improve ROI.

Know more on - lead nurturing programs
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Some folks collect vintage wines or baseball cards. Others take up bowling.

If you follow my writing you’ll know that I’m constantly refining my negotiation skills. It doesn’t matter to me very much where I find myself, if I’m buying or selling, I’m also a student of the bargaining game.

In fact, “Bargainer” is my handle on Twitter, if that tells you something.

And I teach the “Best Practices In Negotiation” courses at U.C. Berkeley and UCLA Extension, so I try to be ever alert to great gambits.

As I was sitting in my car while the air conditioning system was being tested, about thirty yards from some quite busy railroad tracks, I saw a fellow walk up to the mechanic.

“I’d like to buy some boxes from you, if I might” he said with a smile.

“Okay,” the veteran tradesman replied. “Take your pick,” he volunteered, pointing to a pile by the shed.

Riffling through boxes, the visitor settled on one or two and asked the boss for some help in reassembling them, because he needed to ship something at the post office.

“But I don’t want to take you away from anything,” he added, noting the elevated hood of my car, and no doubt me, my nose buried in a Wayne Dyer book at the steering wheel.

“No problem,” and with that, the mechanic stapled the edges of the boxes.

Then, the visitor asked, “What do I owe you?”

“Ah, nothing,” was the reply.

“No, your help is worth something. Maybe a beer next time.”

“Fair enough,” and the transaction was over. No money changed hands.

And both parties seemed pleased, which is a little odd when you consider that the boxes and the labor it took to assemble them, do have some value.

I believe the visitor was a very adept communicator that wanted free boxes from the very beginning. Had he asked for them as an outright gift, he might have been rejected.

But offering to buy them made him seem like a stand-up guy, and it disarmed and charmed the mechanic. Then, consistent with this offer, before departing he asked “What do I owe you?”

I believe he expected to be told, “Nothing,” because by making the initial and then repeated offer to pay, he induced the mechanic to return the favor by donating the items, and his labor to the fellow.

In other words, a DONATIVE atmosphere was established in a commercial environment. I believe the mechanic justified his act by telling himself that he was doing this kind deed as an investment in good will, and he’d be repaid either by the visitor or by one of his friends that needs repairs.

Plus, he’s not really in the box or stapling business, so how would he even begin to price what he did?

There is an unwritten communication rule that I’d like to tease out. It goes something like this:

If you want something for free, whatever you do, don’t make it seem you expect to receive it as an outright gift. If you do that, it will seem you’re asserting an entitlement, and that tactic will be rejected.

Instead, volunteer to pay something up front, but don’t specify an amount. Seem grateful as the item or service or gesture is conveyed. Then, when you have what you want, ask: “What do I owe you?”

This sequence will trigger a gift-giving impulse in the assistance provider, and it’s quite probable you won’t have to pay. If you do, it’s likely you’ll be charged less than a “market” rate

It’s just possible that seeming grateful for the value tendered is a sufficient reward, so when you top that with an explicit offer to pay, the other party’s emotional cup “runneth over” and he feels he doesn’t need the money.

He has already been paid, in gratitude.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman has helped countless people to grow rich, based on his original ideas, techniques, and advice. Careers have been made. Organizations have soared and sold for record prices. The best in every category have gotten better, through his input.

He is the creator of “Best Practices in Negotiation,” a successful course that he conducts at U.C. Berkeley and UCLA Extension, and on a custom basis, for corporations and organizations, worldwide. The best-selling author of 12 conventional books, his newest title is his Ebook: DR. GARY S. GOODMAN’S 77 BEST PRACTICES IN NEGOTIATION, available here: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ean=2940012152855

An internationally applauded thought leader and practitioner in sales, telemarketing, negotiation, and customer satisfaction, Gary’s training programs have been sponsored by 40 universities, major trade and professional associations, and by Fortune 1000 corporations. He can be contacted about professional speaking and consulting engagements at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman has helped countless people to grow rich, based on his original ideas, techniques, and advice. Careers have been made. Organizations have soared and sold for record prices. The best in every category have gotten better, through his input.He is the creator of “Best Practices in Negotiation,” a successful course that he conducts at U.C. Berkeley and UCLA Extension, and on a custom basis, for corporations and organizations, worldwide. The best-selling author of 12 conventional books, his newest title is his Ebook: DR. GARY S. GOODMAN’S 77 BEST PRACTICES IN NEGOTIATION, available here: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ean=2940012152855An internationally applauded thought leader and practitioner in sales, telemarketing, negotiation, and customer satisfaction, Gary’s training programs have been sponsored by 40 universities, major trade and professional associations, and by Fortune 1000 corporations. He can be contacted about professional speaking and consulting engagements at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.
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