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How to Create a Project Plan Cost Budget 

How to Create a Project Plan Cost Budget 

by | Oct 19, 2021 | Digital Marketing

If you are running or thinking about running a project, and you need a project plan, one of the fundamental questions to answer is normally: HOW MUCH will this project cost? 

This means different things to different people. If all the people who work on the project don’t have their hours counted (which you really should by the way), then you may need to just cost up spend outside your business (for example materials, sub-contractors, subscriptions, etc). If you are including hours of the staff worked, and using a day rate to cost this up, you’ll need an estimation of how much effort the project will take in order to create a project budget. 

So, deciding from the above which path to take, you can set about building a project plan, and then you can cost it up. 

Cost can be thought of as either price per day or week for time taken, plus fixed costs (e.g. if the design agency quote a fixed price for a website, or quote a price per day that they spend, you may have very different outcomes). A new laptop will have a fixed cost, a subscription to Adobe Photoshop will be dependent on how long you use it for. 

Producing a cost estimate

In order to produce a cost estimate, you need to summarise the following (representing 7Q – the seven questions to a project plan in this specific order): 

  • WHY are you doing this project – having a focus on this helps decide what needs doing and what is a nice to have for costing purposes 
  • WHAT is it that needs to be achieved (this is the project scope) 
  • WHERE is all this going to be done (location of preparation and delivery can be different places, can affect costs) 
  • HOW are we going to achieve it (this is essentially the plan of work broken down into smaller sections).  
  • WHO is going to do it – different people or companies have different prices. You’ll need to consider availability of people or companies needed. 
  • WHEN is it going to be done? You may think this is the date that your client or boss is asking for, but it is important to work through WHAT, WHERE, HOW & WHO to be able to calculate WHEN (TIME), and see if your answer aligns with the wish list from your boss or client 
  • HOW MUCH (COST) can really only be estimated when the above are known. 

Let me be totally frank here (or even Fred), most project planning and execution failures come down to one of three things: 

  • You don’t deliver WHAT is required 
  • You don’t deliver WHEN it is required 
  • You don’t deliver the WHAT for HOW MUCH it was meant to cost 

What could be going wrong

I have worked and mentored many many project and programme managers on often extremely technical and complex items with many high-risk unknowns and potential hiccups but let me make it simple. 

If you produce a plan that contains the following: 

WHAT we need to do (Scope) 

WHEN we need to do it (time scales) 

HOW MUCH it will cost (budget) 

You are missing key fundamental questions that need answers. 

For example: I am going to: 

WHAT: Build a rocket 

WHEN: Next week 

HOW MUCH: Budget $1000 

What value does this have to anyone? Can it be done? Will it fail? Many project managers feed their clients or boss’ the answers that they’ve been given. Your job as a project manager is to take these inputs, work out the specification for the rocket, then proceed along the 7Q.  

For example, do you understand WHY you need a rocket? If it is to go on display in a museum, this is very different from a manned mission to Mars! 

When you understand WHY you are undertaking the project, you can provide greater detail to WHAT, work out WHERE you will design and build it (for cost planning), then work out HOW you will deliver the project. You need this to then decide WHO is needed for the project, this will have great cost implications. One person may earn 3 x another worker, so going for the highest paid worker may impact your project spend unnecessarily. 

Assuming you have all these nailed, you can calculate WHEN or how long it will take. Remember, you can’t say how long something will take without knowing these, otherwise its a pure guess, not a plan. 

Get costing! 

Now, you have 6 of the 7 questions captured, you are ready to start costing. Don’t start costing before you have estimated or planned the first 6!! 

You are now in a position to simply add all the items up with a cost against each item, and hey presto you have a budget or HOW MUCH the project will cost. 

You can now compare your costs with the client or boss’ request, and see if it lines up with peoples expectations, or see if they are miles apart. 

Next, you iterate, i.e. Go round the loop of 7Q or the seven questions a couple more times to refine your previous estimates.  

Revisit the WHY – challenge all of the assumptions you’ve been given, maybe the WHY for the rocket turns out to be to launch a new GPS satellite, that changes the whole project plan! 


So, you can have a project cost estimate by answering seven questions!!  

Want to learn some more about Fred? Check out his LinkedIn here!

Or check out another one of our blogs, our most recent: 5 Ways to Increase Conversions on Your Site.

5 Ways to Increase Conversions on Your Site 

5 Ways to Increase Conversions on Your Site 

by | Oct 13, 2021 | Digital Marketing

Website conversions are when someone completes a predetermined desired action on your website such as buying a product or signing up to your newsletter.  

The percentage of people who complete this action is your conversion rate, hence the bigger the better!! 

Did you know that the average conversion rate is ONLY 2% and most sites only have a 0.1-0.2% conversion rate? 

That means that you could need 1000 website visitors to create one website conversion, no one is over joyed at the reality of that statistic, are they? 

Improving the conversion rate on your site is crucial to grow your business and turn more of your current visitors into customers.  Keep reading to find out 5 ways to increase conversions on your site . 

Minimise your forms 

Have you ever started filling out a form online but given up due to the amount of required fields? Using unnecessary fields is a sure-fire way to decrease your conversion rate. If all you need is an email and a first name then leave it at that. 

Don’t skip important information though, ensure that you have any needed information but skip fields which will not be of any use. Ask yourself if a field plays a key role, if the answer is no then get rid! 

The less a user has to fill in, the more likely they are to complete the form. 

Add a pop-up 

Pop-ups, when done right, can reach a 9% conversion rate and on average the conversion rate for all pop-ups is 3.09%. 

We have a few tips for creating pop-ups that will increase conversions and not annoy your customers! 

  1. Put a delay timer on the pop-up. A 30 second delay between opening the website and receiving the pop-up can avoid it becoming annoying. 
  1. Make it easy to close. Not everyone wants to interact with a pop-up so ensure that it is easy to close and will remain closed. 
  1. Following that, ensure that the pop-up only appears once per user to make sure that people are not constantly receiving the pop-up as it can become annoying and even cause people to leave the website. 
  1. Try out offers! The first offer you try might not be quite right, try a variety of products, premium content, newsletters, free stuff and PDFs until you find one this really fits in. 

Boost your CTAs 

Let me guess, your calls to action (CTAs) sound a bit like this “Start free trial” and “Sign up now”. Now there is nothing necessarily wrong with these but to get the BEST conversion rates you should look at what people psychologically want to click. 

Starting a CTA with ‘yes’ makes the customer see it in a positive way and creates a psychological desire to click. For example, which would you rather click on: “Claim discount” or “Yes, I want a discount!”. 

Making your CTA look ‘click-able’ and stand out is vital to making people want to click. Try a movement or colour change when the mouse moves over it or a different shape to the rest of the page to make you know it should be CLICKED. 

Add live chat 

Most people need to be completely sure about a purchase before making it, especially if the product/service you are offering is expensive. For some customers this may be a single question that they need answering. 

Live chats are perfect for these situations, by installing a live chat onto your website it can allow customers to have more security with their purchase and quell any worries they may have. It is easy to add to the site and is well worth it for the potential website conversions. 

Create abandoned cart email campaigns 

Do you ever go onto a website, add a product to your cart and either decide not to checkout or just forget to? Everyone does it and that means its sure to be happening on your website too. 

Creating an email campaign to follow up on these abandoned carts ensures you are maximising your chances of website conversions. 

These emails should include a reminder about the products in their carts, and potentially a discount or offer as an incentive to continue their purchase. 

A simple reminder is all it takes for some customers to continue their purchase so don’t miss out on these potential conversions! 

Now that you know 5 ways to increase conversions on your site, it’s time to put this knowledge into practice. Implementing even just one of these can have a positive impact on your conversions, and using multiple is even better. 

If you want to boost your website conversions but still aren’t sure how to or what would be best for your business, click down below to see how we can help. 

Yes, I want to speak to CiT about my conversions (check that out for a CTA!)  

TASKS vs OUTCOMES – Change your life TODAY 

TASKS vs OUTCOMES – Change your life TODAY 

by | Oct 7, 2021 | Digital Marketing

If you sit down first thing in a morning (at work or at home) and say to yourself “What would I like to achieve today or this week?” and write down your answers, I GUARANTEE you will make MASSIVE progress.  

You should note this advice is very different to what many folks will advise. Most people advise you to create TASK lists! WRONG, throw away all of your task lists, burn them (preferably in a sustainable way), and say “Goodbye Task Lists, Hello MASSIVE future“. 

So I wander around the office on a Monday morning and someone proudly shows me their task list for the day, I read through it, “ordering some stuff, doing some expenses, blah blah,” then down near the bottom I find it, “Get back to that customer about our proposal we sent last week”. WTF is this little golden nugget doing wallowing down at the bottom of the task list? Because this lovely person is avoiding the most IMPORTANT items, the things that will really add VALUE to your business! Instead they will focus on menial crap for over half the day rather than making a real difference, and possibly not get round to it at all as other menial crap also finds its way in. 

  

What are tasks? 

TASKS are boring, they are nitty gritty, they don’t see the big picture, it’s way too easy to end up writing down loads of things that “need” doing without really taking you any closer to any of your dreams, goals or outcomes, task lists are a way of avoiding what is most important. 

I remember someone once saying “ok, write down your task list, prioritise it, then throw away the bottom 20%, because you know you’ll never do it”. This was absolutely true, as time went on it was higher, maybe 50% at least.  

The only thing that matters is achieving the OUTCOMES you are aiming for, however, I grew to realise that this approach was all wrong, I needed to start with outcomes. 

If you think of a task and you are afraid of forgetting it, you can write it down, however, put it in a bucket (or a backlog in AGILE project management), and every now and again sift through the bucket to see if anything will make a big difference in achieving your goals.  

You only let yourself sift through the bucket on planned times of the month, not as a distraction. 

  

TASKS lack focus on OUTCOMES.  

If you always focus on outcomes, you will naturally complete the most relevant tasks to achieving that outcome, but you will waste far less time on tasks that do not achieve that outcome. 

So, what are outcomes?  

Ask yourself, WHAT would you like to have achieved at the end of the week? The answers will be much more powerful than the question “What should I do?”. Doing stuff can be a waste of time if it is not aligned to a greater objective, and will see you achieve a load of low value outputs. 

Here’s a table of Tasks vs. Outcomes:  

Tasks Outcomes 
I need to upload new imagery to the site. I want my website to look more modern. 
I need to chase invoices. I need to stabilise my cashflow. 
Check out my marketing analytics. Create strategy for effective marketing plan going forward. 

YES, I agree that we all have menial stuff to do, but do it when you aren’t going to be very productive anyway, like a Friday after lunch or something, and keep the time focussed and short. 

By ditching the task list and focussing on OUTCOMES, you will stop writing down menial tasks that merely help you hide from WHAT YOU NEED TO ACHIEVE.  

No more BS, focus right down on what you need to deliver to add value, and, by the laws of the universe and statistics you WILL, if you do this all the time! 

Death to TASK lists, YES to OUTCOMES. 

Want to learn some more about Fred? Check out his LinkedIn here!

Or check out another one of our blogs: The Top 10 Marketing Tools for Your Business

CiT Monthly Roundup of Marketing News & Updates 

CiT Monthly Roundup of Marketing News & Updates 

by | Oct 1, 2021 | Digital Marketing

Autumn has arrived, say goodbye to the long summer days and hello to crunchy leaves and woolly jumpers! Before we look ahead to Halloween (and Christmas!) we’re looking at the best marketing updates and interesting marketing news from the month of September. 

As you know, social media and Google are CONSTANTLY evolving. There’s a new algorithm change every single week, and it’s important for your business to stay up to date with the latest news and updates to please each social platform and Google.  

Check out our marketing business monthly roundup of the latest news and tips down below. 

Instagram have Spilled Allll the Tea on Hashtags!  

Just 3 months ago, the @creators account shared that their hashtag best practice is to use 8-15 relevant hashtags per post, but just yesterday, they revealed the rules have changed once again.  

Instagram are now recommending just 3-5 hashtags per post in order to boost content’s discoverability. According to Instagram, using 10-20 hashtags will now NOT help in getting additional distribution.  

It looks like hashtags are becoming less important in Instagram’s eyes, with more of a focus on Alt text, and keywords in posts. I mean, when was the last time you searched for a hashtag to find what you were looking for, as opposed to just searching a keyword in the search bar?  

TikTok Has Reached 1 BILLION Active Users 

If social media is a big part of your digital marketing, then you will likely be aware of an app called TikTok. Many people think that TikTok is an app for the younger generation and that including it in their marketing is not worthwhile, however, it is becoming an ever-growing platform for small businesses to reach customers and create sales.  

Are you wondering is TikTok good for business? Keep reading and we’ll tell you why it is. 

Just this week, Tiktok has reached 1 BILLION active users this week!  

“More than 1 billion people around the world now come to #TikTok every month to be entertained as they learn, laugh, or discover something new!” –  TikTok 

The rise of TikTok is not a shocking one – the algorithm makes it easy for ANY user to go viral, even if you have little to no followers.  

This month, TikTok has also revealed a partnership with Shopify and is pilot testing TikTok Shopping which will bring new features to assist businesses in creating content and make it easier for customers to buy their products. 

If you are a small business with a creative streak, there is no better time than now to hop on the TikTok trend, the reach can be astounding and video is quickly becoming one of the best marketing techniques. 

Google are working on Indexing Instagram & TikTok Videos 

Google is seemingly working on deals with Instagram and TikTok to index their video content in search results.  

Currently you are unable to use Google to search for Instagram and TikTok videos. If this deal were to occur, it could bring a large new audience to these platforms who may otherwise not use them. 

This expansion could in turn bring more search queries to Google if users are aware of the larger variety in results. It could also turn Google into a port of call for both articles and videos and can bring more overall opportunities for publishers to be found. 

The information has details from Google of early talks with Facebook and ByteDance who are the respective parent companies of Instagram and TikTok. 

Bringing more platforms and types of media to Google searches could be an amazing opportunity for businesses and lead to new marketing opportunities, how exciting!! 

LinkedIn are shutting down LinkedIn Stories. 

LinkedIn have announced that they are going to be removing LinkedIn Stories by the end of September! 

Liz Li, Senior Director of Product at LinkedIn had this to say on the matter: “We want to embrace mixed media and creative tools of Stories in a consistent way across our platform while working to integrate it more tightly with your professional identity.”  

LinkedIn made this decision due to feedback from users. Users feedback included that they want to create longer lasting videos which could be visible for longer than 24 hours and it also became apparent that users needed some creative tools to help them tell their stories. 

We look forward to seeing how LinkedIn uses this feedback to create a new and improved video feature that we can all benefit from! 

Chatbots 

Did you know that chatbot usage has more than doubled since 2020? A third of all marketers now use a chatbot to interact with customers. 

The pandemic had an effect on the use of automated systems as it increased the requirement for online purchases. 

Do you use a chatbot? More people than ever still prefer making online purchases and therefore increasing your engagement is vital. Automated systems are growing in sophistication and can aid you to provide tailored content to your consumers. 

We hope that this monthly roundup will keep you up to date with all the latest marketing news and updates, check back in next month for our October roundup! 

In the mean time, does your business need a hand keeping up to date? Maybe you’re struggling to keep on track with all of the new marketing changes? We’ve got your back! 

Book in for a discovery call now and our marketing business can help you with all the latest strategies and changes. 

The Top 10 Marketing Tools for Your Business

The Top 10 Marketing Tools for Your Business

by | Sep 24, 2021 | Digital Marketing

When running your own business, having marketing tools to help with your business can save you lots of precious time and often are free or inexpensive! 

As a small business owner, your time is valuable and time spent on your marketing needs to produce results. We understand this and have created a comprehensive list of our top 10 marketing tools for your business to streamline and improve your marketing strategy.  Trust us, we’re a marketing business, this is what we do!

Later 

Social media has come to the forefront of most businesses marketing. Whether you focus on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or something else, using a social media scheduling tool like Later will make posting to social media easier. 

I’m sure you know that keeping on top of your social media posting is vital to promote your business and gain new customers, but it can be time consuming and tedious to post individually on multiple platforms. 

Later allows you to create posts for multiple social media accounts at once and schedule them to come out when you need them. This means instead of posting every day, you can bulk schedule your social media posts which frees up your time to do more important things. 

Ubersuggest 

Ubersuggest is a free to use tool which assists in keyword idea generation and aids in search engine optimisation (SEO). You can also pay for it which unlocks more useful analytics and allows you to search for keywords without a limit. 

You can use ubersuggest to analyse your competitors and see what keywords they rank for. This allows you to see what is working for them so that you can adopt your strategy accordingly. 

A useful feature of ubersuggest is the ability to analyse your websites SEO as it can tell you any SEO issues which need fixing such as headings and meta descriptions. 

AnswerThePublic 

Do you ever want to create a blog post but don’t know what to write about? Or not know what questions people REALLY want the answers to? 

AnswerThePublic is a free online tool where you input a keyword and it will tell you the most common questions searched in relation to this keyword.  

This is useful to understand your audience and create content that will appeal to them, no one wants to waste time creating a blog that no one wants to see.  

Canva 

Images can make or break your social media. Customers are automatically drawn to eye catching and visually appealing posts. 

Canva is a tool which allows you to create stunning posts simply and quickly, even if you don’t have a creative eye! 

By using their premade templates all you need to do is add in your own text and images. Consider picking a select few colours to tie your marketing together and use these in your images.  

Get creative and try new fonts, make your own templates and enjoy the new cohesive look on your feed. Canva is free to use but can be paid for to unlock ‘pro’ templates and other upgrades. 

Trello 

If you have a small business, organising tasks may feel overwhelming and can often leave people sat twiddling their thumbs if they don’t know what to do next.  

Trello allows you to make “boards” and add lists to them. In these lists you can include projects and tasks and ‘add’ people so that everyone knows who is assigned to a task. You can also set due dates, attach files and set reminders for tasks. 

Using an organisational tool like Trello will boost productivity, streamline your work schedule and avoid confusion between colleagues over what needs doing. 

Grammarly 

If you haven’t seen adverts for Grammarly I’ll be shocked.  

Grammarly is (you guessed it) a grammar tool which can help you with emails, blogs, social media posts, and more by checking your spelling and grammar. It is a free tool which can be installed in your browser to automatically scan your writing and show suggestions to make it better.  

This is a great tool for people who struggle with writing as it can provide them with confidence and allow for independence when creating work whilst giving you peace of mind that all work is up to scratch. 

Google Analytics 

We couldn’t write this list without mentioning good old Google.  

Google Analytics can give you a deep insight into your business and your website. You can use it to see how many people have visited your website, what pages they are looking at, and how long they are spending on each page amongst several other things. 

You can even see it in real time! See how many people are on your page at this exact moment. 

Google analytics is useful to see how well you marketing is working, if you record and keep track of your analytics you should be able to see a trend and hopefully notice it rise. If you notice your analytics going down, then you may need to investigate why that is. 

Mailerlite 

Email marketing is still alive and kicking, don’t underestimate the reach of an email campaign.  

Mailerlite is an easy email marketing tool which features drag and drop email editing and is very simple to use so don’t be scared! You can upload contact information from your computer and even separate it into groups for different campaigns. This is useful if your business is trying to market to demographics and doesn’t want to include everyone in the same campaign. 

Textmagic 

If your business is wanting to make the most out of texts then Textmagic is the tool for you. 

Textmagic is a messaging tool which allows you to send messages from your computer to your customers. It is useful if you are intending on sending reminder messages, promotional texts or for ease of contact with your customers. 

Messaging customers can benefit and your customers as it allows for conversation from both parties with ease.  

Toggl 

Whether you have a team or you are working alone, keeping track of your time is vital to understand what you are spending the most time on, it might shock you! 

Toggl is a time tracking tool which allows you to track your activities and record them. This is useful for you to see what aspects of your business is taking the most of your time, and it is also interesting to have your employees record their daily activities.  

Seeing what your employees spend their time on can allow you to pick up on any issues and streamline long processes. Recording activities is simple on Toggl and does not eat into your working day. 

These are our top 10 marketing tools for your business that can be added to your marketing strategy and improve your business.

If you like the sound of these tools but are unsure of how to use them and want someone else to help with your marketing, book a discovery call with us now to see how our marketing business can help you. 

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