The factors and variables causing self-serving bias are:

1.  Motivation

There are two types of motivation: self-enhancement and self-presentation. Self-enhancement upholds own self-worth and credits successes internally and failures externally, whereas self-presentation is an act done to manage impressions.

Self-serving bias caused by self-enhancement can be conveyed to the uninitiated via this analogy: If in a school, a kid’s performance becomes considerably low or poor, such as the kid failing in a number of subjects, the doting parents put the blame on the school’s administration or facilities by branding them ill-equipped. They refuse to believe that their child lacks cognitive abilities, which in most cases, is the right direction to put their efforts in, in order to make the most out of their school’s services and resources.

Instead, they keep changing the schools in the hope of their child excelling in studies and the real problem hampering the intellectual development of their child is left unattended. This is a cause for grave concern and it compromises on the holistic development of the child too.

2.  Locus of control-

There are external and internal loci of control. In internal locus of control, individuals believe that they have complete personal control over situations and that their actions matter. Those with an external locus of control believe that outside forces, chance and luck determine the outcome and they don’t have a say in anything.

The best example of self-serving bias caused by internal locus of control is the one that follows: The US Government is the best example of how an administration exhibiting signs of believing too much in its staff and turning a blind eye to the areas that need improvement and attention, can affect the end result. This also showcased the perils of underestimation.

The US military establishment made nearly a score and a half attempts to assassinate the Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro, but never succeeded in this operation. This happened as the administration developed a kind of complication by overtly and profusely justifying itself in overthrowing the leadership in Cuba. They were led to believe that they were fighting the bad guys and were blinded too much to keep an eye on the areas that needed improvement and were lacking. They underestimated the military capabilities of Cuba and were running in blind to attack them. This was a result of the above mentioned complex of profusely justifying itself.

This operation left an irreparable dent on the reputation of the establishment and a lot of lessons to be learnt from the glaring mistakes. It still is used as a case study of what not to be done in the successful management of a large company. As they failed miserably in a number of attempts, this example is of utmost importance to your deemed business, in your quest for the right prerequisites for success.

How companies can be affected by self-serving bias?

Self-serving bias needs to be avoided in order to make way for the success of your deemed business, as the imperfections within your business are overlooked and this surely poses great risks to your business. Companies adhering to this bias can result in sluggish growth or arrested development in their success graph, which if avoided, can keep it from posting great losses to their businesses, which otherwise, can exhibit promising growth.

Clearly, this is detrimental to the growth of your business and is worth every bit of your money to be looked into. After all, the huge capital that you have invested in your business is very dear to you and you should strive very hard in order to achieve the goal of making your business a success. A prosperous business is worth every bit of your penny and the tireless efforts you have reined in to make it a successful one should be brought to fruition.

The success of this model of marketing strategy is solely dependent on full and optimal utilization of the social media platform. The setbacks suffered otherwise, are listed in full detail in the course of this article’s subsequent paragraphs. These should be considered a taboo in your model of the inbound marketing strategy.

Mistakes to avoid

1. Haphazard plans

Don’t rely on poorly laid-out plans and bite only what you can chew. Gauge the resources at your disposal and plan with a keen foresight to utilize them effectively.

2. Negative comments and feedback

Don’t ignore negative comments and feedback. Sometimes, these harried opinions can be a silent precursor of an impending carnage, threatening the very popularity of your deemed business. Discern between misguided, malicious, insulting comments (these are common on social media pages) and those that are constructive criticisms levied against you with best intentions in mind.

3.  Keep your audience informed

Avoid posting objectionable content that does not augur well for your business. Keep your followers constantly updated on a lot of happenings, be it the opening of your stores or branches in particular areas, recent changes in the designs of your products, new products added, changed specifications and features, details of acquisitions if you are expanding horizons, if any warm memories you conjure up from your historic past such as your founders or ancestors of your loyal partners, ‘this day that year’ type of posts and so on.

4. Discourage bad behavior

Don’t encourage groupism, racism, sexism or rude behavior. In case you are hurtful to others sentiments by being outspoken, do not be indifferent. Be quick to respond. Try to laugh it off using a bit of humor. This can soothe ruffled feathers and alleviate tensions in a situation that could have otherwise blown out of proportion, amid a heightened sense of drama.

5. Do not overwhelm your followers with posts

Don’t post material constantly and flood your followers’ feed with a deluge of posts and thus alienate them. An average brand shares about 22 posts per day. If you post constantly, your followers cannot cope up with your posts and in the welling up of information, certain important posts may lose your clients’ attention. This surely, from his side, will be a problem of plenty.

6. Avoid neglecting your followers

Don’t neglect your followers and avoid a tendency to keep them in awe of you. Having interactive sessions with your followers can forge strong ties with them. Start with questions that can send a message to them that you are making an effort to know them. Get acquainted with their background, occupations, life, city and other credentials. Though it is not mandatory to have these sessions daily, try to include them in your schedule and make it a point to communicate with them at least once a week or on a fortnightly basis.

7. Stop being nonchalant

Be consistent with the brand image that you prefer on these sites. Here is an example of an amicable, pro government and philanthropic brand image: By way of your posts, you can dissuade your followers from engaging in riots resulting from a rage on part of the government’s atrocities, negligence, corruption and the like and maintain calm in the society. You can also urge them to desist from supporting illegal, incriminating and anti-government organizations such as WikiLeaks.

8. Stop being annoying

Don’t bug leads by pestering them into buying your products through using their personal information. Do it only with valuable lead prospects, arrived at by lead nurturing strategies.

9. Don’t neglect analytics

Don’t neglect analytics that you have collected. You will be at a loss of devising new and effective strategies to lure customers.

10. Avoid using terrible websites

Avoid using defunct and outdated websites, as they can falter in capturing qualified leads.

By avoiding these mistakes, you are bound to make great strides in your marketing endeavor, though improvisation and adaptability are key to success in any marketing strategy.

While working in Sydney as a Software Developer about 12 years ago, I came across Yoga and stress management techniques. Getting exposed to those techniques was a life changing experience for me. Yoga benefited me physically, mentally and emotionally, which created a lot of difference in my personal and professional life.

Stress is quite a common thing for all of us who are a part of the corporate sector. This silent killer, if not controlled at proper time, can lead to depression and other physical ailments like acidity, diabetes, hypertension, heart and skin diseases and etc. Eliminating the causes of stress is an impossible thing to do. The more we try to avoid the factors, the more frustrated we become and hence, increase our stress level further. So, let’s learn how to immune ourselves to these situations and environment to control stress; and Yoga is very good at managing stress. However, there are certain other effective stress management techniques as well. Let me discuss one by one:

Yoga

After getting benefited, I got more and more involved in Yoga and learned different forms of Yoga like Therapeutic Yoga at the World Yoga Society. I feel Yoga and stress management techniques help me perform my job role better. Let me explain how.

• Yoga considerably boosts my confidence and brings clarity in identifying what I want from my personal as well as professional life.
• Think about those situations where we, as managers, need to decide on some critical issues. We often tend to lose patience while doing so. Practising Yoga has helped me keep myself relaxed even in the most stressful situations which in turn helped me immensely in taking correct decisions.
• Doing Yoga regularly resulted in the clarification of my thought process. Now, with improvised problem solving ability, I can analyze problems from different perspectives and solve them in a better manner.
• Learning Yoga helped me connect more with my team members at a deeper level. As a result, I could build the element of mutual trust with my team members. After all, corporate sector necessitates building a good team and creating an excellent work environment. This makes the team members feel more relaxed and perform well.

Now, our busy schedule often doesn’t allow us to join Yoga classes. No worries! We can always try few basic techniques on our own.

Changing behavioural pattern

Making minor adjustments to our behavioural pattern can actually help us get rid of about 70 to 80% of our daily stress. All what we need to do is learn how to flush the stress out of our body, and most importantly, our mind.

Slow and deep breathing

It’s so simple; all what it necessitates is inhaling through nostrils in the count of 5 and exhaling out through the same in the count of 5.

Progressive muscular relaxation

PMR (Progressive Muscular Relaxation) technique is great at reducing overall body tension.

To know more about different stress busters, feel free to get in touch with me. I would be happy to help you manage your stress in a positive manner.

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This Article is part of the employee experience sharing & content contribution initiative for Indus Net Technologies’ Blog site

Content Credit : Amit Kumar Shaha

These tips are handpicked from a collection of bankable options to suit your campaigning needs.

1.  Weigh your options among various PPC models

With the introduction of more channels like mobiles and handheld devices, there are a number of models available in the markets, which are an improvisation of PPC marketing. Pay Per Action (PPA) is also a reliable model for the advertiser based on the business objectives of driving users to the site and gaining conversions. CPM-based model is another entrant to this new category of improvised approach to PPC marketing and is more effective from a branding perspective.

For these models, it is advisable to gauge the worth of each conversion with a focus on the end goal, the worth of each visitor and the amount you end up paying per thousand impressions.

2.  Have a bit of foresight

Traffic is not an end goal. Devise a plan with clear goals and objectives in mind: What is it that your PPC campaign needs to do to attain the desirable objectives? What are the key performance indicators you can use for the measurement of the plan? What are the key metrics that are helpful in gauging the performance?

The goal of your PPC campaigns should be the materialization of the clicks into conversions. During the course of the campaign you can realize that measuring the effect of the PPC campaign on the business objectives is critical to improving ROI, and not performance metrics.

3.  Measure and track

Be sure to measure your key performance indicators through your analytics tracking. Use keyword-level ROI to curb expenses and focus on them. This can accurately measure the effect of each keyword on the business by merging data from several sources.

4.  Optimize the conversion path

The traditional thought is that the conversion path starts with the user being directed to the landing page, when, factually it starts the moment the user interacts with your ad on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

All of the tactics you use (including ad copy, targeting, landing page managing and the subsequent site conversion path) must be dictated by the end goal. Messaging and offers should pitch a consistent effort to gain conversion and nurture the lead into a prospect for the sales department. The conversion path should answer all the queries in the user’s mind to facilitate him in his decision of purchasing the product or not.

5.  Test each piece of information you reveal

The key to a successful test strategy lies in achieving the right balance between the size of the test and the size of the account. The larger the test, the longer is the testing process to gain statistically relevant data. Irrespective of the size of the test, budgeting the necessary time is as important as budgeting the media spend.

6.  Get over behavioral targeting and explore other options

No doubt, behavioral targeting produces effective results in PPC marketing, but there are other well laid out options too such as geo-targeting, day-parting and demographic targeting.

For example, as the name suggests, geo-targeting helps you to cater to your users of a specific region or location. To illustrate, selling skiing gear in Florida wouldn’t be rewarding, but selling air conditioners would be.

7.  Vouch for vertical search engines

Vertical search engines are most suitable for your small business as they present an effective method of lowering cost per click and improving overall quality of traffic. Their services fit in a limited budget.

8.  Try to take a peek into your prospective user’s life to understand them better

Analysis on keywords leads you to torso keywords as the best option suitable to your business needs. This options fares well with the cost criterion in this campaign but has comparatively lower search volume than long tail keywords.

9.  Quality score is merely an indicator and not a destination

A poor one indicates that you look into your ad copy, landing pages and keywords, or reassign ad groups in an effort to adjust it.

10.  Measure and keep a tab on cost per conversion and not on cost per click.

Being the vast subject that effectively managing a PPC campaign is, these are the most useful tips that can be included in this article to acquaint you with, so that you can utilize them and be assured of a smooth and successful campaign.

Web Copy: It is that part of the website that persuades you to take action. For e.g.; “Like us @” “Leave a Comment with” or “Subscribe Now”. It is that part of the site which makes us feel as though we are having a conversation with the organization, telling us to do things and giving us suggestions. A lot many times, Web Copy subtly answers questions that we have in mind. For e.g. if we are wondering whom we can contact, we come across a message saying ‘mail us @’ or ‘you can talk to X, Y & Z’ for further queries. Making these texts catchy and placing them right is the science behind crafting a Web Copy.

Web Content: All the information about the organization that is available on the website makes up for the Web Content.  Right from the page that talks about the organization leading all the way to describing the effectiveness of the after sales service, comprise the Web Content. When we say information, it is not just random figures and jargons about the company, information should be persuasive, appealing and captivating for the viewer. While being all this, content should not be too pushy or either boastful resulting in viewer’s repulsion.

Differences Between Web Copy and Content

• The stark difference between content and copy is that while copy is almost always suggesting for some action, content gives out information that the viewer is looking for
• Web Content comprises of:  Information about the Company, Media, Press Clips, Videos, Product Descriptions, Executive Summary
• Web Copy comprises of:  On-Page Text, Blog Sites, Social Media Posts, Advanced Content (white papers, eBooks, guides)
• Copy has rules it needs to follow in terms of grammar and language
• Content has no boundaries, it can be tweaked to fit in varieties of uses
• Even though both of them at the end show great amount of correlation leading to increase in sales, Web Copy is what gives the organisation leads or sales while Web Content helps the viewer know everything he requires to know about the product familiarizing him to the brand

What they are both capable of doing when put together

Each brand, organization or institution has an exclusive mission, vision and goal. Most organizations would have developed their own culture defined through images and words which furthermore defines the organization and its offerings on the whole. When Web Copy unites with Web Content the brand is able to define its offerings in a more comprehensive and appealing manner with the help of videos, blog posts, social media websites, detailed relevant information on the websites, testimonials to show goodwill etc. Harmony between Copy and Content forms a complete package for the customers, answering almost all their queries.

Web Copy and Content are also used exclusively for marketing purposes in trade shows, on bill boards, posters, advertisements and many others. Each of these marketing tools leads the customer back to the website in order to help themselves with all their queries. Hence providing a complete package with all the relevant required information on one platform is quintessential.

What else they can do together:

• Lure more Visitors: An appealing website will lure visitors even if they are not interested in the product. But with tempting content, it can also convert the visitor into a customer. People also would like to share things they like with their friends, and if the website is truly charming, then through word-of-mouth and social media websites, your site will reach a plenty
• Successful repeat Visits: Due to its appealing factor, people would like to revisit the website either for reference or to share it with someone else
• Love at First Sight: An attractive website will make the viewer fall in love with at first glance itself! 

Well, before we start talking about troubled projects, let’s focus on what is project management.

As per Wikipedia, “Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources to achieve specific goals. A project is a temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end (usually time-constrained, and often constrained by funding or deliverable), undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value”.

Now, that is a complex definition. To simplify the definition, Project Management is all about planning, organizing, communicating, identifying risks and motivating resources. But most importantly to get the work done on correct time and delivered to the right stakeholder.

Why a project lands up in a trouble zone?

To get the answer of this question, we will need to understand the difference between project and production. Instead of going to a bookish definition, let’s keep it short and simple. Project is achieving a common goal with a set of common services. For example, it can be an IT project or civil project like building a bridge. While any tangible item, which is produced or manufactured in a time-tested environment with a predefined output using some specialized services can be defined as a Production. For example, a factory manufacturing soaps.

So, for project, the output is unique in nature and while for production based output is common.

Thus, due to temporary and unique nature of project (until it’s quite diligently monitored), there is high chance of getting the same in a trouble zone.

Does a troubled project have its own life cycle?

There is no difference between a normal project and a troubled project’s life cycle. Something went wrong in the life cycle of a typical project which has introduced the word ‘Troubled Project’ or ‘Project on Fire’ (commonly used in IT world).

For a waterfall based project, a typical life cycle will be:

• Setup or Initiation
• Planning & Design
• Development or Construction
• Testing or Review
• Deployment
• Maintenance

In all of the above stages, a normal project can easily be turned into a ‘troubled’ project. Well, no one wants to be a part of trouble projects. Read on to learn more about troubled projects compared to smooth sailing ones….

Well, I did screw my project. How do I come out of it?

Don’t worry! It even happens with the best in the lot and is normal. Let us focus on how to get the project back on track and make it a smooth sailing one. We don’t need to do something heroic or completely out of the box. Basic project management skills will help you get your project out of trouble. Few quick referencing tips & tricks:

• As a Project Manager, you need to understand the complete scope of a project. A single line missed in RFP or project scope document can be disastrous.
• Identify the potential skill of the delivery team of such projects. If require, set up a skill training. Always remember you are in an industry where you need to learn everyday and upgrade yourself.  
• Communicate with customer regularly and bring back his/her confidence on the team. Always remember when you are dealing with an outsourced project customer, agree to work on commitment virtually agreed on and any troubled project means failure of commitment. You might react more badly if the same happens to you.
• Update risk register on the project learning (so it can be used for future project reference).
• Make sure all the key stakeholders along with senior management are informed about daily project progress. This will help you ensure that all tasks performed by you are cross-reviewed at this critical stage.
• It has been observed that any project with ‘Fire’ really de-motivate the team. Well, let’s control all our emotions and motivate the team and bring back their confidence. Always remember team work is the pillar for any project success.
• Do a Root Cause Analysis (RCA – Fish Bone Analysis) and share the finding with the key project stakeholder.

To all budding project managers, please make sure that the project triangle is always controlled.

To control any project, which is slippery in nature, allow your customer to take control over two ends of the triangle while you can have one end and still bring the project in track.

Always remember if you are running away from a problem, then you are moving far from its solution. Let’s face it and get it resolved. You will love the satisfaction of success.

Do It Your Self (DIYS)

Just to figure out how good you are in managing your projects, try out this tool: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_60.htm. Be honest to yourself and check your score.

On a lighter note

If anyone follows this popular graffiti about project management available on online world, that individual will definitely land his/her project into the classification of ‘troubled project’:

This Article is part of the employee experience sharing & content contribution initiative for Indus Net Technologies’ Blog site

Content Credit : Souvik Chaki, Delivery Manager-Mobile Application, Indus Net Technologies

About the Author :  A techno-manager with total of 11+ years in Software Development & Implementations in IT sector, including 7 years of relevant experience in Delivery, Project Management and Pre-sales activities.
He can be reached at souvik.chaki@indusnet.co.in

Importance of market research

Market research reports are important to your business as they will intimate you with the best keywords that you can choose to elicit response from customers in the form of clicks. This can aid you in garnering many prospective customers for your business needs, which can ultimately result in conversions. Market research also helps you to start your B2B endeavour on a more solid footing with a host of information about your prospective customer at your disposal, such as the type of cosmetic products they prefer, the staple food in their area, hobbies and interests and so on. Market research can provide you with a peek into the users’ activities, their preferences and also the way in which they are looking for products.

A listing of the statistics showing user habits that can aid in your market research is shown below:

. 61 percent of global internet users research products online

. 41 percent of online shoppers begin by using a search engine

. There are a recorded 131 billion searches per month by users on the internet

. 57 percent of TV viewers use the web simultaneously by way of their smartphones

. 67 percent of the links that search users click are free of cost

Market research will allow you to compete with other players in your field and take your SEO strategy to a whole new level. Here are a few insights into the way in which market research can facilitate you in your SEO needs:

1.  Market research can keep you one step ahead of your competitors by attracting your customers with more targeted search phrases and being aware of their developments- the phrases they are focusing on in their searches and the relevant topics they vouch for. This is a good way of filling your coffers by using richer keywords than your competitors, leaving you way ahead in these dog fights.
2.  Many popular search engines like Google are favoring keyword-rich websites and those that are darling of the masses. This means that either you should incorporate popular and most-sought-after keywords or you should garner many outbound links from popular websites. The former encourages you to raise the bar and deliver quality-rich content.
3.  Market research aids in the creation of quality content that is consistent with your customer’s needs. Being appealing and valuable to them can mean that they are more likely to share it with others via social media, external links and email.

A better understanding of your customer needs is critical to a successful SEO strategy. The benefits of market research mentioned above can boost your search rankings and by building relationships with customers, you are most likely to find a loyal one.

Think beyond keywords

Creating content around customer’s needs rather than a generic search term aims for a satisfying customer experience and is more likely to result in conversions. The main aim of a SEO strategy is to optimize its keywords through research and make its content to top search engine rankings. What happens later with this hard-earned traffic? Here’s the catch, people click on the links out of curiosity and after satisfying it, they opt to navigate away from the page, not resulting in conversions.

A fleeting remedy to these high bounce rates is to create a content that is not only keyword-rich, but also relevant and entertaining as well.

Market research is the key ingredient in a successful strategy. While analytics tools are absolutely fundamental in creating one, research in the form of surveys cannot be ignored. Surveys can be conducted via your brand’s consumer email database, social media pages or even through your newsletter to gain insight into consumer’s needs and their preferred search terms. All these prerequisites go a long way in fulfilling your dream of a successful SEO strategy suitable for your business.

Subjective utility in mathematical terms

Subjective utility is the summation of the utility function of the possibility of outcomes and the probability distribution multiplied. The theory of subjective expected utility combines two subjective concepts: first, a personal utility function, and second a personal probability distribution (based on Bayesian probability theory).

It was proved that, if you adhere to axioms of rationality, if you believe an uncertain event has possible outcomes {x_i} each with a utility to you of (x_i) ,then your choices can be explained as arising from a function in which you believe that the subjective probability of each outcome is P(x_i) , and your subjective expected utility is the expected value of the utility,.

You may be able to make a decision which can change the possible outcomes to {y_j},in which case your subjective utility will become .

Which decision you prefer depends on which subjective expected utility is higher. The type of decision taken solely rests on the person who takes it, as different people may arrive at different utility functions and different outcomes according to their perspectives and thus, different probabilities.

How is probability measured?

To help you have a vague idea about probability, it is very essential for you to have a look at this analogy of throwing a dice. A dice thrown has a property of delivering six possible outcomes. The probables have a possibility of resulting in a wide array of numbers from 1 to 6. A roll of the dice, thus, has a probability of 1/6 or in a rounded up decimal of 0.17. As you can see, the higher the outcome the lower is the probability and the lower the outcome, the higher is the probability. Thus, the resulting number can be a measure of the probability and can help you in deciding choices for your digital marketing campaign.

Objective oversight

Objective oversight or the process of overseeing and tracking the objectives to ensure that they attain the desired goal is essential for a digital marketing campaign. This can aid in the materialization of high yielding conversions. Objective oversight might seem frivolous, but it is essential to keep your marketing campaign on a short leash and make it worthwhile. Dependency on objective oversight to provide an effective strategy is advised, but it should not negate the fact that subjective utility is more crucial to a successful campaign.

Why does one outweigh the other?

As the objectives you are going to attain, depends on the variable involved in the subjective utility, objective oversight is not more important or independent and is closely dependent on subjective utility. In simple words, the choices that you are going to make, which seem to you as promising ones for your digital marketing campaign are practically responsible in deciding the course of the objectives that you have listed. It is important that you oversee whether the objectives that you listed are attained and are not deviating in the whole process of digital marketing and that they wholly depend on the right choice of the items that you are going to make.

For example, if you are planning to choose from a large database of keywords, you need to pick a keyword that scores more on subjective utility. Take into account all the possible outcomes with each utility and carefully arrive at a subjective utility that stands out, and the one that has a highest score proves promising for your digital marketing campaign.

You need to oversee that the keywords are thoroughly and perfectly checked and utilized to satisfy your interests in the attaining of your objectives that can result in conversions, but you need to remember that the choice of keywords you make based on the subjective utility score, are solely responsible in determining or resulting in conversions.