October 29, 2021 |
How Technology Has Changed Nature of Work

Another major change that the Digital Age has brought to us is the transformation of our jobs. In this podcast episode, President of Singapore Chamber of E-Commerce Claudius Ng talks about TVI’s learning innovation and how it maximised technology to provide an exceptional learning experience.

 

 

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September 3, 2021 |
How To Allocate Budget for Digital Marketing

Budget is probably the biggest frustration of digital marketers. Take note that digital marketing is an all-encompassing job and it means that the allocated budget does not just go to one platform (e.g. Facebook) or to one strategy (e.g. SEM). While not many people are keen to talk about this side of digital marketing, let us discuss how to allocate a budget for digital marketing.

 

 

How to allocate budget for digital marketing

 

Allocating your budget is no easy feat, and this is true in any given industry. There is the question of how do you divide the allocated budget between different components of digital marketing. What are these components to begin with? Do you need to prioritize one component over the other? Most of all, how much do you have to spend for its entirety?

According to the suggestion of experts, a brand should spend between 5 to 15% of the business’ revenue on marketing, and 10 to 50% of this should go to digital marketing. It appears to be an extensive range, so here are a few steps on how to plan your digital marketing budget.

 

Identifying business goals. The number one goal of any business is to increase sales. To achieve this, you also need to increase your brand awareness. These goals appear too broad, so you also need to identify the tactics and the strategies you plan to do to achieve them.

 

Go into the details of your strategies. Whether it’s increasing website traffic, increasing your conversion rate, or increasing social media engagement, they should all be included in the details of your strategies to achieve your marketing goals.

 

Analyse which channel is working best. Take note that this analysis does not just include determining which channel works and which doesn’t. You also need to do competitor research, keyword research, and customer discovery.

 

Determine your marketing activity costs. After you have identified which channels are the most effective for your campaign, it is time to determine the costs for those channels. Keep in mind that the cost may also vary depending on several factors including but not limited to the type of your campaign, the duration, and the results that you want to achieve.

 

Set a marketing objective

 

Let’s look closely at setting marketing objectives. Basically, these are the defined goals of your brand or business. Your objectives should show an outline of what you are aiming for in terms of marketing, the strategies that you plan to execute, and other information that can help and support your objectives. This is important because, without a concrete plan, your brand will feel like it has nowhere to go and may eventually fail.

 

These are some of the objectives that you can include on your list:

 

Increase in digital presence and build brand awareness. A brand’s digital presence is fairly important especially these days when a large portion of consumers is on the internet. If your brand is new and you do not have much online presence, you may want to with SEO (search engine optimization) to increase your online visibility both in website rankings and social media channels.

 

Promote your products and services. Increased sales is the number one goal of every business, and this can be achieved if consumers know about the products and services you offer. Include promotions of products, both old and new, in your marketing objective.

 

Lead generation. If you only have a few prospects in your pipeline, you may also include in your objective how to attract prospects and convert them into actual customers.

 

Customer acquisition and customer retention. Attracting new customers and keeping the existing ones should always be included in your marketing objectives. This is the next goal you can focus on after generating leads.

 

View your marketing data

 

Marketing data consists of all the information about your marketing campaign, from customer data to market research. It is important that you analyse this data because this will determine which area of your marketing campaign you should focus on. Additionally, you can use the information upon working on most of the items on your list of objectives.

 

Below is the list of data you should look at.

 

Customer data. From the name itself, this is the information about your customer. It may include their contact details and demographics.

 

Market research. This contains information about your target market. It includes data on customer preferences and consumer behaviour, interests, and even the channel of communication they prefer.

 

Corporate intelligence. Also called as competitive intelligence, this data contains details about your brand competitors such as products and services, pricing, and even business capabilities.

 

Sales and transactions. These are the records of your potential customers, quotes and proposals, and also the actual purchase transactions.

 

Customer interactions and feedback. Customer interactions include website visits and customer service inquiries and issues, while feedback includes customer reviews, ratings, and interviews.

 

As you collect and analyse your marketing data, it is also important for you to have marketing metrics. You need to determine your point of reference so you have a figure to compare with as you evaluate your marketing results.

 

Analyse which channel is working best

 

If you have been doing digital marketing, it is much easier to analyse the best working channels. Basically, you just have to look at your old data and determine which worked and which didn’t. Your data should also show how much you spend in each of the channels you used and which of them delivered strong results. Having this information will make it easier for you to decide which of the channels deserve a chunk of your budget.

 

This is a bit tricky if you haven’t done digital marketing before, especially for your brand. However, what you can do is conduct a quick market research to identify the best digital marketing platform for your brand. Find out the online platforms where your customers are normally present. Look for the channels that your competitors might be spending on and determine their allocated budget. Research for the major keywords that brings traffic to websites similar to yours and find out the average bids. Just keep in mind, however, that digital marketing platforms work differently and what works for other brands may not work for yours. Although, the data you can gather from this research will help you determine which platform you are going to spend most of your digital marketing budget.

 

Below are the most effective digital marketing channels you can choose from:

 

· Website or content marketing

· Email marketing

· Social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tiktok)

· SEO

· SEM

· Display ads

 

How to allocate budget on Facebook

 

Facebook is one of the biggest platforms where most digital marketers focus their energy. With roughly 2.89 billion active users each month, it is safe to say that a big chunk of the consumers can be found in this social network. In the past, allocating digital marketing to Facebook looks a little bit tough. There are different aspects that you need to consider in order to maximize your budget. For example, you can allocate a certain amount for specific days and increase it on other days when consumers’ social media activity. Let’s take a look at the video below:

 

 

 

Facebook advertising cost is also affected by several factors. Industry, for one, can affect the ad cost. For example, ads from the financial industry are reported to be more expensive than ads from the apparel industry. Your timing is also a huge contributing factor in your ad costs. The cost for the same exact ad may vary during different hours of the day depending on the behaviour of the consumers. Additionally, it will cost much more during periods when a lot of advertisers fight over the attention of the consumers.

 

In 2017, Facebook launched Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO). This aims to help advertisers get better results while spending less. Essentially, advertisers are given the option to allow Facebook in allocating their daily ad budget based on its algorithm. This way, the ad budget is distributed based on Facebook’s algorithm to reach the right audience. This business automation will also the advertisers save time and perform other important marketing tasks.

 

How to allocate the budget for SEM

 

In reality, there is no accurate number for the cost of your marketing budget, let alone for SEM. Budget allocation for SEM varies in every company and industry. As for the cost, there are three factors that you need to consider—your market size, your expected profit, and your competition.

 

Market size. If you are an SME (small-medium enterprise) but you deliver your goods nationwide, of course, your budget should be relatively higher than an SME which delivers the same product but only locally.

 

Expected profit. For this one, if you expect a much higher profit, you should also spend more in order to achieve it.

 

Competition. If there is a lot of competition in your industry, it significantly affects the cost of your marketing budget. It will be difficult to rank if everyone wants to be on top. Additionally, your current ranking is also a factor in the increased cost of the budget.

 

Indeed, it is a challenge to create an optimal marketing budget, but with experience and lots of trial and error, your digital marketing journey will be as exciting as it should be.

 

If you want to take your digital marketing to the next level, check out our program for Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing & Campaign Strategy and sign up today.

 

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June 15, 2021 |
What Does A Paralegal Do?

Being a paralegal appears to be a prestigious career, and most people would actually agree. As trained professionals who are in the legal field, some of them are responsible for the success of most attorneys even if they usually work behind the scenes. You might have been considering becoming one, and there are a lot of good reasons why you want to become one. The work is so diverse compared to other administrative positions that it offers lots of room to hone your skills and provide vast learning and understanding of the legal system.

But what exactly is a paralegal? What does a paralegal do, in terms of the job description? And more importantly, how are you going to become a paralegal?

 

What is a paralegal?

 

What does a paralegal do?

 

Paralegals are specialty administrative professionals that are trained and possess skills specific to legal services. They are an integral part of the legal team as they are the ones assisting the lawyers in handling a wide range of legal administrative tasks including a vast amount of legal research, appointment setting, and drafting of legal documents. Paralegals cannot just be found in law firms, as they may also be in the company legal departments, individual attorneys’ offices, and even in government agencies. Introverts may find joy in working as a paralegal, as a big chunk of tasks involve working solo and with much less interaction. Although paralegals are usually highly trained on legal matters, they do not qualify to handle cases as lawyers do.

It is deemed as a specialty administrative position mainly because the administrative side of the paralegal’s work requires training. Briefs, depositions, affidavits, complaints, and other legal documents require the use of certain vocabularies and formatting. On the research side, one must have a certain amount of understanding of how the entire legal system works in order to come up with a well-researched case. Paralegals need to be critical thinkers too, as they assist the lawyers in coming up with a strong case to be presented in court. Organizing and filing documents might sound like a trivial job, but certainly not for these specialty administrative people because this means a much more well-organised filling, especially if it’s the exhibits that also need to be presented in court.

All of these may sound too intimidating, but the work is actually both challenging and quite enjoyable. And it’s getting all too interesting as well. If a paralegal appears to be the right hand of an attorney, then what exactly does a paralegal do?

 

Jobs of a paralegal

 

What are the jobs of a paralegal?

 

While a huge amount of a paralegal’s work is heavily administrative, there are some cases where the work also requires interactions with clients and other legal professionals. Here are some of the things that paralegals do.

Draft legal documents. Document drafting is one of the main tasks of a paralegal. Normally, they are called to draft different kinds of legal documents, and this can begin at the onset of their tenure. They write these documents with guidance of a lawyer, or another paralegal that has more experience. The attorney will still examine the document once it’s done, and if it meets approval, then that’s the time the attorney signs it. Legal documents include but are not limited to all kinds of contracts, affidavits, briefs, depositions, complaints, and subpoenas. This is the part of the paralegal’s job that requires the position to be more regulated.

Case management. The attorneys’ job is commonly known to be tedious and requires a huge amount of time. Thus, a certain degree of case management is oftentimes delegated to the paralegals. Case management can involve taking over the overall process of the case presentation, ensuring that every element of the case is well-organized and well-maintained. In this situation, the paralegals can also be required to communicate with the clients, but only as a representative of the lawyer, as opposed to giving legal advice which only licensed lawyers can do.

Research. It is common knowledge that when a lawyer presents a legal argument, it is backed up and based on extensive legal research. This is why a huge amount of paralegal’s working hours is dedicated to research. Paralegals have to carefully find precedents that can either strengthen or undermine a legal argument and support or overrule a legal action. Although, the research part is just the beginning. The paralegal also has to examine the documents to ensure that they contain relevant elements and find out how they can use them for legal arguments.

Interaction with clients. As mentioned, paralegals are sometimes required to interact and contact clients, although restricted. The interaction should be for administrative purpose only, as paralegals cannot assume the role of the lawyer in providing legal advice. Thus, the paralegals also have the responsibility to make sure that the client understands their role. This is important because the client is also expected to understand that whatever they confide to the paralegal is not protected with the attorney-client confidentiality. However, in some cases, the paralegal acts as a conduit of information between the client and the attorney. They are also the ones that can be responsible for the billing process and draft documents on behalf of either the lawyer or the client, but they are actually not allowed to set and even collect legal fees.

Another scope of work and requirements. The paralegal’s job can be pretty extensive and varied. Thus, apart from drafting legal documents, case management, legal research, and interacting with clients, they also have to be competent when it comes to other office tasks. The job also involves a great deal of filing and organization–especially with the legal documents and other paperwork, for ease of access. They are also in charge of updating the law library for the new precedents, annotations, laws, and policies.

Benefits of taking a paralegal course

Being a paralegal sounds like a rewarding job, albeit challenging and pretty demanding. It requires a lot of skills, and traditionally, if you want to become a paralegal, you are required to have at least an associate degree in a related field. But times have changed–there are now specialty programs that provide training for a specific profession like a paralegal. If you already have an associate degree, it is still recommended that you take a paralegal course as it will be highly beneficial for you and your career in the long run.

Paralegal is a specialty administrative work. Yes, it’s hugely administrative work but it is still focused on a specific field–legal, and it is a tedious one at that. If you want to be a paralegal, it is imperative that you have more than a basic understanding of the law. College must have taught you a lot, but not the specifics. At least, if you take a paralegal course, it is focused on the information that you need and will be crucial to your job.

Paralegals are required to be self-regulated. Reading through the roles and responsibilities of a paralegal, it is clear that there is a line between being a specialty administrative professional and being an actually licensed lawyer. You can communicate with the clients but not about the reason why they are in the law office. You can be involved in the billing process but you cannot actually set the legal fees and even collect them. These things and more require a whole lot of self-regulation. Taking a paralegal course can teach you how to self-regulate and will let you know more about what you are allowed and not allowed to do.

Paralegal courses are specific to the things you need to know in the legal industry. Legal management in school may be prestigious and all, but once you get into the workforce, you’ll learn that there are more important things that are not taught in college. Paralegal courses are your best bet to be taught these things. Plus, it’ll help you remember most of the things you learned in school.

It speeds up the process of your entry into the workforce. While law firms and attorneys are more than happy to hire non-trained paralegals for an entry-level position, having taken the paralegal course and obtaining a certification provides an edge and several steps ahead into the workforce. Most employers would prefer hiring people that have more learning so they do not have to train further.

It can land you in a high-end paralegal position. While paralegals normally do not need a license, obtaining paralegal training makes you several steps ahead of other applicants. Through your certification, your employer can assess your skills and knowledge of the job and may therefore place you in a higher position that can potentially provide a higher salary.

While it is true that the paralegal career is challenging, it is equally rewarding and engaging. You just have to make sure you have all the basic qualifications and you’re good to go, and it is much better if you were able to take a course and obtain certification. If this career sounds amazing and you think you can definitely do it, look for an educational program that suits you best and start your career now.

Interested in pursuing your career as a paralegal? We have upcoming cohorts for our programme, Diploma in Paralegal Studies. Talk to our consultants via this link to learn more.

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