2021 Review
2021 Review
December 19, 2021 by Team Phaeria
Looking back at 2021
Although 2021 started with uncertainty, our team grew by 20%. We also continued to learn new technologies, which helped on reducing clients’ billing costs. This will continue all throughout 2022, providing better solutions and more solutions to our clients.
A massive Thank you for our clients and team’s support!
5 min.
Automate Platform
deployment
2025
Carbon-neutral 2022
Climate Positive by 2025
Amazon AWS certified
Our team continues to learn and gain their AWS certifications. This validates the quality of services that we provide and ensures our clients that the services we offer dramatically reduce costs of operation, as well as increase their system responsiveness.
5 min. deploy
We are not only automating our client’s process, we do it with our internal processes too. Next year we’ll be launching our Clients Dashboard and also plan to automate all client’s deployment. It only takes about 5 minutes for any change to be deployed to live platforms. Most important of all, we can easily revert to a previously stable version, if needed. This helps us focus more on developing the best solutions for you.
Carbon-Neutral
As a business, our Carbon footprint is quite small. The major impact is the energy used by our computers and systems we are using. This is one of the reasons we are dedicated to continuing our AWS Partner journey. Amazon’s company-wide goal is to use 100% renewable energy by 2025 (AWS is already 88% energy-efficient).
Next year will continue to reduce our carbon emissions, but also help our clients to optimise and automate their processes to help become Carbon-Neutral. Platforms we build are cutting down paperwork usage, automating processes, and decreasing material wastage – it helps our clients to become Carbon Neutral, and our aim on become Climate Positive before 2025.
Looking forward to 2022
In 2022 we plan on becoming an AWS Select Partner which will enable us to offer you even better services and reduced costs of operation proving once again we’re all about exceeding expectations. We also plan on automating the deployment of all our projects which enables a more controlled and less prone to errors deployment of your products to live servers. It will also reduce time delivery in which a change is available on the platform.
Thank You for choosing us and being part of our team. Stay tuned to see what exciting new things are coming next year.
2020 Review
2020 Review
December 11, 2020 by Team Phaeria
Looking back at 2020
It’s been a challenging year for everyone. Looking on the positive side, we have helped our clients to transition smoothly over the lockdown period. Focusing on Cloud infrastructure and digital transformation we have automated various processes, optimising costs and performance.
We’ll continue our efforts to exceed expectations. We have ambitious plans for 2021 and we are ready for the new normal. Before all that, we’d like to remember some of the things we accomplished together this year.
We became AWS Partners
The start of 2020 has changed the entire world. When Covid-19 was a big unknown, we had to enforce our Contingency plan. In a matter of 2 days, before any national lockdown, we had all our developers working remotely. Then all our efforts went to assist our clients preparing for remote work.
It was in our plans to focus on Cloud Computing, but the new economic situation and the AWS focus on Cost Optimisation and Well-Architecture Framework seemed the perfect solution. We have started to migrate clients into AWS, optimising their infrastructure, reducing costs up to 50-70% from previous Service Providers.
We have become AWS Partner and our plan for next year is to have all our developers AWS certified.
Focused on Digital Transformation
During the Summer period, once WFH/Zoom/pandemic became the new normal we have continued the Digital Transformation for our clients. On our website, we added a special section providing Guides and examples of how any business can benefit from Digital Transformation. We believe that any business can automate processes. Starting with the most boring tasks can increase any team’s performance.
This year had an impact on anyone’s Budget, Resources and future plans. We believe in 2021 the focus on Digital Transformation will continue and we have new ideas for automating our client’s processes, increasing their performance and ROI. Check our guides and hopefully, you’ll find some ideas to inspire from.
Increased our Tech Stack
Every year we are aiming to learn something new, increase our technical abilities so we can be prepared for everything that our clients may need. This year we have surpassed ourselves. Using AWS cloud we had to improve and use various services within AWS ecosystem to lower the client’s billing costs. We have built projects using new and modern Frameworks, increasing speeds and performance.
Every year we investigate 1-2 new tech stacks, this year we had 6 new tech stacks added to our list.
Even though 2020 was a particular year for everyone, we continued to strive, offering our services and support. We can’t say it was business as usual, but we focused on the positives and all our clients had an experience close to normal.
We are extremely grateful that all our clients had a smooth sailing through 2020 and ready to thrive in the new year. We were fortunate to keep all our team busy throughout the year and Covid-free.
A massive Thank you for our clients and team support!
Our 8 year anniversary!
On 10th December it was our 8 year anniversary and we couldn’t be happier. We haven’t had too much time to celebrate, we’ll have plenty of time next year to do so. It will be a year that no one will forget, as usual, we’ll focus on the positives and we have plenty of good things to remember.
Every experience it’s preparing us for the future. We’ll be ready for it, waiting for the next challenges and exceeding our expectations!
Looking forward to 2021
In 2021 we have BIG plans. We are preparing the launch of our Partnership with fingersnap.it. Some of our clients are aware of it, fingersnap.it is a new Platform-as-a-Service, helping to personalise customer’s experience and automate data behaviour.
We are going to continue our focus on AWS Partner, continuing to improve the cost performance and security of our client’s infrastructure.
One of the biggest changes in our tech stack this year is that we have stopped building websites using Wordpress CMS. It is a big decision, we have our valid reasons for it. Therefore, we are preparing to offer a Free Wordpress Migration into a Headless Optimised website, included in our Maintenance Plan. If you are someone that has a Wordpress website and are intrigued by it, please get in touch and we’ll be happy to assist.
Thank You for choosing us and being part of our team. Stay tuned to see what exciting new things are coming next year.
Calls to Action (CTAs) – convert website visitors into clients
Calls to Action (CTAs) – convert website visitors into clients
March 27, 2018 by Emma P
What is a CTA?
The most important key to converting website visitors into clients is to have what marketers call a “strong call to action”. A CTA, in essence, is exactly what it says it is: a tool calling people to action. Usually in the form of a button or a link, CTAs are used to convert visitors into clients, prompting them to take a specific action. The goal is to establish a connection with interested website visitors. It may be as simple as the visitors giving you their email address and permission to communicate with them.
People are on your website, viewing your company information, and they are looking for clues as to what they are supposed to do next. A strong call to action is a clear, simple and compelling offer that persuades them to take the action you want. It is the most important part of your online advertising.
Where to use CTA ?
Once you have potential clients to your website it is important to keep them for a short while as studies show that websites that are not attractive and difficult to navigate will turn clients away quickly and they will look elsewhere. It is also very important that your website clearly sets out the services that you are offering your clients.
If you make sure that the visitors can contact you in some way, you are surely to convert them into clients. Where to use the CTA? On your website, on your blog or even in your emails.
What can be a CTA ?
In terms of your website a call to action (CTA) is an image, text or advertisement that tells potential clients to contact you about a product or service that you offer. It is a very useful and critical part of your advertising. You must have a call to action on every page of your website. This may include a phone number, email address and a contact form or a call back request form (if the potential client would like to be contacted out of office times).
Other types of call to action that you may consider are signing up for a newsletter, offering a free download, quote or discount or may telling them why they would be better off using your service rather than another service.
Other important factors we look at when designing web sites is the demographics of the clients who will be using your website, the language used in the call to action and the placing of the call to action.
Here are some tips on creating a strong call to action:
- Keep it simple. Use fewer words and make the offer clear without conditions or special rules. If the call to action is confusing, people will not take action. Make sure the offer is clear and concise. Visitors have short attention spans and need to know exactly what to do next. The action should also take very little effort on the part of the visitor to complete the process. The harder it is to complete, the fewer people who will complete it.
- Make it obvious. Don’t put your call to action at the bottom of the page. Make it clear, upfront and maybe with bright colours. The obvious your offer is, the more people would click on it and turn into your clients.
- Make it valuable. You need to make the offer appealing and valuable to your target audience. One way to do this is by adding a gift or just by giving useful information that is targeted to your audience (and therefore will attract them). This does not necessarily imply that your offer needs to be expensive or time consuming to create. Often, you can re-purpose existing useful materials your company is already using or has created for other purposes such as case studies, sales sheets or brochures on your services and products, articles, “how to” guides, etc. Your offer should be tailor-made to suit the types of customers that you want to attract.
- Use action verbs. Clicking your CTA button should lead your visitors to believe they’re already taking positive action to achieve their objective. Here are some high-converting CTAs that use trigger words (words and phrases that trigger a user into clicking): get my free quote, join now, create my free account, go to checkout, get instant access and many more.
- Create a sense of urgency. If you want to boost your conversions this is effective because people naturally want what they can’t have. Words like “act now” or “for a limited time” can be all it takes to motivate a potential customer to click your link. It is simple supply and demand: as the availability of something decreases, demand increases (e.g. promotions which expire in a limited time).
Finally, remember to test. Every business is different. By constantly measuring and analysing, you can determine what works best for your audience and goals, leading to a CTA strategy that converts every time.
5 Marketing Automation Platforms for Your Business
A business that is just starting out has the challenge of attracting clients. However, as time goes on, retaining customers and staying in touch is a greater challenge. There are different marketing platforms that can automate some tasks allowing you to build a personalised marketing campaign that can attract new customers or keeping the ones that you already have. This marketing automation helps you maintain and grow the relationship with your customers depending on their interests and their online behaviour.
Here are some alternatives of platforms that you may integrate in your marketing campaigns:
- Sumo– is a platform that provides a few products useful for automate and capture customer data for lead conversion. It can set pop-ups/exit triggers to capture user attention to gather email addresses/redirects to Bookings or Vouchers, etc. This starts as a free account and next are the paid accounts where you have some additional features which are quite useful (like A/B testing, unlimited subscribers, click triggers, push notifications).
- Autopilot HQ - this is a really interesting platform to be used for automated Customer Journey and retention. Basically, you create Journeys for your customers and automate processes in between. For example, if you’d like to provide a discount to your existing customers, you can display heads-up message with a specific promotion code only to those users. Or you may provide a delay email notification (after 1-2 days) or send a text message to remind them to continue a purchase or their abandoned carts (in e-commerce platforms). Prices are starting from 1000 contacts and go up depending on how many contacts you add.
Autopilot HQ and Sumo offers Zapier integration. Using Zapier you can integrate Sumo with Autopilot, so in the end you can use the best features of both platforms.
There is also an increase in Marketing Automation platforms for specific industries, for example:
- HotelChamp– most of this platform functionality is based on pop-ups and storing customer information:
- Voucher option - free gift for your guests (sending an email to customers with a promotion code);
- Online Support Chat – fast and easy contact with your customers;
- USP Comparison - shows what is best so your customers can choose what they like;
- Abandoned Booking – it reminds the existing customers to return and finish their booking (you may offer them a discount as well);
- Floating Tab / Flash Sale / Welcome / Review Tools / Exit Tools - similar to USP Comparison, there are popups to display headups with flash Sale, welcome messages for clients on specific actions, get your reviews, remain your visitors;
- Smart Notifications - display urgency and scarcity.
- MailChimp– they now provide campaigns for automating your email marketing, especially for building your brand or e-commerce platforms:
- Build your brand - promote your business and grow your audience with social media ad campaigns that help you reach the right customers;
- Connect with your new contacts – make a great first impression, showing customers everything you have to offer by setting up an onboarding series. Let people know you're thinking about them by creating an annual "Happy Birthday" email or maybe just a warm welcome to new contacts;
- Sell more stuff - put your purchase data to work for you. Connect your e-commerce store with MailChimp to improve the shopping experience for your customers and generate more revenue (turn website visitors into customers, recover abandoned carts, customise order notifications, follow up on purchases, personalise product recommendations);
- Boost loyalty – nurture lasting relationships by showing customers you appreciate their support (thank first-time shoppers, reward your top spenders with discounts triggered by their shopping behaviour);
- Win people back - re-engage lapsed customers or inactive subscribers by creating a win-back email series or targeted ad campaign;
- Customise, test, repeat - you can create the automation for any situation - provide educational resources to get new clients, share blog updates from your RSS feed, remind people to renew their membership and reward your top supporters) .
- Hubspot- their famous CRM can be now integrated with their new Marketing features that can improve the automation on specific B2B / B2C companies. Some of their marketing features include:
- lead analytics dashboard and lead flows;
- contact activity/management and company insights;
- blog and content creation tools;
- phone and email support, SEO and content strategy, social media and mobile optimisation;
- email marketing and calls-to-action;
- some advanced packages can include contact/company/events reporting.
Here is how Hubspot is thinking of using the marketing tools to grow traffic, convert leads and track the entire funnel in one place:
- Build and modify your website without IT, being ready for your visitors from any device because the templates are responsive out of the box;
- Get your content in front of the right people using real-time SEO suggestions, posting to social at the optimal time and sharing your content with the right followers;
- Drive more traffic to key landing pages by designing calls-to-action that visitors can’t help but click and using personalize messaging based on location, traffic source, device and more;
- Convert more visitors into qualified leads by launching professional-looking landing pages, attaching a form with a single click and run A/B tests to increase conversions;
- Turn leads into customers with less effort by giving them a personalised path to follow using drip campaigns so that every interaction with your content can trigger next step automatically;
- Track customers, record and organise every of their interaction with your brand, creating reports on how each marketing campaign and asset contributes to sales.
Marketing automation helps you generate high-quality leads that can successfully turn into customers. It gives you great visibility into what the visitors and leads are actually doing, and you can easily find what content they are looking for, how are they responding to the emails or how they are moving through the sales funnel. This way you can monitor and measure how the marketing automation system is performing and where you might need to make improvements to get better results.
We all want to see our companies succeed. And by observing the use of marketing automation in the last year we can all notice incredible results. Explore all options and find a platform that gives you flexibility and a proven track record to help you reach your marketing goals.
If you need any help, get in touch and Phaeria team will do its best to help you achieve your goals.
10 Ways to Communicate Effectively with Your Team
Teams within a business collaborate together on projects and tasks, with the aim of using different strengths within individual components. But if a team doesn’t communicate well it is like an engine that has been broken down into its separate parts. All the individual parts just won’t work how they are supposed to.
That is applicable to any team. Each member will be working on their individual projects, which when combined create the completed picture. By implementing an ongoing communication strategy throughout, the whole project will gel together seamlessly at the end.
When communication is increased and developed, team members build trust in each other, strong bonds and a sense of loyalty to each other. All of this provides a safe, secure and pleasant working environment for your team, helping to increase efficient working practices.
When employees are engaged, they speak more positively about the organisation, they stay longer, thus increasing retention rates and they are more motivated within their job role.
Methods of Communication
- Open Meeting and One on One
It is easier to communicate your passion and the way you feel to your team via open meetings. This approach still remains one of the best ones to communicate effectively with a team.
But some people understand better when you take them aside and talk to them. You should maintain eye contact with them to enable the message to sink in.
- Emails or instant messaging
This will enable you to pass files/messages to members of your team without pulling them out of their work stations.
As for IM we use, for example, Slack for technical issues about the projects we are working at and off work Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp for team bonding.
There is also Facebook Messenger for Business that can be used for communicating between team members.
- Communication via Training or Use of Presentations
Training should be tailored towards communicating certain information to your team members.
But some people grasp messages easily when pictures and sounds are involved, so using the presentations can give them the opportunity to refer back to it if they aren’t clear about certain things.
You can use Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides which can be easily shared with all the team members.
- Use the Appropriate Tone of Voice
One word can mean a different thing when said in a different tone of voice. Therefore, when communicating your message to your team without being misunderstood or discourage/demotivate members make sure you use the right tone of voice.
Use simple words so everybody can understand it, use body language so your message can be passed faster and better (stand/sit up straight, use smiles, handshakes and eye contact), avoid repetition or use visuals making sure they also see the message giving room for better comprehension.
- Create a Receptive Atmosphere
To communicate effectively with your team, try to avoid tense environment at all costs so the message you are trying to share can be well understood or retained.
Be articulate and avoid mumbling or speaking too quickly so you could be heard clearly, and the message understood properly.
Try to be humorous because it will help pass your message to your team members in a more relaxed way. This method of communication has been proven to be a highly effective way of dousing tension. When the atmosphere is unfriendly and intense, being humorous does the trick.
- Listen to Your Team Members
Communication is intended to be a two-way street. Don’t just talk because you are the leader without listening to anyone else. Encourage them to open up so you can be well guided when communicating in the future with them. You have two ears and one mouth – so you must listen more than you speak.
- Encourage Feedback
Don’t just talk and walk away. Give room for feedback so that you can measure the effectiveness of your style of communication. It will also afford you the privilege of knowing if your message was well understood.
If you’d like to create a short questionnaire for the team members that participate you can use SurveyMonkey which is free for up to 10 questions/survey.
You can also encourage the writing of reviews about the company or its members.
- Gesticulate
Use your hands to demonstrate your message. Make hand motions and signals to establish the seriousness of your subject matter when communicating with your team members. This shows that you understand what you are trying to relay to them. Just don’t let your body movement become too exaggerated and intense.
- Be Appreciative
After every communication session, via whatever means you have decided, always remember to thank your listeners for their time. It will cost you nothing and it’s a simple courtesy.
- Include Other Departments
When you meet with your team, it’s a good idea to have a rep from another department be a part of that meeting. If you know that your work is influenced by another department, bring their manager in, and conference with them and your team as to how communication with their department can be improved. They can take this feedback to their team, and vis-versa.
Remember that the point of working as a team is to share ideas and boost productivity. When communication is hampered, it can side-track the entire effort.
If the team gets on well, they will automatically communicate better. Building a team spirit not only gives everyone the opportunity to get to know each other better but helps to create an environment where everyone feels they have an investment in the outcome.
Increasing communication is great for business but, as with all things in life, always make it count.
Important factors when choosing your web hosting company
Web hosting is the most important element in the world of internet that helps you improve the performance of your website and SEO significantly. When business owners take their time to select a reliable web hosting company, they ensure their website remains accessible and safe at all times.
Quality hosting is about page load speed, bandwidth and very important the uptime at affordable rates. Google ranks the websites according to their uptime because, if a website is down most part of the day, then it is not satisfying for the customers and all the great content you developed can’t get accessed and indexed by the search engines.
Therefore, when choosing your web host think of:
- What kind of web host you need and try to incorporate the needs of your business. Also think of how much traffic you would have during the day.
- Choose the right hosting package that provides a faster, higher quality web performance and delivers a better customer experience.
- Always read the customer reviews because they offer you important information about the reliability and reputation of the web host.
- As we said before, bandwidth is an important factor because you need to leave room for growth.
- Always read the Terms of Service. You’ve got there all the information about refund policy for example, which might be good to know later.
- And last but not least, the customer support. This one is very important because you need to have different ways of contacting them 24/7.
Also, you need to consider the price, thinking of the value that you get for the price that you’re paying. Base your purchase on your website’s needs but consider leaving a bit more space to grow.
The first impression of the visitors on your site is very important because they might be potential customers. You need to make sure that you keep them on your site by making your online business appear as professional as possible. You should try to make them see a website that they can trust.
Therefore, seeking a web host that suits your business needs is truly important.
Phaeria is always offering advice to the clients in choosing a quality web hosting provider. Please get in touch and our team will try to offer the best solution.
Why SEO is Important for Businesses
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) consists of multiple strategies, actions and best practices, all of which have the end goal of improving your website’s position in search engines.
SEO is Google’s way of determining which sites deserve to rank highly for each query entered into its search engine.
SEO is important and it’s something that you can control. You can improve your rankings meaning you can control how many visitors visit your website. That leads to how many sales or leads you get, which impacts the amount of money you can make from being online.
There are two kinds of SEO: on-page and off-page. On-page SEO consists of anything you can control on your own website to improve your rankings (like site speed, keyword presence, header text) and off-page SEO which is about anything done on other websites that may influence your rankings (links).
So why is SEO so important?
- Because you want to provide visitors to your website a great user experience that they will tell others
- Because you want to provide search engines like Google critical information that will place your website in the top 5 spots on the returns page
If you are not engaging in Search Engine Optimisation, you are not going to be on that first page of results. You need to stay competitive, giving your brand name exposure, gaining new customers.
SEO is about having a relevant and meaningful website content, including the right keywords, getting attention of the search engines, also keep it short and simple but exciting enough for users to want to click on your site.
Studies have shown that SEO can provide a business visibility, branding, web traffic, credibility and insight into customer behaviour. For example, if two websites are selling the same thing, the search engine optimised website is more likely to have more customers and even conversions (sales).
Search Engine Optimisation is also good for the social promotion of your website. Customers who will find your website on the search engines are more likely to promote you on social media as well. And again, you may gain more clients and your name is seen.
In short, SEO is a set of rules that can be followed by website owners to optimise their websites for search engines and, in this way, improving their search engine rankings.
It is important for any kind of business, small or large and is a crucial factor for your online success. And don’t forget: updating your site often is very important!
If you need any advice on how to improve your rankings or to use our SEO services, please get in touch. Our team at Phaeria will be happy to help!
5 Ways to Get Good Customer Testimonials for Your Business
5 Ways to Get Good Customer Testimonials for Your Business
November 2, 2017 by Emma P
Customer testimonials page on your website is one of the most powerful tool for establishing trust and encouraging potential buyers to take action. Also, this type of page can provide an alternative section for using keywords covering product features or services.
Testimonials are evidence that you have customers in Southport or a different area and that they are satisfied ones. When a product is highly recommended, clients confidence increases and so they are a step closer to buying it.
If you are looking for examples of case studies and testimonials as well, look here.
Let’s look at a few ways to get customer testimonials:
- Social Media is very important because of the amount of people interacting there. Usually they are written in a ‘natural’ way, without any fancy formatting applied. Photos can increase people’s trust, showing them facts and making their statements more believable.
- Important names from local industry can be a way of recommending your work and the good results of a well-done website for example. These are opinions of a respected individual or a leader within a given industry.
- ‘Little story’ testimonials explaining the ‘before-after’ situation is very effective in persuading clients because of all the details offered. Stories can be more memorable than facts and statistics. Testimonials can also be short video interviews with the customer, in this way putting a face to the name.
- Satisfied customers testimonials are very important and you can make sure they are happy first and then ask them to write a few words. It is always better to ask for feedback than testimonials. Also be careful to ask for those over time, not all at once. If you are going to use this type of testimonial in your marketing materials, it is essential to include an image to the customer being quoted. Also try to highlight your perfect customers, thinking about what type of clients are you aiming at, making it clear that you are familiar with your target market and understand the needs of people just like them.
- Testimonials that are focused on different selling things. Because you are good at not only one thing, try to focus on each of these selling points in a different testimonial. This approach avoids repetition and adds dimension to your brand. This is very effective if your product is more complex and has lots of benefits for the clients.
What makes a good testimonial is the feature customers that potential buyers can relate to.
Always approach your website from the perspective of a would-be customer. Phaeria can help you achieve that. Please do contact us. We are happy to help.
What is GDPR and what impact will it have on your business?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the legislation that is coming into effect on the 25th May 2018. It is a new EU regulation that is attempting to unify how countries in the EU approach data protection and the security of personal information. UK is very much included in this new regulation, despite Brexit, as any country that wants to trade with countries in the EU must be compliant.
The GDPR aims to give citizens of the EU greater control over their own data, and to give them confidence that their personal information is being protected by the companies they choose to give them to.
The fines for breaking the rules are considerable: 4% of global annual turnover or €20 million, whichever is higher. Many businesses are looking to put standards in place now, as it is going to be a significant change.
Personally Identifiable Information (PII) has been given a much broader definition under GDPR.
In the words of the regulation, personal data is “any information relating to an identified or identifiable person” and it includes:
- Names
- Photos
- Email addresses
- Bank details
- Updates on social networking websites
- Location details
- Medical information
- Computer IP addresses
The GDPR also introduces the idea of “pseudonymous data”, which has been subjected to various technical measures that render it no longer directly able to identify an individual. Session IDs and customer reference numbers fall into this category that will need to be pseudonymised effectively if they are to be used in profiling or other processing activities.
Pseudonymised data is currently used in advertising to tie user’s actions together. Cookies and mobile OS identifiers are a good example. This kind of data allows some relaxations of GDPR’s provisions, if the organisation reviews its level of security and makes adequate risk assessments.
Pseudonymous data lost in a breach is more secure, as without the method for retrieving the details of the data, it is much more difficult to work out who the individual is, and so draw value from it.
Organisations can process pseudonymised data more too. They can use it in profiling as it is unlikely to cause harm to a data subject.
What can your company do?
In order to sign up for communications from your company, prospects will have to fill out a form or actively tick a box and then confirm they would like to sign up in a second email. The consent to be communicated with must be recorded and time stamped in case the data collection is questioned in the future. The process to unsubscribe must be simple and instant.
If you collect payment information on your website, previously you could outsource your data collection and payment processing to a third-party payment gateway and absolve yourself from the responsibility of looking after it. No longer. Now your company has to show proof and clearly explain that you know exactly what is happening to those details when they are collected by that third party. Although collecting payments is always, by its very nature, explicitly asked for, when GDPR comes into force this ask also needs to come with a very clear statement about where your customers data goes, and who is responsible for storing and processing the data. The privacy policy of all third parties must be easily accessible on your website. Once GDPR is implemented, organisations also need to make their customers data available for download by that customer. Whether this must be available for download from their customer log in on your website is yet to be determined- you may just be able to provide this once it is asked for.
Privacy Policy
Your privacy policy must be easy to understand (think: layman’s terms) and easy to locate on your website. Make sure it is updated according to the GDPR before the 25th May 2018.
Third Party Vendor Code
Most website/app operators don’t know about the many direct and indirect vendors who contribute to code on their site and who these vendors are, let alone know how many domains and cookies these vendors use to track website visitors. You or at least your marketing team need to understand exactly what information is being collected and state this very clearly in your privacy policy & in your opt in. For example, do you collect IP addresses and device ID’s? If so, you must make this clear.
If you are concerned how GDPR can affect your business please get in touch and our team at Phaeria will do its best to provide the best solution.
Halloween Marketing Campaigns incorporated into your business strategy
Holidays are always excellent opportunities for marketing and Halloween makes no exception. There are lots of ways to incorporate Halloween marketing campaigns into the business strategy and generate leads by getting into the holiday spirit. People love to see the fun side to any business and its employees. Check out a few options to do just that:
- Different Halloween incentives: start a loyalty program, offer reward points or gift cards on purchases made in a certain time frame, give away freebies with purchases, seasonal discount;
- Site facelift: incorporate small but effective web design features like cobwebs, spooky font, a darker colour, spooky illustrations;
- Host a photo contest. Even if it sounds like a cliché, it never gets tiresome. Everybody can wear silly costumes: employees and customers just the same. Along the way you can opt for food creations, decorated rooms or spookiest things and places.
But, talking here about social media campaigns, you need to encourage followers to submit their Halloween photos for a brand-related prize because every campaign must link back to your brand, mission or product. Use specific hashtags because your goal should be to join them with tweets, posts and updates related to countless conversations. But, the only important difference that you will need is to seek out hashtags and post content that actually make sense for your brand.
In the end, offer fun rewards throughout the competition with the main prize announced on the morning after Halloween.
- Run a mysterious Countdown. It is a good way to get your social media followers excited about an upcoming event or a product release. During the countdown, in order to keep the audience excited, give continuous clues that encourage guessing. Keep the theme spooky so that, by the time it’s finished, you will have the people’s full attention.
- Email Campaigns: use spooky gifs, words and fonts to raise users interest by making different promotions or just to wish them a happy Halloween. This reminds them about your company and will help them get into the holiday spirit.
- Trick or Treat: Halloween marketing campaigns are a good opportunity to raise awareness about a certain charity or cause that reflects your brands morals and ethics. You could release a Halloween themed product as part of ‘Treating’ others or you can create a campaign around a chosen product, which you could highlight that, for every purchase, your business will donate a percentage to that charity.
Now it is time to start thinking about using the Halloween ideas in your marketing campaign. If you need any advice you can get in touch with us.
Our developers at Phaeria might have awesome ideas that can help your company grow and be creative in attracting new clients! Good luck and …. Have a Happy Halloween!
