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Category: Our Ideas

ber months marketing guide for digital marketers

‘BER’ Months Marketing Guide for all Digital Marketers

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The most wonderful time of the year is coming up! ‘Tis the season to be jolly!

BER months starts from September to December and are the most important months to look at and get excited about as a marketer. These months help fuel up every business to raise more brand awareness, sales initiatives, and engage with customers.

Don’t miss out on the season to grow your brand. Here’s a quick guide to help you during the most anticipated time of the year:

 

  1. CREATE EFFECTIVE SEASONAL OFFERS AND PROMOTIONS

What best way to spark joy and entice customers and potential buyers to buy than by adding the “Best Offer” and “% Discount” tags? Seasonal fluctuations in consumer buying behavior always increase during special seasons, particularly the most loved BER months. It’s best to grab the chance.

There are a lot of offers that are doable but always keep in mind that it should be extraordinary from what is usual. Our situation now is different; your special offers should also be. Start with free shipping, shipping voucher codes, followed by 50% off, cashback deals, additional points/rewards, limited-time deals, freebies, and other promotional bundles to induce the buyers.

You should seize the seasonal advantages as well such as gift card deals, holiday bundles, holiday QR Codes, exclusive holiday treats, promo contests, and the famous, free gift wrapping. Make sure that every seasonal promo that you have will always stand out above all other competitors.

 

  1. CREATE SEASONAL CONTENTS

It is easier to grab the customer’s attention when you create the best seasonal content. Build up your content for the holidays and highlight the products and categories that are traditionally the most popular during the holiday seasons.

We all know that people tend to look at designs more than the texts, so make sure to create content that is in line with the season, showcasing creative trends and highlighting brand innovation and flexibility. Creative and up-to-date content drives awareness and interest, leading and influencing the customers to decide their way into buying.

Brands that are always in line with the season receive the best kind of word-of-mouth marketing. It engages many consumers to take suggestions, reviews, and then relay it to their family, relatives, and, friends especially when shared on social media.

Let your brand, products, and offers be heard through the use of holiday contents that are just as loud as Christmas jingles.

 

  1. KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE AND TARGET MARKET TO ADVERTISE YOUR BRAND AND PRODUCTS

 

Effective and successful marketing is knowing the right people that will buy your product and the right place wherein you can advertise your seasonal offers, promotions and, contents.

Design your brand and products directed to as many consumers as possible since people are most likely to spend during the holiday season. As marketers, it’s just our job to make them more aware that your brand exists and is something they need to buy during the holidays.

Get to know your target audience’s interests and make use of that knowledge for your branding to be more effective and specific.  Focus on the customers and potential buyers who are actively in pursuit of products related to your industry or who share interest in what you’re selling.

 

To wrap-it-up, it’s time for your brand to rise and be ready for this season. Although the times now are quite different and even though a lot of people say that Christmas this year may not be the same – let’s keep our hopes up and continue to work towards the objective of ensuring that our brands are holiday-ready.

As we continue to stay at home, let’s keep our businesses moving through digital marketing. There are plenty of ways to reach your target market whether it be through Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, through Search Engines like Google, through your website, email and other digital marketing platforms.

iManila is the best Web Development and Digital Marketing Agency, and has helped different brands through Website design and development, Apps Development, and Digital Marketing. We’d love to help your brand sleigh BER months. *wink*

Get in touch with us and Contact us to learn more!

cloud-hosting-shared-hosting

Cloud Hosting Vs Shared Hosting: Which is better?

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Hosting is crucial when setting up your website and emails for the first time – but it can also be confusing. Shared hosting and cloud hosting have three things in common: web hosting provider, servers, and websites. Though shared hosting is deemed to be more popular than all hosting plans, understanding the new features of cloud hosting might give you second thoughts.  

In this blog, we will be looking into each of their key features like uptime, support, security, pricing, performance, and other benefits.  

Shared Hosting  

Shared hosting has long been part of the web history. Its main difference from cloud hosting is that multiple websites are hosted together and share all the resources available. Such resources shared includes disk space, storage, bandwidth, and databases all in one server. It generally requires a dedicated web server. Although this is cheaper and easier to use than cloud hosting, it may not be the best option for websites with a lot of traffic and that are content heavy.  

Cloud Hosting 

Since its inception back in 1996, cloud hosting services has been gaining attention – and rightly so! In comparison to shared hosting, cloud hosting allows your website to be hosted on multiple servers. What’s good about this is that if an issue comes along with one of the servers, you’re safe from downtime as multiple servers will allow your information to be accessible online. Cloud computing technology allows numerous machines to work in synchrony. Aside from its proven flexibility, its ultra-fast speed is also one to look out for.  

Features 

Uptime 

Shared hosting, in its very nature, may assure you 99.5% uptimes but you can expect that when you get a spike in website traffic, you’ll probably experience some downtime. 

With cloud hosting, on the other hand, you’re guaranteed impeccable uptimes despite surges in traffic. 

Support 

Cloud hosting has unlimited everything, from storage, bandwidth, and databases. It may only get more advanced in the following years. Shared hosting, in contrast, has many limits. Overusing its limited resources could cause suspensions.  

Bonuses 

Shared hosting could get the upper hand this time. There are always free bonuses waiting for you if you get shared hosting plans. This can range from free domain names to web transfers and website builders – this would all depend on your preferred supplier. But, cloud hosting, alternately, isn’t really that generous.  

Security 

The security protocols of shared hosting are often based on applications and databases as these are the most vulnerable to hackers. 

 

A hacker that has access to one shared hosting server automatically gives him access to all the websites on it. And once a website is hacked into, the intruder could invade the site time and again. 

That being said, you must keep your computers safe by using reliable antiviruses, strong passwords and keeping your cPanel away from any files on your account.  

Cloud hosting, on the other hand, has usually four major security controls: 

  1. Deterrent Controls 
  2. Preventative Controls 
  3. Detective Controls 
  4. Corrective Controls 

Cloud hosting incorporates encrypted algorithms to further protect your data. It also prioritizes data confidentiality, data access control, and data integrity to protect you from traditional security issues like network eavesdropping, invasion and cloud-specific ones.  

Performance  

Most shared web hosts often struggle in selling this feature to clients. Shared hosting’s limited features impede its speed. You also need to be ready with frequent downtimes and outages. 

With cloud hosting, you can guarantee ultra-fast, auto-scalable and customizable platform. High traffic doesn’t budge the servers. In fact, cloud hosting is highly recommended for sites with high traffic.  

Pricing 

Sharing servers always translate to cheaper costs. So naturally, shared hosting services are the most affordable type of hosting services there is around. This is recommended for start-up businesses or for simple informational or catalogue-type of websites that don’t expect too much traffic.  

While, naturally given the difference in technology and the speed as well as the guaranteed uptime, cloud hosting would generally be significantly more costly. Essentially with cloud hosting, you pay more to get more.  

— 

Shared hosting is definitely a go to for those who are on a tight budget. If you are a new industry player, shared hosting could be a start. But if you want to advance your security, features, performance and speed, cloud hosting could do that for you.  

If you have an e-commerce site or looking to expand your website into a full system, definitely cloud hosting is the best decision to make sure that you don’t get any downtime with spikes in traffic. With cloud hosting too, you assure users of a faster loading speed on your website.  

If you are having trouble choosing which is better, we’ll gladly guide you through. Drop us a line or shoot us a message today to know more about our hosting services! For more information, visit our website at www.imanila.ph/hosting/. 

how-to-spot-spam-emails

IMPORTANT REMINDER: How To Spot Spam And Phishing Emails

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In the recent days, we’ve received a lot of inquiries and concerns from clients regarding spam and phishing emails.  

You’ve probably heard of “spam” or “phishing” before. On a regular basis, companies big and small often send out precautions to their employees and tips on how to avoid this. This is because most of the time, our emails are the targets of these scams and oftentimes, we don’t even know it! A single click of a button may cause big trouble if we unapologetically continue to ignore these types of emails. Here we’ve listed down some important tips to avoid your emails from being compromised and what you should do if you’ve suddenly become a victim!   

Tips on how to avoid being a victim 

By being meticulous with our emails, we can determine which are spam emails and which are phishing emails. Here’s important tips to keep in mind especially if you’re the type who likes to keep a clean inbox on a daily basis:  

  • Check your email account to see if you have a tool to filter out potential spam and phishing emails; if so, channel them into a bulk email folder. 
  • Never reveal personal or financial information in an email as this is an opportunity for criminals to get further into your email account. 
  • Always check the security of a website before entering sensitive or personal information online. If Google Chrome doesn’t allow you to enter the website, it’s probably best that you don’t!  
  • Pay attention to the website’s URL because malicious websites usually look identical and these URLs use variation in spelling or a different domain. 
  • If you’re unsure if the email is legitimate or not, try contacting the company and ask if they’re sending out emails heavily for a large amount of contacts including yours.
  • Diligently inspect the email address of the sender since some phishing emails tend to show that their email address is legitimate. 
  • Do not instantly open emails from unknown or suspicious senders. 
  • Do not open or download suspicious email attachments with suspicious filenames. 
  • Immediately delete suspicious emails and remember to empty your trash. 
  • Ask your IT Admin to secure your computers with the latest OS patches and security software. 
  • Scan your cPanel for malware using Virus Scanner tool. 

 

What to do if you are a victim 

If you’ve fallen and have unavoidably become a victim of spam or phishing, take these security measures into action immediately to avoid future problems: 

  • When you receive emails from your bank containing activities you haven’t done, call your bank to block your card/s immediately. 
  • Change your password and other confidential information in an instant if you’ve received notifications for an account in an online service.
  • In the event that you clicked a suspicious link or downloadable malicious software, use antivirus software to scan your computer and quarantine any viruses.
  • You may contact the nearest IT professional in your company to help handle the situation and to ask for guidance on how to go about the problem.
  • Report malicious content to authorities if possible.
  • Be an online informer and spread precautionary information to everyone to avoid scams and phishing in the future. 

 

For any clarifications or concerns please do not hesitate to email our Technical Support Team at [email protected].ph or to contact us in our mobile numbers at +63 947 427 3011 or +63 947 427 3012 or in our new trunkline number at (+632) 8876-1925. Our Technical Support Team is open to help you with your website and email concerns from Monday to Sunday from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM.  

To learn more about how to manage your cPanel and emails, visit our iManila Help Center at http://imanila.ph/help/.  

pros and cons of user generated contents

Pros and Cons of User Generated Content

Written on . Posted in iNews, Our Ideas. Leave a Comment

In today’s modern times, we live and breathe user-generated content (UGC) whether knowingly or unknowingly. It has gotten rapid popularity due to its easy access for users. So what is it exactly? 

User-generated content is any content whether text, video, images, reviews, that are created by the people themselves instead of the brands. The brands will then share these content on their social media pages, websites, and other channels. The platforms that best utilize these are Instagram and YouTube, where users can upload photos and videos on their own profile. 

You may be asking, why do people love creating their own content? Firstly, people like to express themselves, whether it’s making a product review video or taking aesthetic shots of a certain product. Making user generated content is a good way to let them both express themselves while at the same time promoting their personal values. 

As a business owner, it’s important to understand how you can benefit from user-generated content and at the same time, the negatives that come along with it to better your marketing strategies. 

 

The Good 

Because it essentially lets users do the content, it can help reduce your content burden. Conceptualizing and creating content is a challenge for any marketer. Add that to the multitudes of available content ideas online, it is hard to come up with something distinctly original. UGC can offer a different perspective to possible customers even with it just being a simple review, or discussions among customers in blog comments sections. Congruent with this is also that you can save time and money as content takes time to create which can leave you free to do other productive things.  

Another reason is to improve your reach and engagement. Campaigns in Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that involve the use of hashtags are an example. Each time users put the specific hashtag on their posts, they are able to drive engagement to their network of followers and friends. It is said that effective UGC can generate up to 7 times more engagement than content created by brands, which can trickle down to more sales. 

UGC are made by real people with faces and stories their friends and followers know, which is why it creates trust and authenticity for your brand. Data shows that users are 2.4 times more likely to view UGC as authentic compared to content by real brands which is a good credibility boost for any brand. Modern customers also prefer knowing what they’re getting before they order and that means not just check the official pages of the brand but also customer reviews. 92% of consumers trust reviews from people they know, and 70% from online reviews. 

 

The Not So Good

Just with all positives there are negatives and one of those is having negative content. You can only have so much control over the kind of experience your customer will have and not everyone will like the products or services you are selling. People tend to be biased. It is never a good thing to completely moderate over the bad content and censor them as it can always backfire. 

As mentioned there is also the need to monitor content because although anyone can express what they want freely, people can turn nasty and malicious online. This is also a method to fight back on spam, which is counterproductive to user-generated content. 

There is potential for legal issues to look out for especially as the content is posted by the users, giving them rights to it. Reposting it without the proper attribution is risky, but should you follow through with this, you should not come across any legal problems. 

 

The Verdict? 

While there are disadvantages, the advantages clearly outweigh them. UGC can give you that level of trust and authenticity your own marketing campaigns alone cannot capture while at the same time and money in creating content. Even with the possibilities of getting negative reviews, you are able to have content that is far reaching and can even spark dialogue between potential customers. 

 

It is important to know the upsides and downsides to user-generated marketing because this is a good strategy to have for any business. Unlock the benefits of user-generated content for your business- talk with our experts and see how iManila can help your brand’s digital marketing efforts. Leave us a message or email us at [email protected].

 

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