PSPINC Official Company Blog

Why your Company Needs a Password Manager with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

Mar

29

Over the last few years, cybersecurity has become increasingly important. With more employees working from home, it’s made organizations and their employees even more susceptible to cyber-attacks. Because of this, it’s become increasingly important for companies to protect themselves from potential hacks. According to a 2020 Data Breach Investigation Report, compromised passwords caused 81% of hacking-related breaches that year.

One easy but effective way to protect your company from cyber-attacks is to invest in a password manager, which allows a user or multiple users to store, manage, and share passwords securely using cloud-based software. The best feature a password management system has to offer is the fact that most of them use some form of multi-factor authentication (MFA) to ensure their safety. For users, this means confirming you are who you say you are through one or more different methods.

Types of Multi-Factor Authentications (MFAs)

man in a suit looking at his phone in one hand and a to-go coffee cup in his other hand

The three most common types of MFAs are knowledge, possession, or inherence MFAs. For knowledge-based MFAs, this includes answering a personal security question (like where your favorite vacation spot is or the name of your first pet). Or it can be an additional password. For possession-based MFAs, this includes using a security card, access badge, or something similar or entering a one-time password (OTP) sent to either your email or your phone via SMS or mobile app. Lastly, there’s inherence MFAs, which includes using something that is uniquely yours like your fingerprint, your face, or your voice.

Other types of MFAs include location-based MFAs and adaptive/risk-based authentication. Location-based MFAs look at your location (as specified) by checking a user’s IP address. If it doesn’t match what’s specified on a whitelist, it can block a user’s access to the account or require an OTP. Adaptive/risk-based authentication is similar except it only requires the use of an OTP if contextual and behavioral clues don’t match previous activity. For example, if a user is trying to access the account in a different location or a different time from the last time you logged in, they’ll send an OTP to the user’s phone in addition to providing a username and password to ensure the right person’s accessing the account.

The Importance of a Password Management System

a man and woman each on their own laptops sitting next to each other as well as another woman

The entire password management system should be a vital part of protecting an organization’s cyber security. With internet hacks becoming more commonplace, Microsoft engineers even stated in March of 2021 that 99.99% of account compromises they deal with could have been blocked by an MFA solution. Plus, password managers help increase productivity and flexibility. While it’s easy to advise employees to choose strong passwords, it’s just as easy for them to forget them. In fact, 50% of helpdesk support inquiries are about resetting passwords according to the Gartner Group. So, it’s not that surprising that a 2020 report from Ponemon Institute claimed 50% of IT professionals reuse passwords across different work accounts.

This is exactly why PSPINC created Pass Wizard. Initially, we released the service for free while it was still in its beta stage. This way, we could test its features and work on implementing payment and strengthening group sharing features for organizations. Since its official launch, Pass Wizard is available for free to store up to 30 passwords. Or users can upgrade to Pass Wizard Pro, which allows users to manage as many passwords as they’d like and share select ones within their organization, starting at just $1.67/month. Sign up for free and upgrade to our Pro account to strengthen your company’s cyber security efforts.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #cloudbasedsoftware #cyber #cyberattacks #cybersecurity #hacking #mfa #multifactorauthentication #passwizard #passwizardpro #password #passwordmanagement #passwordmanagementsystem #passwordmanager #passwords #smallbusiness #technology #web

How to Improve Your Site's SEO Through Content

Mar

22

For anyone who’s ever helped develop a website, search engine optimization (SEO) is very important. Optimizing your site for SEO helps better position your website and its pages in organic search results. For people who use website builders, many of those plans include an SEO tool. The best one, in our opinion, is the Yoast SEO plugin from WordPress, but there are many others out there. And it’s partly why PSPINC offers an easy WordPress install with both our Dreamersi, YourHost Neo, and Parcom web hosting plans. However, users can only use those tools with paid plans. So, here’s some SEO advice you should keep in mind when building and creating content for your site.

Adding Effective Keywords

people sitting together at a conference table, some of which are on laptops as they all work together

When you think about SEO, you might think about keywords first. Keywords are just words and phrases that users will enter into their search engines. So, choose your focus keyword wisely. You want it to be a word you know you’ll use a lot because it’ll be what you want a page to rank for most. But you also want to make sure it’s one that people will search for. An easy way to figure this out is to make a quick Google search with the keyword you want to use and see how many results come up. If it comes back with thousands or even millions of search results, you’re on the right track.

The same process goes with your keyphrase, which is like your focus keyword. The only difference is that it’s a phrase instead of just one word. To better optimize your content for SEO, try to use your keyphrase in your subheadings whenever possible. When you repeatedly use your focus keyword and keyphrase within your web content, it tells Google that you’re using relevant keywords. Google then rewards you by pushing your page higher up in the organic search results.

Improving Readability

a woman typing a document on a laptop while she sits on the couch

This should go without saying, but if your content isn’t written well, people won’t want to read it. Besides the obvious revisions in capitalization, grammar, and overall syntax, there are a few other things to be wary of when creating written content for online users. For starters, try to avoid using passive voice. Instead, use active voice. Passive voice happens when the subject of the sentence is acted upon whereas, in active voice, the subject completes an action. For example, instead of saying “The speech will be made by the mayor tomorrow”, say “The mayor will make a speech tomorrow”. If it’s a situation that can’t be avoided, use the passive voice. Just try to keep it to a minimum.

Additionally, avoid consecutive sentences (starting sentences with the same word) and limit your sentence and paragraph length. Sentences shouldn’t have more than 20 words each while paragraphs shouldn’t exceed 200 words. Between paragraphs, you should also distribute some subheadings and perhaps some images to break up blocks of text. Because no one wants to read paragraph upon paragraph without a break. At least not when they’re reading something online. Also, make sure to link some of your text to other pages on your website as well as other websites.

So, when you’re building and creating content for a website, there are two things to keep in mind in terms of SEO. Firstly, you’ll want to make sure you’re using effective keywords so your web pages will rank higher in Google’s organic search results. While Google Ads guarantees a top spot in the search results, using the right keywords will be vital in determining where on the list your site lands after that. Lastly, your content needs to be well-written, keeping in mind that it’ll be seen by internet users. The language should be conversational but still grammatically correct. Do all that and your site will be in pretty good shape for SEO. And as helpful as paid tools like Yoast SEO are, they’re unnecessary if you already know what to look out for.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #digitalmarketing #dreamersi #google #googlesearch #keywords #marketing #marketingdigital #organicsearchresults #parcom #searchengineoptimization #searchengineresultspage #searchresults #seo #serp #webhosting #wordpress #yoastseo

Rising Social Media Marketing Trends

Mar

15

It’s not a controversial statement to say that social media is an important medium to include in your digital marketing plan today. Over the last few years, customers have relied on the internet even more than ever, and that includes upping their social media usage. In fact, users spend an average of two hours and 27 minutes on social media a day according to a January 2022 report from DataReportal. But what brands do with social media can make a real difference in how potential customers interact with you. Looking forward to the rest of what 2022 has to offer, here are five rising social media marketing trends that you should consider adding to your marketing plan:

Focusing on Brand Intent

two people's hands, each holding an ice cream cone

An important consideration that many potential customers have before buying a product is what your brand stands for. This is especially true if you’re trying to target a younger demographic, such as Gen Z. Customers, especially those of a younger generation, stay up to date on current social as well as political issues. Taking a stand and speaking as a company where you stand on a certain issue takes real courage. But making them actionable will pay off tenfold in the end. That is if you do it right.

For example, Molly Moon, a local ice cream store here in Seattle, leads their brand with the promise that their ingredients are all sourced locally and everything they use in their shops is 100% compostable. While their ice cream quality as well as their rotating seasonal flavors are already a great draw, their commitment towards sustainability is what customers really love about them. If you look at their social media pages, it won’t take long before you find a post that boasts their sustainable practices. And that’s because they know that it’s what brings customers back time and time again.

Personalization

a woman typing on a laptop that's open to facebook

Another way to better market your company on social media is by personalizing your content. There’s a reason why Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist is so popular. But you can even personalize your content on social media as well, and many do. With social media, you can retarget people who have clicked on your previous ads or even searched for something similar. They do this by showing the ad to them again to encourage them to get them through the next step of the purchase journey.

For example, Expedia, a global travel company, retargeted people who clicked on one of their ads discounting hotel and plane ticket prices by showing them another ad with more specific wording. Like if they saw that a user recently looked up hotel rooms in Whistler, they’d include Whistler somehow in their retargeted ad to that user.

Using Influencers and Content Creators

a woman starting to record herself with her phone propped up while she's sitting and holding a small slice of pizza

Influencers aren’t a particularly new thing. Advertisers used to use celebrities to market products, going back to the late 1800s. Today, influencers now extend to digital content creators, ranging from Instagram models to YouTubers. So, it only makes sense for brands to enlist the help of one in their marketing efforts. And the best way to do that is through social media, where these content creators arguably have the largest reach.

An example of this involves Audible and a slew of content creators which includes Grace Helbig, Tyler Oakley, and many many more. On YouTube, all they do is add a clip of them informing viewers that they’re sponsored by Audible and that they can get Audible at a discounted price using their unique code. While there are plenty of other content creators also sponsored by Audible, Helbig, and Oakley do the same for their prospective podcasts. So, Audible not only has a large repertoire of influencers, but they ensure the relationship between brand and creator stays solid. That way, they can continue working with them even if it’s on different platforms.

Content Interaction

three people standing around outside all looking at their phones and laughing

Content interaction, while it sounds like it could be complicated, is actually much simpler than it seems. All it really means is that the end goal here is to have users interact with your social media posts. For a marketer, that traditionally meant increasing likes, comments, shares, and overall engagement rates. However, there are other ways to get a user to interact with you on social media now.

For example, polls have become increasingly popular on social media. Twitter and LinkedIn make it pretty easy to do as it’s included as an option when drafting a new post. Instagram (and consequently, Facebook) is a little trickier. Because it’s an image-first platform, the only way to poll your audience is through Instagram stories. Facebook used to have the option of creating a poll but it’s since gone away. But if you link your Instagram to your Facebook page, it’ll appear on both stories. But even then, you can only offer two choices.

Content Collaboration

a man taking a selfie with his phone while wearing a black nike shirt

Lastly, is collaborating on content with others, whether it’s your audience, influencers, or other brands. For big brands like Nike, it can be as easy as sharing a hashtag and encouraging other users to use it in their own posts. Luckily for them, they have a famous slogan (AKA “Just Do It”) that’s used in the majority of their marketing efforts. For smaller companies, it’s a little trickier to get the kind of response they do.

Content collaboration can include sharing how your company’s working with another. Much like how PSPINC shared how our team helped set up a site for the Johnny Cash museum. For brands that want to involve their customers (or potential customers) more, the best way to do that is either organizing a contest or giveaway. One way to do that is with the help of an influencer but you can also just do it on your own. For a giveaway, all you have to do is figure out what customers want and what you can realistically offer customers. Then, you just have to tell users how to enter (following your account, liking and commenting on the post, etc.), how long your giveaway is running for, and how the winner will be selected. If you’re looking for more of a collaboration, run some kind of contest that requires users to post something from their own account with a specific hashtag. That way, even if users don’t win, you can always look back and use some of that user-generated content (UGC) for future posts.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#audible #blog #branding #contentcreators #digitalmarketing #expedia #facebook #influencermarketing #influencers #instagram #linkedin #marketing #marketingdigital #nike #socialmedia #socialmediamarketing #trends #twitter #usergeneratedcontent #youtube

PSPINC What's New Newsletter Vol. 106 "WordPress Site Management"

Mar

10

Many site owners use WordPress to manage their sites. However, it’s also often used as a stepping stone for hacking and hijacking because it’s a system many people use. For this reason, WordPress constantly makes updates. Without it, the site itself would have a lot of vulnerabilities. Needless to say, WordPress sites, including plugins, need to be updated frequently to eliminate vulnerabilities from external attacks.

Additionally, WordPress websites are often created by professionals that know about WordPress site creation and development. In some of these cases, the creator of the website (and not the owner) are the only ones that can access the WordPress admin panel. Which can result in websites being completely abandoned if the creator of the website cannot be reached.

Fortunately, Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. (PSPINC) offers a dedicated WordPress hosting environment. As a company, we provide you with all the services you need to update and manage your WordPress site. This includes updating your plugins, managing site access, and creating or modifying your site. We can even migrate your site to our environment for maintenance and management, even if you’re no longer a site administrator. If you want to host your site with WordPress, please consider Dreamersi, our hosting service.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #dreamersi #newsletter #pacificsoftwarepublishing #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #smallbusiness #technology #webdevelopment #webhosting #websitebuilder #wordpress

PSPINC What’s New Newsletter Vol. 105 “Store and Share Your Passwords Securely with Pass Wizard”

Mar

3

Earlier this week, we announced that our password management software, Pass Wizard, officially came out of its beta stage. Pass Wizard was specifically designed to securely store and share passwords. We still have a free plan available, but we are now offering a paid plan for just $1.67/month (billed annually).

Pro users will have access to additional features for both individual users as well as groups. With the free plan, users can store up to 30 passwords. When using Pass Wizard Pro, users can store an unlimited number of passwords as well as take advantage of password-sharing features within their group. For small businesses, this is ideal as it eliminates the security risk of sharing passwords with employees via sticky notes or insecure shared documents.

For a full breakdown of some of the amazing features offered with Pass Wizard’s new pro plan, please check out our announcement blog post.

If you and/or your organization need a password management system, get Pass Wizard! You can store up to 30 passwords with our free plan or store and share an unlimited number of passwords starting at just $1.67/month (billed annually), making it one of the most affordable password managers on the market today.

Get started for free!

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#announcement #blog #business #businessideas #businessowner #businesstips #cyber #cybersecurity #passwizard #password #passwordmanagement #passwordmanager #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #smallbusiness #smallbusinessowner #tech #technology #web #webdeveloper

Pass Wizard - Pro Plan Now Available!

Mar

1

We’re excited to share with you that Pass Wizard, our password management system, is now officially out! We still have a version that is free-to-use (store up to 30 passwords). However, we’ve also added a Pro version packed with many more features, including storing an unlimited number of passwords. At just $1.67/month ($19.95/year), Pass Wizard is one of the most affordable password manager programs on the market today.

What is Pass Wizard?

Pass Wizard is PSPINC’s password management system, which allows users to securely store and share their passwords. With Pass Wizard Pro, users can store an unlimited number of passwords as well as utilize the new group feature.

We’ve designed the system to focus on security by utilizing secure hardware and state-of-the-art systems with two-factor authentication (2FA) to ensure your data’s safe and protected.

Additionally, it’s an ideal management system for small businesses to securely share company account credentials with their employees. However, it’s also great for individual users who just want a safe place to store their passwords.

How much does Pass Wizard cost?

Pass Wizard offers a free plan which includes the ability to store up to 30 passwords. Our new Pro plan is just $1.67/month, billed annually at $19.95/year, which includes the storage of an unlimited number of passwords and a group feature if you buy multiple user accounts. For customers that want to add more users to a plan, an additional $19.95/year will be charged per user.

What can you do with Pass Wizard?

woman in red pantsuit standing in front of a laptop on a desk

• Store an unlimited number of passwords
• Add users to their group for an additional $1.67/month (billed annually)
• Share select passwords with other users within their group

How does the share feature work?

business people gathered around a computer

When adding a new password entry, Pro users have the option of sharing passwords by checking the “Share with group” option at the bottom of the page. When selected, that password will then be shared with other users that are a part of the group. Only passwords with that option selected will be shared with the group. The rest will be stored securely under the “My Passwords” tab. In addition, only the individual who shared the password will have the ability to edit or remove it.

Interested in trying Pass Wizard yourself? Visit us online and sign up for a free account to get started. If you enjoy the system and have more than 30 accounts to manage, you will be able to upgrade your account to Pass Wizard Pro from the My Plans page.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#announcement #blog #business #businessideas #businessowner #businesstips #cyber #cybersecurity #passwizard #password #passwordmanagement #passwordmanager #smallbusiness #smallbusinessowner #tech #technology #web #webdeveloper #webdevelopment

PSPINC What's New Newsletter Vol. 103 "Email Marketing"

Feb

17

In 1999, Pacific Software Publishing, Inc (PSPINC). released NewsMAIL, a software package for sending email to multiple email addresses. At the time, NewsMAIL was not an Internet-based service like it is today. Instead, it was a software package that delivered email after being installed on a Windows PC. The price was previously $499 and a designated mail server delivered the emails. At the time, spam wasn’t as much of a problem on the internet as it is now. So, spam filtering wasn’t widely available, making this service an effective way to keep existing customers informed on the latest news.

But the packaged version of NewsMAIL put a lot of strain on the mail server. To fix this, PSPINC modified the system from a package to an Internet service, which uses a browser to compose and deliver emails. Now, many companies and organizations use this service for their email marketing needs. Today, NewsMAIL uses two factor authentication (2FA) to prevent unauthorized subscriptions.

NewsMAIL is still an effective medium for announcements. The newsletter you are reading right now is also distributed via NewsMAIL. If you are interested in NewsMAIL, please check the site and contact PSPINC. We’d be happy to set up a free demo account for you.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #digitalmarketing #email #emailmarketing #marketing #marketingdigital #newsmail #onlinemarketing #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter

Basic HTML and CSS Everyone Should Know

Feb

15

Whether you’re a coder or not, some basic HTML and CSS knowledge is always a plus. While there are multiple website builders out there now that do all the heavy lifting, they’re not always perfect. Every once in a while, you’ll find a broken image. Or you’ll realize you want to re-format some text so that it’s centered on your homepage, but you don’t want it to apply to all the other images on the page. As far as web design goes, website builders generally work within templates.

From a user’s perspective, it means that when you change one thing, odds are it’ll also change other aspects of the webpage. For example, if you decide you want a header to be blue instead of black, the website builder you’re using will probably make all headers on your website blue. So having some very basic HTML and CSS knowledge will be helpful moving on. Plus, it’ll look good on your resume.

Header Tags

When building out the content on any of your website pages, you’ll need to have some headings. An easy way to do that with HTML is using what’s called header tags. There are six header tags, going from H1 to H6. The lower the number, the larger the font size. As a general rule, H1 tags should only be used once on a page, so it’s generally reserved for the page name. The reason why is because using more than one H1 tag can come across as spam to Google. So, it’s considered best practice to just use one. As for the rest of the header tags, you can use whatever size you think fits best for your page.

What Header Tags Look Like in HTML

Image Tags

When inserting an image with HTML and CSS, there are a few things to keep in mind. For starters, you might want to use stock photos that are free to use. If you’re creating your company website, the last thing you want is to run into some copyright issues. Secondly, you’ll probably want to place it in a specific position (left, center, or right) and resize it so that it won’t be a tiny image on the page or take up the whole width of your webpage. When putting an image in HTML, you’ll want to use what’s called image tags, which will require you to add a source code.

As complicated as it sounds, it’s actually quite easy to do. In simplistic terms, it means that the HTML code needs to pull the image from somewhere, whether it’s a file stored somewhere on your site, or the image link if it’s an image you found online. Additionally, you’ll want to add alt and class tags to help improve the page’s overall search engine optimization (SEO) and make it clear which element you’re editing when you move over to CSS. For this example, I’ve found a picture of a mountain on Pexels, a free stock photo site. So I’ve inserted the link to the image as the source and entered the word mountain in the alt tag and because I want to change the picture’s position later, I’ve named the class center.

image css tags

To change the image’s overall position and size, you’ll have to add some code into CSS. Say you put your mountain image into HTML but you soon realize it’s too big and not centered. What you’ll want to do next is enter “.center {“ in CSS to start the process. After that, you’ll want to resize your image through percentages (rather than pixels or inches). That way, it’ll still be responsive when you look at the page on a mobile device. For this example, let’s make the image height half of what it originally is and the height 70%. To center it, you’ll want to set the left and right margins to auto and make it a block element with the display tag. And lastly, you’ll want to remember to close it with a “}” symbol.

Paragraph Tags

So say after you put your headings and images, you want to add some body text. In HTML, they’re called paragraph tags and it’s perhaps the easiest HTML you can learn, comparatively. All you have to do is start with a paragraph tag, insert whatever written content you want in there, and then close the tag. Simple as that. For the example above, I’ve just inserted some Lorem Ipsum (dummy text).
paragraph tags in css

If you want to change the position of that text, you’ll do something similar to what you did with the image tags in CSS. Say you want it to not take up the entire width of the page so that there’s some white space on both sides. To do this, you’ll want to add some padding on both sides so that the text won’t take up the full width of the page. To do that, you’ll add the padding-left and padding-right tags to your CSS and add a percentage. For this example, I’ve set them both to 20%.

If you want to put in some extra HTML and CSS practice, CodePen is the perfect site to do just that. Plus, you can find some cool designs on there too with the full HTML and CSS for you to use on your own site. After that, you can add it into your own site, which most website builders support. In fact, PSPINC’s web building tool, WebdeXpress, as well as PSPINC’s blogging platform, Bloguru, supports HTML and CSS.

The last thing I’ll leave you with is this: always to close your HTML and CSS tags. For HTML it’s adding </> to the corresponding tag. For CSS, it’s simply adding “}” after all your tags for each element. If you don't have the time to inspect and add to your website's code or if you find it all too technical, consider letting PSPINC help by requesting a quote.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #bloguru #bodytext #business #businesstips #coding #css #headers #html #images #paragraph #web #webdev #webdeveloper #webdevelopment #webdexpress #websitebuilders #websitedesign

What is a Customer Persona?

Feb

8

If you’ve ever worked in the marketing or sales field, you may have come across the term customer persona. But no matter what industry you’re in, creating a well-rounded persona is crucial in developing a strong and effective marketing strategy. Personas take the targeting process one step further by creating a fully-developed customer as if it were a real person. By definition, a persona is a composite sketch of a key segment of your audience. It requires some creative brainstorming but should still be based on some evidence, like information on your past customers.

This persona should envelop everything you think your ideal customer would be like for this specific campaign. Usually, the targeting process involves the assembly of some basic demographic information (age, gender(s), location, etc.). But creating a persona requires digging deeper into that information and adding some behavioral and psychographic details.

How to Create a Persona

a woman holding a small plaid purse in one hand and small shopping bags in the other

For example, imagine you’re an affordable product packaging company coming out with some new sustainable and biodegradable packaging. After some conversations, you decide that you want to target small organic food companies. So, what are those business owners like? Do they skew more male or female? How old are they? Where do they live? Are they married? Do they have kids? How much money do they make a year? These are all questions you should be asking yourself. And these are all things you’ll need to do some research to figure out.

But if we’re being completely honest, all of these questions should be answered when you’re developing your targeting strategy. Again, the creation of a customer persona takes this even further. Once you have all this information, you’ll start creating an entire personality going off of all the information you just discovered. You’ll give your persona a name and find a stock photo to represent him/her and start building it out even further. And for the record, giving your persona a name and photo is an important step because it makes him/her feel more real and that will help you in the long run for your campaign.

Giving your Persona a Personality

a man sitting on a bench near a plant with a small cup of coffee in one hand while one leg is crossed above his other knee

After defining your persona’s demographic information, you’ll start writing out their personality. What are they like? Are they outgoing or shy? What are they interested in? What does a day in their life look like? How do they behave online? These are all questions you’ll need to answer to develop a realistic and effective persona. But the most important questions will be answering these two questions: What motivates them and what frustrations do they have?

These two questions should be where your campaign can jump in. If we go back to our earlier example, a common motivation for any business owner is that they want their company to succeed. But maybe this organic foods business owner is frustrated by how much waste food companies produce in terms of product packaging. They’re interested in switching their packaging to something more sustainable, but they’ve found that most sustainable packaging is too expensive for them. This is where your biodegradable, but affordable packaging could solve their problems.

How Personas Help Marketing Efforts

a woman and two men looking at a piece of paper that one is showing while they're all sitting at a desk with a laptop in view and papers spread on the table

After figuring all this out, you can better market your products because now, when you’re creating marketing materials, you’ll refer back to your persona. If your persona saw this ad on social media, would he/she click on it? Would they go through the entire purchase based on this ad? If the answer’s no, then you probably shouldn’t devote your time and resources to this effort and figure something else out. And because you gave your persona a name, you can argue that that ad won’t work because Charlie would never click that. And that sounds much more convincing than saying, “I don’t think our target market will go for that ad”.

Customer personas can be a powerful tool for a marketing campaign. But only if you commit to the idea and all the details necessary to develop an effective strategy. It’s easy to create a fictional person and pretend like they’re one of your customers. But it takes much more work to build one out to the point of knowing who that person is and applying him/her to your overall campaign. From there, everything becomes easier because you’re basing your marketing efforts on that persona from what platforms to invest in to the kinds of messaging these ads will have. While building a customer persona takes a good amount of time and effort to put together, it’ll be well worth it in the end.

If you and your business need help developing a customer persona or require a consultation for your marketing needs, please feel free to contact us by phone or email or request for a quote on our Online Marketing page.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

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What Content Monetization Looks Like Today

Feb

1

With the explosion of content creators over the past ten years, give or take, content monetization has changed the way people make money online. To start, content monetization is the process of making money off of the content you produce. This content could virtually be almost anything: videos, images, audio, text, or a combination of these formats. The most obvious examples consist of influencers on social media (YouTubers, TikTokers, Instagram models) and large publisher sites (like Buzzfeed).

The History of Content Monetization

someone recording a musician playing guitar and singing from a phone

But for a long time, content creators essentially created content for free, for either entertainment or educational purposes. When the concept of YouTubers exploded, people who made it big on the platform didn’t start making videos to make money. They started filming themselves to have fun or to educate others on what they thought more people should know. But once YouTube realized the potential they had on their hands, they dove into content monetization. And other major content-heavy platforms consequently followed. For written content, bloggers and publisher sites mainly generated money through advertising revenues. But when those started to drop, they too looked into content monetization models.

The simplest approach was simply placing ads around the content or before, during, or after the content (for video and audio content). Then, website traffic would mostly determine how much money the creator would make. It sounds simple enough but now there are multiple monetization models people can use to get paid online. But in reality, content creators experiment and adopt multiple content monetization models to find the ones that work for them.

Types of Content Monetization Strategies

1. Selling exclusive rights

someone signing their name on a legal document

This method is by far the fastest way to convert your content into revenue. But it comes with a catch. You’d have to relinquish all rights to the work, which includes any copyright or royalties. Simply put, this is like a work-for-hire type of method where you create and sell the content you create. This process could happen in one of two ways. You can create the content and sell it after you’ve already finished. Or you can find a buyer and he/she will tell you what to include in that content, much like ghostwriting or freelancing.

2. Affiliate sales

someone holding a credit card in one hand while her other hand rests on her laptop keyboard that's open in front of her on a desk

Affiliate marketing simply put is promoting third-party products and earning a percentage of those sales. This could be through referral links that you’d put somewhere in your blog post or the description for your YouTube video. Or they can be through referral codes that you can shout out in your podcast or the actual video. However, it’s not always as easy as it sounds. It’s one thing to promote the product or insert the link into your blog post. It’s a whole other struggle to get the user to not only click on the link but also purchase that product. Regardless, content creators who use this method work within an affiliate program, much like PSPINC's YourHost Affiliate Program. Within those programs, a unique referral links gets created and creators can then promote that product or service to get people to purchase it. It's not always easy, but if your content performs well on a regular basis, affiliate marketing could be the right content monetization model.

3. Subscriptions/memberships

computer graphic with log in to continue written on the screen with an insert email text box and a continue button. Underneath, there's also a see subscription options written.

If you’ve ever tried to visit select sites like the New York Times and you click on an article to read, a pop-up appears for you to create an account. Most of these sites consist of larger brands that have a consistent readership so they can get users to sign up for a membership and/or subscribe to get access to their content. But it’s more than just getting a reader’s name and email address. It also requires them to pay to view that content. To gain access to exclusive content, whether it’s news articles, blog posts, images, and/or videos, users have to pay to get it. And that is the subscription model at play when it comes to content monetization.

4. Donations

someone holding a box that says donations

Have you ever seen a pop-up that asks you to donate? For example, Wikipedia does this now from time to time. That’s content monetization at work. Publishers will directly ask for money to help keep their site running in the form of donations. But even if users don’t donate anything, they can still read, view, and/or watch whatever the content is for free. Unlike the subscription/membership model where users are forced to pay to view it.

5. Sponsored content

If you’ve ever seen a post on social media with the hashtag, #sponsored, that’s content monetization. Or for YouTube videos, if you’ve ever seen the tag, “Includes paid promotion” in the bottom left corner, that’s also sponsored content. What this usually entails is a brand seeking out an influencer, another brand, or a publisher that has the right blend of three things. A good number of followers, viewership, and/or website traffic, and someone (whether it’s another brand/publisher or an influencer) whose personality matches their brand and what it stands for.

How much it costs and how much return you’ll get for that sponsored content depends on how big the influencer is, how much exposure the post gets, and how much that influencer is charging. Regardless, sponsored content helps increase a brand’s overall reach and engagement and ultimately, sales.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.