PSPINC Official Company Blog

Announcement: Dreamersi Admin Panel Updates

May

18

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve updated our admin panel for our premiere web hosting service, Dreamersi! As a big thank you to our loyal customers, Dreamersi users will now see that their admin panel now includes a link to a special promotion. When you sign in to your account, you’ll now see a banner at the top for an exclusive opportunity to save more on one of our other online tools. Currently, our Dreamersi customers can save up to 45% on a new eCommerce site with one of our YourHost ShopSite plans:
dreamersi admin panel with promotional banner

dreamersi admin panel with promotional banner

Additionally, this new update also makes it easier to sign up for our other various online business tools. These products not only go well with our web hosting, but they’ll also make it easier to grow your business online.

#blog #business #businesstools #customerservice #dreamersi #pacificsoftwarepublishing #pspinc #shopsite #smallbusiness #softwaredevelopment #tech #technology #update #web #webdevelopment #webhosting #website #websitebuilder #websites #webtools #yourhost

PSPINC What’s New Newsletter Vol. 115 “Human Customer Service”

May

12

Here at PSPINC, we believe in excellent customer support. That’s why we have a whole support team that spends their day answering questions our customers may have. While automated customer service has gotten popular in the last few years, we persist. Even though we’re a tech company. Why? Because we still believe in giving our customers the best support they can get. With an automated system, there’s no capability to form a personable relationship with the customer. When our customers call PSPINC, they know they’ll talk to a real human being. And for customers that call often, they’ll know exactly who they’re talking to or who to ask for. That’s a benefit that doesn’t come from automated customer service.

Our customer support team gets quality feedback from customers about our products and/or services. And we learn more about them in our conversations that an automated system would never get. With that, we can collect valuable data on the customer and use it to market to them more effectively in the future. Many companies use automated customer service because they argue it results in fewer mistakes and can be cheaper in the long run. But just because it cost more, it doesn’t mean it’s not worth the extra cost. Because while people can make mistakes, so can machines. So, if you need any help with your website needs, give us a call. Our support team is ready for your call.

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 #customerservice #hosting #marketing #marketingdigital #newsletter #officetips #pacificsoftwarepublishing #pspinc #smallbusiness #softwaredevelopment #tech #technology #webhosting #website

Pass Wizard Mobile Updates

May

9

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve updated the mobile version of Pass Wizard. Since releasing in March, we’re grateful that many people have used it. Recently, we found that there are multiple mobile users, so we’ve made it easier for smartphone and tablet users to use Pass Wizard. We’ve since updated the registration process, making it easier for users to sign up.

Pass Wizard is a password management system designed and developed by PSPINC that allows you to store passwords securely. With the free account, you can store up to 30 passwords. If you upgrade to the paid Pro account, you can save an unlimited number of passwords and gain access to our group sharing features, which include sharing specific passwords with a group.

To safely protect your data, Pass Wizard uses a two-step verification (2FA) system via SMS, designed with ultra-high security and encryption technology. If you still haven’t signed up for Pass Wizard, please try the free plan first. We will continue to not only improve Pass Wizard’s easy functionality, but also its security measures. Pass Wizard is available on our website and is free to try.

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 #businesstools #cybersecurity #pacificsoftwarepublishing #passwordmanager #passwords #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #security #smallbusiness #softwaredevelopment #tech #technology #update #web #webdevelopment #website #webtools

What is a Customer Journey?

May

3

If you’ve ever worked in sales or marketing, you've probably used or at least heard of a customer journey. While it sounds self-explanatory, fully building a customer journey out will help to create a stronger strategy moving forward. And from a business perspective, continually improving the customer’s experience will lead to not only an increase in sales but also in loyal customers. A customer journey outlines the steps a customer takes when encountering a company, including where they could potentially drop off.

A customer journey typically has five stages: awareness, consideration, acquisition, purchase, and loyalty. The awareness stage consists of how a customer hears about you. This can be through non-digital mediums like word-of-mouth or newspapers. But nowadays they probably found your company somewhere online like through a Google search or on social media. Then, there’s the consideration stage, where customers decide if they want to learn more about your company, your product, and/or your service. If they’re interested, they’ll move forward to the acquisition stage, where they’ll actively explore your company’s content and see how your competition compares.

The Acquisition Stage

a man sitting at a small cafe table with a laptop, notebooks, and phone on the table while the man's holding a to-go coffee cup in one hand and the other hand on his hand

The acquisition stage is arguably the most important step of the journey. At this point, your customer knows who you are, what you’re selling, and how you stack up against your competitors. But whether they purchase or not depends on multiple factors. From the company’s perspective, you want to make sure your brand and what you’re selling is as presentable as possible, the customer’s experience is smooth and simple, and your prices are at the same level as your competitors.

If your products and/or services are too expensive, the customer will just buy them elsewhere. If you’re not the cheapest option, you need to at least tell your customers why. For example, if your product is better because of the material or usability, make sure your customers know that. Because while price is an important factor, many will be willing to pay extra if they think it’s worth it.

Getting Customers to the Purchasing Stage

a woman holding multiple shopping bags while wearing sunglasses and looking at her phone

Once they decide they want to purchase, they enter the purchase stage, hence the name. This could be physically paying for it in a physical store or going through the payment portal on your site. After that is the post-purchase stage. In a brick-and-mortar store, this includes everything the customer encounters after paying. For example, they could see poster ads hung around the store. For digital consumers, this could be a “Your order is placed” page with their order number and details or a follow-up email encouraging customers to follow them on socials and shop from them again.

If your customer is frustrated or overwhelmed at any point in the process, they’ll probably end the journey there. As a business, that’s the last thing you want. You want your customer to go through the entire journey. Actually, what you really want is for customers to come back repeatedly. Beyond that, you want loyal customers to start recommending your products to convert even more people into customers. Or more loyal customers, preferably.

How Loyal Customers Play a Role

a woman holding a bag with a small flower bouquet inside as she leaves a store

For people who are actively loyal to your company to the point of recommending your products, they are what’s called brand evangelists. Regarding the customer journey, repeat customers no longer start from the beginning. Instead, they skip forward to the acquisition stage or straight to purchasing your product.

From a business perspective, it’s important to know how customers interact with your brand. The best way to figure that out is by creating a customer journey. With it, you can identify the steps potential customers make both before and after they purchase from you. Or more importantly, where you need to improve to prevent people from leaving before they get to the purchase stage. After all, you can’t fix a problem if you don’t where to start.

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.

#acquisition #advertising #awareness #branding #business #businesstips #consideration #customerjourney #customers #customerservice #digitalmarketing #google #loyalty #marketing #marketingdigital #purchase #smallbusiness #socialmedia #tech #web

PSPINC What’s New Newsletter Vol. 113 “Dreamersi Customers Earn More”

Apr

28

Did you know that Dreamersi, comes with exclusive access to other PSPINC products? For example, Dreamersi customers also have WebdeXpress and InforMakers at their disposable. And they even get special discounts whenever we discount any of our products or services.

WebdeXpress (WDX) is PSPINC’s intuitive website builder and comes with all sorts of great features. WDX makes it easy for customers to design their website, with the option to use a pre-defined template or fully customize it with HTML and CSS. All it takes is one click to download WDX to get started building your website.

InforMakers is another additional tool that’s available for free for our Dreamersi customers. With it, users can easily create custom online forms. It’s usually priced at $8/month for everyone else, but to thank them for their loyalty, Dreamersi customers get it for free. It’s a great feature for businesses because it can be a way to generate more leads and collect data on their customers.

Dreamersi is our premiere web and email hosting service. We developed and designed it in-house, which means we have full control over the digital environment. That then makes it easier to create custom development for customers looking for website features that aren’t offered by other website builders. So, please consider hosting your website with Dreamersi.

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 #customersupport #dreamersi #hosting #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #seo #smallbusiness #softwaredevelopment #tech #technology #webdesign #webdevelopment #webdexpress #webhosting #website #webtools

The Importance of Research in Business

Apr

19

Research is important in almost all industries, but particularly in business. With the world constantly changing, the marketplace changes with it. To really make it, businesses have to keep up with those changes to stand out amongst their competitors. The easiest way to do that is to encourage an atmosphere of constant research. By that, businesses need to know how their niche industries are changing, what their customers are responding (and not responding) to, and what changes they can make to improve for their customers.

Businesses shouldn’t just research to stay up to date on things. What you’re really doing is figuring out what consumers will find important in the future. Trends, while they can come and go, are trends for a reason. It means enough people respond to it that it becomes an important facet of their everyday lives. The ones that stick are the ones you’ll need to pay attention to.

Beginning the Research Process

man sitting in front of a aptop while writing something down on paper in front of him

Researching, while it seems easy, has a process. When starting, you need to know what you need to research. There are two big reasons why when it comes to conducting marketing research: to solve a problem or to find an opportunity to exploit. The first reason is more indicative of the ebbs and flows of your business. If there’s a big problem within your niche industry that needs fixing, you’ll want to not only know about it, but you’ll also want to be the one to fix it. The second reason is one that your company will want to research regularly because I guarantee you, your competitors already are.

Then, you’ll want to do what’s called primary and secondary research. Secondary research, however, is a little easier to do. What it really entails is looking through previously completed studies and using them for what you need them for. Primary research consists of surveys, interviews, observations, focus groups, A/B testing, and questionnaires. From a business perspective, these efforts are done to learn more about your customers. An easy way to figure out how your customers feel about your company and what they’re left craving is to just ask them. PSPINC's Opinion Stand is a great and easy way to figure that out. All customers have to do is click on a smile icon to tell you how they feel, which they can access either through a unique QR code or on your website. Or they can embed a form on their website with InforMakers to conduct a survey after customers purchase a product/service.

Using Data to Your Advantage

a woman in a bathrobe and a towel in her hair while applying a skin care product on her face while looking in the mirror

After doing all that research, it’s then time to collect your data. More importantly, it’s time to sort your data and determine what’s relevant and what isn’t. There’s an abundance of information out there, but it’s what you do with it that can make a difference. One very successful example is Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign. In 2006, Dove released a commercial that showed the work that goes into creating a billboard. Namely, all the Photoshop work that completely transforms what a woman looks like. At the end of the video, it says “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted”.

At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that customers are smart. They’re exposed to just as much media as we are. So, when it comes time for them to purchase, they’re more than willing to do the work of looking into your competitors to see if or how they’re performing in comparison. Whether it’s in the product/service quality, pricing difference, and/or how you’re promoting it. If your business takes the time and effort to do the necessary research, it’ll make things easier in the long run. You won’t struggle trying to keep up with the industry or your closest competitors because you’ll already be working on making those changes.

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.

The term "QR Code" is a registered trademark of DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED.

#blog #business #customers #data #digitalmarketing #dove #informakers #marketing #marketingdigital #marketingresearch #opinionstand #primaryresearch #realbeautycampaign #research #secondaryresearch #smallbusiness

PSPINC What’s New Newsletter Vol. 111 “10% Off All YourHost Plans”

Apr

14

YourHost is PSPINC’s hosting service that uses award-winning ShopSite tools to create easy and reliable e-commerce sites. This month, we’re running a promotion for customers to get 10% off on all our ShopSite plans.

Our YourHost page on the website now shows the discounted prices for each of our three plans and it will stay that way until the promotion ends at the end of the month. To get this deal, choose choose one of our three plans (Starter, Manager, or Pro) on the YourHost site. Then, enter the promo code, “SHOPSPRING10”, at checkout.

This promo code will only work until the end of this month, so get this deal while you can. For additional help on getting everything set up, we have an amazing support team who is always ready for your call.

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 #customerservice #customersupport #ecommerce #hosting #newsletter #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdevelopment #webhosting #websitebuilder #webtools #yourhost

Mobile App vs. Mobile-Optimized: Which One is Better for Your Business

Apr

12

With more than half (about 54.4%) of website traffic worldwide coming from mobile devices in 2021, making sure your site works on a mobile device is crucial. It not only has to function well but look aesthetically pleasing too. But with all the focus on mobile devices, businesses have started investing in developing an app. It guarantees that it’ll work well on a phone, as long as enough testing goes into the process. And the hope is that it’ll look good with so many people spending a lot of time and work creating it. So, which one’s better: a site that looks good on a mobile device or an app?

A Mobile App

a hand holding a mobile phone with apps displayed on the homescreen

A mobile app is a type of application software designed to run on a mobile device, which can also include tablets. But building one out takes a lot of time, effort, and money. If you’re building an app in-house, it takes some of the cost because it means you won’t have to hire a development partner, but the development process will still be costly. Not to mention the fact that it will consist of a much longer process compared to optimizing a site for mobile.

The app development process involves building out the concept behind the app, creating a layout for how it’ll function, designing it for a good user experience, testing it to determine where users may find friction in the process, and scanning for necessary bug fixes. Only then can the app go live. Even after that, it’ll still need to be monitored and updated consistently.

Despite the long and costly process, an app does have its advantages:

• Improves brand recognition
• Re-engages existing customers on a deeper level
• Keeps your business at the top of customers’ minds through mobile push notifications
• Presents a new opportunity for sales

Optimizing a Site for Mobile

a woman sitting cross-legged on a small thin mattress on the floor while looking at something on her phone

A site that works on a mobile device is vital for any business to make it today. Technically, every URL should work on a mobile device when users open it in a mobile browser. The difference between it working and optimizing it is making sure there isn’t any friction in the customer’s experience. For example, if you’ve ever opened a website just to see a cut-off image or been forced to zoom in or out to click on something, you probably didn’t stay on the site for long. After all, it looks outdated and unprofessional, which lowers the business’s credibility and deters you from going further.

To effectively optimize a site for mobile, your website not only needs to function, but it also needs to look nice too. But even when users access your business’ site on a desktop, the design should be clean without too many distractions. Thankfully, themes and templates offered by website builders already have this all figured out for you. Including WordPress, which comes as an easy install with all of PSPINC's web hosting options, Dreamersi, YourHost Neo, and Parcom. For users building their site from scratch, using a single or double column layout, effectively utilizing white space, and reducing the number of items in the navigation bar are things you should keep in mind when designing your site. Overall, businesses should be utilizing responsive design, which will adjust design element placements to fit in the available space when browser size changes.

Which One is Better for your Business?

two women sitting on a couch, showing each other what's on their phones

While it may seem obvious to choose a mobile-optimized site over a mobile app (based on the sheer time, effort, and money involved in the development process), there are times when using a mobile app is preferable. If your business has a product or service that causing some friction in their overall purchase experience, an app could fix those problems.

As an example, PSPINC is currently developing an app for DENREI, an invite-only social platform that uses email to interact with your online community. For now, users have to set up the email client using either Mozilla Thunderbird or Apple Mail. While it isn’t too hard of a task, it adds an extra step to the process that could potentially prevent users from moving forward. Given that it’s arguably the most important step in the process, PSPINC decided an app would be the best solution.

If you’re a business wondering if an app is the right choice for you, here are some questions to consider:

• Who is the target market? If your company’s audience skews a little younger, making your site mobile-friendly is the least you should be doing.
• What does the customer’s experience look like? Is there a step preventing them from converting them into paying or loyal customers? Is it something that can be solved with a mobile app?
• How likely is it your customer will download our app? If you’re going to put in the work needed to build a mobile app, you want to make sure people will download it.

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.

#app #brand #branding #business #denrei #digitalmarketing #marketing #marketingdigital #mobile #mobileapp #mobiledevice #pspinc #pushnotifications #smallbusiness #webdesign #webdeveloper #webdevelopment #webhosting #websitedesign #wordpress

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

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.