Business
The Holistic Marketing Solution You’ve Been Waiting For!

Running a business is hard. There are far too many moving parts and coordinating them all can take a toll on you. Some parts of the business tend to be extremely vast, such as marketing. If you let it, marketing can take up all your time and still not produce the kind of results you’re looking for. This is usually a sign of a highly disjointed marketing management process.
Business owners usually find themselves pulling their hair out over figuring out which tool to use for which part of their marketing activities. If you identify with this, you’ve come to the perfect place. We’re going to put an end to your marketing woes. Here are the various marketing needs you may have and solutions for each!
Email Marketing
Want to build a global audience for your products and also save marketing costs? Email marketing is the most widely used method of businesses reaching customers. The first would be low costs as compared to print advertising. You do not have to spend on a billboard which will be fixed at a certain time. With an email, you can send it to many people at once and talk about your products in detail. Another advantage of email marketing is that it is easy, to begin with. You can convince people with words, images, and videos. All it takes is a few hundred words, lined with attractive images.
But how do you start this? GetResponse has a fantastic email marketing platform. You are in control of everything when using this. How many people have signed up for the newsletter, how many have clicked on the product link mentioned. Another standout feature is that of A/B testing. Whenever you send a newsletter, the broadcast gets split into two parts. The first set of receivers will be divided into further groups, with each group receiving different content. The second set of receivers will be sent the best version of the newsletter. Businesses can then compare and determine the effectiveness of each part.
Webinars
In a now-famous essay, an American entrepreneur mentioned: “software eats the world”. The idea, which was mentioned in 2011 is visible today. Every company, be it a taxi business or a bookstore has to go online. Digital has not become complementary, but a norm. Webinars are a crucial ingredient for building your customers and a larger audience. Company heads can be a part of a panel that discusses the future of a business. For example, if you own a bookstore, a webinar can be organized on the path ahead for physical bookstores. Webinars allow the customers to place a name with a voice and a face. This builds personal and long-lasting relationships.
A webinar saves you the cost of booking a venue, which has the added effort of selling out tickets. Transportation costs might put off potential attendees. With GetResponse’s customized software, you can add up to a thousand participants on your webinar. This webinar can also be live-streamed on Facebook and Youtube. After the webinar, you can get data of the average attendee time and locations too. The software has automated invitation templates that you can use for future webinars. Lead generation is an added plus where potential customers can watch pre-recorded webinars online.
Landing Pages
How long do you wait till a website loads? 10,15 seconds? Or do you go to the next competitor available on the internet? Most probably, the second option. Now imagine if this happened to the landing page of your business website? It’s working on the laptop but isn’t responding quickly on a phone. How do you ensure customers stay on your website?
Landing pages should ensure a unique selling proposition, images, or videos showing the context and a reinforcement statement amongst others. GetResponse has a simple landing page creator, which has the A/B testing format. It optimizes the best landing page for you after various combinations. They also have a drag and drop editor, which can build your page in minutes. You can also track visitors’ data with the service, which can help in a remarketing campaign.
eCommerce Stores
Perhaps the most important feature of applying holistic marketing solutions to your business. But from where do you start? How do you start to understand the technology behind connecting your store to a platform? Continuous updates on your stock will help you gauge which is selling. A well-known fashion brand takes around two weeks to distribute and retail clothes after the original design has appeared. They continuously update themselves with real-time data, with vertical integrations within their model.
Once you connect your store to a marketing integrations plug-in, everything will be in one place. GetResponse has superb features to assist you with. Some include payment processors, abandoned carts, list-building, and sales funnels amongst others. The best feature of this plugin is the automatically recommending feature. Products will be shown to customers based on their shopping data. You can also automate triggers for buyers who have abandoned carts and are on the verge of leaving your website.
Traffic-driving Tools
Running an ad campaign from time to time is a required necessity. It helps bring in customers and if not, make people aware of your business. Online banners have been a game-changer in the ads for small businesses. You can run targeted ad campaigns on Facebook and Instagram over a specific period. All of this can be handled from a plugin by GetResponse. Increase your reach on Instagram, fill your conversion funnels amongst others by monitoring your ad campaign.
“Guest posting is also a highly effective way to direct attention towards your business, cause, or service.”
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation is referred to as a process where technology is used to automate repetitive tasks in a marketing campaign. An example of marketing automation is when a customer’s birthday is coming up. You can then offer a discount on the day. This can be done for all customers through automation.
GetResponse has various filters for various indicators. The three sections are conditions, actions, and filters. Conditions include cart abandoned, actions include sending an email, and filters include an amount. This helps the business owner to reach the right people with the right incentives. You can adjust this according to your business goals.
Conclusion
Marketing solutions will be tiresome at first but if applied properly, you can generate a lot of business within a few clicks. Results will gradually improve over time, with only consistency being key. GetResponse has been a proven leader in this field since 1997. They provide excellent services to help you grow your business, with a 24/7 helpline available.
Business
Voice Quality Matters: Quarter of Employees Working From Home Still Experiencing Regular Connectivity Issues

-Survey of 1007 SMEs in the UK by Spitfire Network Services Ltd reveals pain points for employees working from home-
-27% experience frequent or occasional connectivity disruptions despite working remotely since March-
-Only 4% of employees working from home have a dedicated Internet connection for work-related purposes-
Spitfire Network Services Ltd, a provider of telecoms and IP engineering solutions to UK businesses, today revealed data that showed more than a quarter of employees experience regular issues with connectivity whilst working from home. The ‘Voice Quality Matters’ survey found that 27% of employees faced connectivity challenges such as drop-outs or lags during the course of their working day, causing frequent disruption and impacting on productivity. With the majority of voice (video) communications hosted via the Internet, the importance of ensuring your voice can be heard has never mattered more.
The survey revealed that only 4% of employees working from home had their own dedicated internet connection for work purposes. Instead, employees are relying on their home broadband for connectivity. When asked, 57% of employees revealed that they had between 3-10 devices connected to their home broadband at any one time.
Employees were also asked about the time of the day that most of the issues occurred, 4pm-6pm was revealed to be the problem hours. With kids returning from school and using personal devices, the strain on the network resulted in connectivity problems arising.
Dominic Norton, Sales Director, Spitfire Network Services Ltd, commented on the findings: “We were unsurprised to discover that more than one in four employees are facing connectivity challenges whilst they work from home. When you consider that remote working can no longer be classed as the supposed ‘new normal’ with this shift happening over 9-months ago, it shows that businesses have been slow to act. Connectivity is critical for employees to mirror the experience of the office from home – critical for delivering a service to customers and ensuring their workforce is as productive as possible. My message to businesses would be to act now and really consider the damage that may be being caused to both productivity and reputation.”
In total, 1007 respondents were surveyed throughout November 2020 as part of the Voice Quality Matters survey conducted by Spitfire Network Services Ltd.
For more information about Spitfire Network Services Ltd, visit www.spitfire.co.uk.
To find out how we can support your customers to ensure they stay connected, please contact [email protected].
Business
How can we benefit from mandated e-invoicing?

By Mark Stephens, the CEO of Blackstar Capital
Electronic invoicing is at a tipping point. On the one hand, only a small minority of invoices that are sent globally are e-invoices. It is estimated that 75% of the world invoices are still transacted on paper, and those that rely on email instead experience similar inefficiencies. On the other, a recent trend of B2G mandates from governments around the world could potentially serve as a catalyst for a new wave of public and private sector e-invoicing adoption.
In India, for example, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs has regulated that e-invoicing will be mandatorily adopted by all companies with a turnover exceeding INR 500 crore. The decision follows many countries in Latin America, most notably Brazil and Mexico, where electronic invoices have been mandated as the only acceptable standard for all significant public and private commercial transactions.
In Latin America, these systems are largely being used as a tool to improve the government’s fiscal control and recapture lost tax revenue from economies with high rates of cash transactions. Brazil, Chile and Mexico have all adopted a ‘clearance model,’ where before invoices are sent, they are cleared by a government portal. Documents are therefore tax-compliant in real-time, reducing delays and fines, while significantly reducing tax leakage. India’s model is broadly similar to this, and the EU is also looking towards adopting something similar to the clearance model.
In 2019, all VAT-registered businesses in Italy started issuing invoices electronically using the country’s online exchange system. The decision in Italy, like many others, was again driven by tax efficiency. While these mandated government decisions can help achieve this, experts say the benefits of e-invoicing actually go well beyond this and it is time the arguments for mandating e-invoicing include the benefits for small, medium and global businesses too. The EU has been clear: mandated e-invoicing has the potential to not only save government processing costs, but also provide the stimulus for private sector adoption that can drive the environmental, cost, and efficiency benefits.
For businesses, the potential benefits are huge. Companies on average able to save between 50-70% of processing costs and 65% of invoice processing time. E-invoicing reduces errors, fraud and human intervention. A Wax Digital study found about 25% of time handling paper invoices is spent on resolving problems related to data entry and processing. As there are roughly 16 billion B2B invoices processed each year in Europe alone, Deutsche Bank projected that full adoption could lead to an annual saving of at least €260 billion. Organisations already using e-invoicing have been motivated to do so because of this huge cost efficiency aspect.

Mark Stephens
In the most recent Spring Statement, the Chancellor of the Exchequer described late payments as a ‘scourge’ and according to Siemens Financial Services, SMEs in the UK are missing out on over £250bn of working capital cash flow due to late payments. Xero found that businesses which use online tools get paid 33% faster than those which use paper invoices. Faster approval cycles result in better cash flow, which can be passed down the supply chain in cost and time savings. Finally, a mandated move from paper to paperless could have a huge impact on the global carbon footprint.
In addition to the impact that the reduction of late payments can have on the working capital of businesses globally, e-invoicing can provide a more efficient avenue for the funding of invoices. Invoice financing is not new, but the level of transparency and depth of data accessible via modern e-invoicing platforms enable direct access for financiers to provide faster, efficient, de-risked, and innovative funding solutions in relation to the financing of such invoices. There is a growing belief that this will have a fundamental, evolutionary impact on the invoice financing space.
Public sector mandated e-invoicing therefore can be expected to drive private sector e-invoicing adoption and provide the gateway for the digitisation of many business processes. The blueprint for adoption was Denmark’s pioneering 2005 legislation that allowed vendors to submit invoices online, free of charge, using a SaaS service. The Danish were focused on the economic benefits of e-invoicing and decided the best way to influence behaviour would be to keep the barriers to entry as low as possible. By offering a free and open service, Denmark was able to voluntarily achieve the long-term commercial adoption of B2B e-invoicing in the private sector after mandating public sector B2G e-invoicing.
Now with the challenges of Covid-19, global governments will be more focused than ever on cost efficiencies and the need to guarantee tax revenues. Mandating e-invoicing, however, can also have huge knock-on benefits for the wider B2B business market. With a higher adoption rate across the private sector, mandating e-invoicing will provide huge cost and efficiency savings for businesses at a time when public and private finances are under significant pressure.
Business
How fintech companies can facilitate continued growth

By Jackson Lee, VP Corporate Development from Colt Data Centre Services
The fintech industry is rapidly growing and, in the first half of 2020, fintechs have secured more than $25 billion in investment globally, despite the huge uncertainty caused by COVID-19. As fintechs and their customer base expand, it is important to recognise that the success of these companies is predicated on the ability to use data effectively in providing a personalised experience to their customers.
To ensure these companies do not become victim of their own success, they must ensure they have the ability to scale up their operations and data storage as quickly and cost-efficiently as possible, especially in these challenging times.
So what must fintech companies do if they are to facilitate this growth without bursting at the seams?
Big fish in a small pond
Fintech companies are growing exponentially, and for many, even the current uncertainty around the pandemic has not decelerated the pace of their growth. However, having started small – with only having access to limited tools at the beginning of their journey, many fintech companies can’t keep up with their own rapid growth. When it comes to data infrastructures, they are facing a real risk of becoming a big fish in a small pond.
In order to achieve widespread innovation, and to keep their advantage over traditional financial institutions, fintech companies need the necessary playground space to experiment in.
When the pandemic and its consequent disruptions started to take hold, most businesses weren’t prepared for the types of challenges that they would have to face. Although the suggestion of investing in data infrastructure might seem counter intuitive at the moment, a lifeline for fintech companies going forward will be flexibility and the ability to scale.
Risky business?
As the uncertainty around the pandemic continues, fintech companies, like other industries are finding it difficult to commit to long-term business plans. Despite their continued growth, fintech companies continue to be cautious to invest in expanding their operations during an unpredictable economic climate, especially when they are doing well enough as it is.
Even before the pandemic, fintech companies exhibited slower rates of the adoption of digitalisation and advanced IT infrastructures than other industries. It’s clear the future is digital and for fintechs to effectively compete in today’s volatile market, they need to be proactive and invest in the value of data and digital transformation.
One area that fintech companies must be proactive in is their IT infrastructure, especially their data storage and connectivity, in order to allow them to act faster than big, established competitors.
Limitless scalability
Due to the continuous growth of fintech companies, with no sign for it to slow down, these companies will have to continually scale their operations up to manage increased demand. Ordinarily, this would have very high costs as they would have to continually alter their IT infrastructure and solutions.
When it comes to flexibility, data is a crucial aspect for fintechs. In today’s world, companies store masses of data, and its amount is growing fast. This makes the storing of the data a juggling act, and the costs keep growing with it. In periods of economic uncertainty, such as the one we are experiencing now, this constant increase in data can quickly turn into a challenge. Therefore, fintechs must ensure that scalability is at the heart of everything they do. When it comes to scalability, however, the key factor is not just growth or the ability to scale up. A vital, but often overlooked opportunity in scalability lies in scaling down, when needed. For fintechs aiming at this level of scalability, hyperscale is the only way forward.
The answer is hyperscale
Hyperscale data centres provide businesses with a one-stop shop for all their data and capacity requirements. These centres, which are built in a campus-style design, allow companies to build out further data centres quickly within the same location, or if needed, downsize. In an environment of ever-fluctuating demand, hyperscale enables scalability of data and storage swiftly. This presents many benefits. The sheer size of these facilities allows for large-scale cloud adoption, which is more streamlined, flexible and cost-effective than ever before. This will help fintechs to get a better handle on their data and reduce costs as much as possible.
With this level of scalability, companies can operate like an elastic band, expanding or retracting when necessary and at a moment’s notice. For example, imagine this year’s Christmas. With the uncertainty of the pandemic and constantly changing restrictions, people’s online activity will be even higher than in previous years. Fintechs will have to scale up their operations to cope with the high demand of online services. Meanwhile, when demand goes down in January, it might be beneficial to scale down and reduce costs until demand increases again.
Hyperscale will also help fintech companies to future-proof their operations, which has become a key consideration as the economy looks to recover from the pandemic. By having the level of flexibility that hyperscale provides, businesses will always have the ability to lean or expand. Being able to adjust quickly within the hyperscale environment, with no added costs, makes fintechs more resilient and flexible to disruptions.
While cutting costs will continue to be a priority in today’s business environment, it is important that fintech companies look beyond this and focus on innovation and technology. The issues that the pandemic unearthed already existed and needed to be addressed by businesses. Therefore, they need to take the current situation as an opportunity to reconsider and improve their business models. Flexibility, scalability and cost efficiency must be top priorities in this new era. Hyperscale can provide this trinity of success.