On the surface, things don’t seem to have changed a lot at Niswey. We are still the same size team inhouse. We are still in the same office. We still have the same clients, though we have added more to the kitty. We love what we do. We ride the sine waves of business and life. We still make mistakes, and we are still learning.
Take a closer look. We have a larger network of freelancers and partners. We have a website that is now a good lead generating machine. We have figured out faster ways of teaching ourselves collectively. The sine waves have higher crests and lower troughs. And we bounce back faster.
But through it all there are some key milestones that as a team we acknowledge, and celebrate or learn from. So here goes.
1. Niswey Is The Digital Marketing Partner For DrupalCon Asia 2016
Back in 2011, when Niswey was organizing the first Drupal Camp Delhi for Srijan, we were audacious enough to dream that India would host the global conference, DrupalCon some day. That some day comes through in Feb 2016. In all these years, Niswey has been deeply associated with Drupal, largely because of being the digital marketing partner for Srijan Technologies. Drupal Association was happy to have us on as their digital marketing partner for the first ever DrupalCon to be held in Asia. And we are thrilled to bits. You can catch our blogs and comics for the Con, right here.
Proud to be digital marketing partner for @DrupalConAsia, a megaevent for every #Drupal fan! https://t.co/k7rFhc5nGa pic.twitter.com/5XKsgNzjCx
— Niswey (@Niswey) October 20, 2015
2. Lose A Big Project In The Blink Of An Eye
You can have the best processes, and the best team to deliver a complex project. But you can still lose it. The reasons could be anything from perceptions, conflicts in personalities or value systems, or business imperatives for the client. So, just when you think you are sitting pretty, the chair may tumble over. What do you do? As Shakira says, “Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, get back on the saddle.”
3. That Time When We Tripled Our Traffic From The US!
It is in Niswey’s DNA to keep trying new things. We set out to experiment with content marketing tactics by leveraging social media. How could we drive US traffic to our website? How could we get US agencies to follow us on social channels? That is what we wanted to achieve. We chose to do a campaign around INBOUND15, the great big conference held annually in Boston by HubSpot. We decided to do almost-live coverage of all the sessions and blog about them. We set up a page that didn’t just showcase our blogs, but also pulled in tweets and Insta pics based on hashtags we chose. We also threw in an interactive tweet map for good measure. We made sure we got all required permissions from INBOUND, and then we blogged away as the sessions happened. The team stayed up nights tracking tweets, blogs and pictures shared on social media and blogged about the sessions they were interested in. We put up 23 blogs in four days. All this happened while each of us continued to deliver on our client projects. It was super exciting!
Can’t make it to #INBOUND15? @niswey has a great page to keep up with what’s happening: http://t.co/joEP9a1Jvu pic.twitter.com/QHUJj929KP — INBOUND (@INBOUND) September 8, 2015
Traffic tripled, and Niswey and the team added several new followers during INBOUND15, far more than we add in the normal course of a week. Goal achieved! More importantly, we are proud of a culture that makes such great things happen, with high energy and enthusiasm.
4. Building Global Teams
This is not something new to many companies, but we took a while figuring this out. Not that we have figured it out entirely, but we have certainly taken giant steps towards this. We now deliver local content for a directory portal business in a South East Asian country. We do this with local writers from that country, and an in-house QC and PM team. For another client, we hire editors in the US to tweak content we write to suit the language preferences of the target audience in North America. Year 2015 has truly been the year when we brought down any resistance we have to working with people outside the country. Of course there are tax implications and foreign exchange compliances to take care of. But that’s a small price to pay to build relationships that create great value for our clients.
5. Doing For Ourselves What We Do For Our Clients’ Digital Marketing
When we are busy making digital marketing work for our clients, we often overlook that we must do it for ourselves too. For years we have hidden behind excuses of “We don’t have time”, “Who will do it!”, “We don’t have the money!”. This year, we dropped all excuses and got working on our own digital marketing. We blog, we do social media series, we run campaigns, we run ads, and we do email marketing. We use tools in alpha and beta phases, and if we find any promising, we use them for our clients as well. Result: we have climbed the rank charts rapidly, and we attract better leads now. It’s only when we do this, can we confidently tell clients that we can!
#StandUp time! #LifeAtNiswey #agile
A photo posted by Niswey (@niswey) on
It has been a great year filled with more misses than hits. But the key is to keep trying, measuring and change tack when required. The road to your goal is not a straight, smooth path. It meanders, it goes up and down, it has potholes, and it has breathtaking views on the way. To a great 2016!
