Picking out some-time from the tight schedule and meeting with the whole workforce is expensive and risky. It challenges your leadership skills to encourage everyone and making them believe each of them are valuable for the company. An all hands meeting is not just a formal gathering but an array of all other things for overall development of the employees and their contribution towards the brand.

With the first meeting of a brand New Year, we could see the enthusiasm on each of the faces. This was a time when we analyse our efforts for the past year and take lessons for a New Year waiting ahead bearing gifts in its hands. Yes! It was an awesome year and taught us the things we were meant to learn.

Marketing and Sales Accomplishments

The year of 2018 passed with some good news. Adent, the star performer of the month, averaged in marketing (because of the festive season), but it excelled in terms of sales figures. Despite Google update snatched a few of our ranking keywords, our team took no time to revive them by the end of the month. Thanks to our sales team they could convert most of the traffic we got this month. Besides the US being on the top, this month we saw huge traffic leap from UK, which is a good sign that our efforts are finally making their way.

StreamHash followed a similar path and experienced a noticeable drop in all the traffic sources. We knew of the event (festive season), that’s why, ran some paid-Ad campaigns, which worked great. It saw most of the drops in social traffic. About 40% to be exact. However, we hope this month’s data would have something impressive as the working season resumes again. Knowing the scenario, we focussed mainly on converting the existing leads and finishing up with the existing customization projects. We finally delivered most of the ongoing projects and got paid. Hence, giving us quite a charming sales figure despite the holiday season.

ShopyGen, one of the toughest products to be ranked up, performed well. We could improve the organic traffic by 2% and got some impressive leads from the referral sources. Overall, we saw a minor drop in the wholesome traffic, but it also improved the bounce rates as we could curb it by 1%, giving out 40-50 sign-ups in just one month. In sales, we could achieve much more than the targeted figures. Thanks to the customization project, which we finally worked on. The sales figures were at their best in last 6 months for the ShopyGen project.

Pushmaze was one of the best performers in terms of marketing. It seems, the holiday season had no bad effects on the traffic. Except for the Quora referrals, all other sources saw a rise in the traffic by an average of 20-30%. In fact, Pushmaze was only product to get a huge leap in the social media traffic this month. Ultimately, the marketing efforts paid, and we could achieve some handsome sales figure for one of our lowest-priced product-Pushmaze.

As per PinLearn is concerned, January was one of the best times for this EdTech product. The overall traffic was at its best, compared to the last three months. Direct traffic increased by 27.66%, the overall bounce rate reduced by 0.5%, and US maintained its top position in terms of direct and organic traffic. Considering the holiday season, the decrease in traffic from social media and referrals did not dishearten us. Hopefully upcoming month has some good stats in its trunk, as the team is working hard to revive the traffic as the holiday season takes a pause until the next year.

Customizations and upcoming products

Besides an array of customization requests in projects like Adent, ShopyGen and StreamHash, the team is also working on many upcoming products and services. Hopefully, by the end of this month, we will launch some new products under all three brands. StreamView 4.0 is on its way to the QA phase. PinLearn would receive a major upgrade soon with integrated LMS, Varsity clone, and additional customization services for online training solutions.

Star performer of the month-Nitin

With no doubt, the polling went all in favour of ‘Nitin’ for his excellent performnace with Adent sales. He showed an outstanding behavior under pressure and brought applaudab-le sales to the Adent project. With his hard work and dedication, we were able to convert a holiday season into a high grossing period for the business. He acted as bridged that helped the company connect with its new and existing customers as we served them better. Congratulation Nitin for this remarkable achievement. You deserved this appreciation and recognition.

As we continue to realize our customary all-hands meetings, the session for December was a grand success. It had the additional enthusiasm of the Christmas month plus the positive vibes of already anticipated success in sales and marketing numbers.

The special column- Performer of the Month

As usual, it was a tough decision to find the best among the bests. Everyone was at their 200% the preceding month, and thanks to all of them that we could achieve some good numbers in sales. This month, we took a different approach to find the winner. We skipped the performance in numbers and went for the innovative approaches to do their daily jobs. We analyzed how they took initiatives and went out of the traditional approaches to perform their daily tasks. So here are the nominees for this month –

• Raj: Representing the best of the initiatives Raj was a perfect candidate for this list. His dedication and untraditional efforts to excel ShopyGen’s marketing campaigns were indeed worthy of reward and recognition.
• Sharmila: She has been a consistent performer and has always been making to this list. Her efforts and dedication to Pushmaze’s marketing and SEO could give us some great leaps in term of organic traffic and brand awareness. Taking all the responsibilities of the project, she was one of the bests among the bests.
• Tanmay: Tanmay has been working with us for a long time and has been taking care of multiple projects. However, this month, we are happy to introduce him to this list for his unmatched contribution to take our Adent project to heights.

Winner:

After evaluating the sorted candidates on their dedication, punctuality, and ownership of the projects, Tanmay came out to be the best performer of the month. His individual efforts and contributions to not only his own projects but also to all other tasks are curial for the organization. He has been actively involved in performing tasks with utmost dedication and has been assisting all other employees in their day to day tasks. Congrats Tanmay! You deserve this recognition and title.

Marketing and Sales Accomplishments

Adent received a 26% increase in organic traffic, making it 53% of the overall website traffic. The website received most of its traffic from the USA, which is a major market for the project. Considering the holiday season, the sales team played a great role in converting a great deal of organic traffic into final sales. The sales figure for each of the products were quite satisfying.

On a similar track, our efforts for social media marketing paid-off and we could get a major share of traffic from social media platforms. Likewise, the referral and organic traffic too performed well a 3% and 7% increase respectively. In terms of sales, it was an impressive month for StreamHash as we could sell both base products and customizations on many of them. Some custom requirements were quite innovative, which we think should add in the regular base products as well. Hopefully, we will be able to do so quite near in the future.

ShopyGen, the eCommerce solution, which is one of the toughest products in terms of competition. It performed way decent than our expectations. We had already received some good traffic from the US. However, this month saw a significant increase in traffic from Europe as well. The sales of base products showed a decent improvement, while the majority of the sales were from customizations. This is a good sign as people are coming up with some innovative eCommerce startup ideas.

Pushmaze saw some great achievements in terms of website traffic generation. Organic visitors were improved by 4%, direct website visitors increased, spam traffic decreased by 3%, social traffic leaped by 11%. The top suppliers to the website traffic were organic and social media platforms. As per PinLearn is concerned, the traffic from the USA saw a good improvement. In fact, the overall bounce rates were also decreased. Organic visitors were improved by 15%, Quora traffic improved by 400%, Referral channel saw 22% improvement. The paid Ads also kicked well. The high leap in social traffic is a good sign considering the 12 % decline in the same during the previous month.

Focusing on the purpose of steering, not just another monthly meetup, but also a way to build team bonding and appreciate everyone’s efforts, we started realizing all hands meetings a few months ago. Proving a wise move, the event helped us capitalizing the moments to let everyone come up with the ideas and contribute to the organizations’ growth on a wide scale. The workforce took no time to adopt this new trend and participated with the unmatched enthusiasm.

The November’s All Hand Meeting was a great success. The smartly tuned presentations, well-prepared goals, comprehensive comparisons with the preceding month’s statistics, gave us a vibrant picture of where we are heading and what else is to be done.

Best Performer for the Month

It was never this tough. We already had the bests among us. However, the title added a spice to the contest, as we started observing everyone giving his or her best to claim the title. After a close combat and analyzing the employees on the toughest conducts, we could sort two of the best Instarama warriors who made to the list-

• Srividya Sigamani: Demonstrating as the best among the bests, she made to the list because of her exceedingly dedicated approach to take StreamHash to the elevations. StreamHash was one of the top grossing products for the month. It was not possible without a well-planned marketing, which Srividya enthusiastically carried on. Moreover, everyone at Instarama mutually agrees to her professional, punctual, and dedicated attitude.

 

• Nitin: The best performing products of Instarama- Adent and Shopygen could only do that with a combined effort of the sales and marketing team. Taking all the responsibilities of the sales department, Nitin is no less deserving than anyone at the organization is. He has been making to the list for the past three consecutive months. It is an achievement in itself alone.

Winner:

After evaluating the sorted candidates on the grounds like work dedication, punctuality, professionalism and achievements in the allotted targets, we settled on Srividya as the best performer of the month. Her individual efforts in managing the marketing of StreamHash indisputably deserve to be valued and no one disagreed to the merit she had achieved with her responsibilities. Congrats Srividya! You are the perfect candidate for this title this month.

Marketing and Sales Accomplishments

Receiving a groundbreaking stat, Adent saw a 50% increase in the sign-ups, followed by a 20% rise in the traffic from organic sources and pushing the overall traffic to increase by 10% in total. Positively, we saw a considerable decrease in the bounce rates from Organic, Direct, and Quora traffic as well. With top traffic originating from the USA, Adent experienced a profuse growth in the sales figures. Top grossing products included xCams, xStreamer, and xScorts.

Following the same path, StreamHash and ShopyGen too came up with some impressive stats in terms of sales and marketing. StreamHash received 45% growth in the traffic from the organic sources, which was accompanied by the remarkable 39% increase in the direct traffic.  Likewise, ShopyGen grew by 19% in terms of organic traffic, followed by a 7% boost in the direct and 19% push to the Quora traffic. In terms of sales, both ShopyGen and StreamHash were impressive and we could record some unprecedented figures here. Credit goes to the customization requirements, where we added some new features to the base products as per the clients’ requirements.

Pushmaze led the board in terms of marketing achievements, where we could boost the total traffic by over 10%. Top contributors to this impressive stat were organic sources, direct traffic, and referral sources. In fact, Pushmaze was one of the products to receive a remarkable growth in term of social media traffic and referrals.

Next, follows the PinLearn, which saw some minor decline in the overall traffic. However, sooner, we were relaxed by the stats proving the product is growing in terms of organic and direct traffic, and the bounce rates are declining too.

Targets

The targets were clear. We need some groundbreaking ideas to improve social media referrals for all the products. Moreover, despite a gradual decrease, spam traffic is still disturbing. We agreed on some rigorous approaches to cope with the spam. Optimistically, the next month data will show some quick results.

We are aiming at repeat sales by offering loyalty discounts. Moreover, the customization requirements are still our priority as they help us to embrace some restructured features for our base products. The positive engagement from Australia is encouraging, and we are hoping to get some big deals from there too. The team is conducting research on Australian standards; buoyantly we have most of the requirements already fulfilled.

Additionally, to boost up the content marketing efforts, we agreed on many aspects to be introduced in the marketing tactics. Strategies like case study publications, more how-to articles, affiliate campaigns, were few of the elements we agreed on targeting this month. We also settled on some new and trending keywords for content marketing.

Product Upgrades

Our developers are always working on something new. Be it product customization or upgrade to an existing product, we prefer staying ahead of the market. Hence, product upgrades and customizations remain two major topics for discussion in all our all-hands meetings.

Version 2 of the Genstore from Shopygen is still is development, optimistically, we would be able to release the same by the end of the month with one new product launch called UberX. StreamHash is going through major customizations with the inclusion of features like Screen Sharing, Video Archive, iPad app, and Android TV App. The multi-lingual support for all the products is also on our list.

Feedback and improvements

Taking a cue from clients’ feedback and many of the repeat queries, we have made a list of the features in demand. The team is enthusiastically working on the feasibility studies, to determine if they can make some great difference to our products. In the coming months, several new features are going to be added to the products. Moreover, the in-house team too came up with many ideas to improve our sales, marketing, product features, and internal operations. Confidently, we would be able to implement if not all then most of them in the immediate future.

To align our team members on their way, we host regular all-hands meetings. The last all-hands meeting at Instarama was a successful one and we got a clearer picture of what is next to achieve. Like our previous all-hands meeting, this month too saw an enthusiastic participation by all the members.

With what we planned in last month’s meeting, we were able to focus on some meaningful and long-term decisions. However, this time did not only focussed on our business goals but also took out some time to celebrate the accomplishments of our best performing team members.

Primarily, we discussed on the marketing and sales achievements of the September month, targets for the upcoming October month, product updates, product customization, and the customer feedback to help us enhance the product development process. Here are some highlights on the same.

Marketing and sales accomplishments

Adent saw a slight decrease in overall traffic as compared to that of August. However, we were able to reduce the overall bounce rate by a considerable 4%-5 %. This is a good sign considering we eliminated most of the spam traffic with our efforts and migrated from HTTP to HTTPS. The other modes of traffic like Organic and Quora experienced growth, where we achieved some quality traffic by reducing the spam traffic. It worked, and we were able to increase the direct traffic and regulate the bounce rates on all the projects. There was an incline with a small downfall in Referral traffic. However, with the overall bounce rate decreased by 3% it is a good deal for us. There was an increased engagement from Spain, in addition to the regular increase in traffic from UK and US. The best sales figures came from xCams and xStreamer. However, we also saw a positive response in xMarket, where the sales were quite rapid as compared to the last month’s data.

There was a positive change with PushMaze, where we were happy despite 3-4% decrease in traffic. It is because the overall bounce rates were regulated massively by 6% and we saw a 30% increase in the overall sessions. It is a good sign considering, PushMaze’s keywords are constantly ranking up on Google’s SERPS. Same goes to ShopyGen, where there was a slight decrease in the traffic, but still, the overall bounce rate was regulated by over 7%. StreamHash witnessed an increase in the number of interests shown in the website through signups with 70% traffic from organic sources and 69 keywords being positioned on the first page of Google SERPs. The highest audience engagement rate for StreamHash, PushMaze, and ShopyGen was from the US, UK, Brazil, and Canada.

Targets

Aiming at the continuous product enhancements, we also discussed the plan for expected sales and marketing to be realized in the October month. We would continue to filter the traffic to get the quality leads and decrease overall bounce rates on all our projects. We aim to increase the quality traffic for Adent by at least 15% and get as many signups. For ShopyGen, and Stream hash, we are aiming to employ micro-personalization in our overall marketing tactics to get highly segmented audience for the corresponding products. Hence, the overall target is to get as many quality traffic with reduced bounce rate and increased sign-ups and decrease the spam traffic. We plan to increase our presence on social media profile and engage our followers with both product and utility information. The aim is getting at least 20% increase in the social media referrals.

Product upgrades

ShopyGen is working on launching its new product UberX, while it is working on the next version of GenStore too. We will soon be launching the xTalk and xMarketplace’s latest version. For StreamHash, the main customizations include Offline videos on StreamView and introduction of Many-to-Many stream feature in StreamNow.

Feedback and Improvement

As per the suggestions and feedback from our ShopyGen clients, we are in process of modifying the UI, Adding new payment options, and adding category subscription option in ShopyGen. We are adding one-to-one communication in StreamNow, and support for some new languages in TubeNow.

“Best performer of the month”

Employees desire to learn and grow. They fancy success in their career, recognition for their efforts, and all the rewards that go along with being the best. We have the bests among us. So why not reward them for being so. As captain of this team, my job is doing anything it takes to squeeze the best performance from my team, and set them up for a bigger run. Therefore, we took the advantage of our monthly all-hands meeting to introduce the rewards system before this month itself. In the process to find our next best performer of the month, we analyzed the environment that kept our warriors engaged, alert, and ultimately excited for work.

It was a tight contest!

We wanted to give everyone a fair chance to claim the title. Therefore, we set some tough grounds for the contest and evaluated all our Instarama warriors on them.

The top three nominees were –

Srividya Sigamani– For her excellent work in taking StreamHash to new heights by employing her dedicated and strategic marketing tactics. She plays a vital role in helping Instarama and does much more than she is expected to do.

Nitin– A highly professional young men, walking with the hectic burden of sales department for Adent and Shopygen. His work in increasing the revenue and client acquisition rate for Shopygen and Adent was more than enough to grant him the title.

Vinay– The newly joined professional who is working with us as a content developer. He is taking care of content development for all the projects. Very disciplined and always ready to give his 200% to deliver the content on time. It is a tough task to deliver punctuality, discipline blended with high-quality content. However, nothing less could have been expected from a well-deserved candidate in our list.

Winner: By thoroughly weighing the nominees based on numerous aspects, it was Vinay who grabbed Instarama’s Second “Employee of the month” award. His individual exertions aimed at Content Development remained unquestionably to be cherished and each Instarama warrior agreed that he strappingly merited it due to his supreme enthusiasm and commitment to his job. Congrats Vinay, You deserved it.

Appreciation at work is something that is very crucial for an employee to confirm if their work is valued at the organization. For a company, it is about timely recognition of an employee’s behavior, effort or business result that supports its goals and values, clearly beyond the normal expectations.

At Instarama, we strongly believe that the employee happiness and growth have a direct impact on how we function, and therefore help us to clearly determine where we stand in our journey. Hence, we decided to evaluate our employees based on various factors such as discipline, target closures, ownership, new initiatives and team work, and have the “best performer” award given to them each month during our all hands meeting.

In the recent all hands meet that commenced on 11^th September 2018, we had a discussion on the August month’s marketing and sales achievements, the targets for the month of September, product upgrades, feedback and had the “best performer” for the month of August 2018.

Best Performer for the Month of August 2018

It is never easy to closely analyze and judge the highest overall performer, especially among employees with infinite zeal like at Instarama. Hence, there was a stiff competition between the employees to bag Instarama’s first “Employee of the month” award.

Among the top three nominees were Tanmay Sarkar (for his work in taking Adent to new heights by employing new and strategic marketing tactics, playing a vital role in helping Instarama to structure their workflow), Yadhunandan (for his work in increasing the revenue and client acquisition rate for StreamHash with new and streamlined strategies, and also taking care of StreamHash’s post-sales, integrating with the developers to deliver the customer requests and clearing their queries in-time) and Sharmila Panda (for her impeccable rate of punctuality and discipline, and for her work  in improvising the quality traction of visitors to PushMaze).

Closely evaluating the nominees based on various factors, it was Yadhunandan who seized Instarama’s First “Employee of the month” award, whose sole efforts for StreamHash were definitely to be appreciated and every employee felt that he strongly deserved it due to his unparalleled dedication. Congrats Yadhunandan!

Marketing and Sales Accomplishments

Adent saw over 15% increase in their overall traffic in August’18 as compared to that of July’s. Social media witnessed a growth of over 120%, and referral traffic went up to 85% for Adent. Other modes of visitor traction like Organic and Quora also saw an incline with a small downfall in direct traffic. There was an increased engagement seen from the audience in UK and Canada. Among its products, xCams and xStreamer had the highest number of Sales, and xMember and xModes had an increase in the number of enquiries as compared to that of July’s.

With the keyword ranking going up, PushMaze too saw an overall increase in the visitor traction from all the channels. ShopyGen’s direct traffic rose up, and StreamHash witnessed an increase in the number of interests shown in the website through signups. The highest audience engagement rate for StreamHash, PushMaze and ShopyGen were from the US market. Among StreamHash’s products, StreamView was the most popular, making the maximum Sales numbers.

Targets

Continuous betterment in product enhancements, sales and marketing numbers in August as compared to the month of July has obviously brought in higher expectations for September 2018. Adent’s expectations are to increase the overall number of website visitors by 15% and prospects an upsurge in the signup rates. ShopyGen looks forward in employing highly segmented targeting strategies to improve the quality of visits and enquires by at-least 20%. StreamHash focuses on improvising the website traffic from its social media, direct and organic sources.

Product Upgrades

Adent is working on launching its new product xTalk, and xMarketplace’s revamped version is expected to launch by this month. For StreamHash, the main upgrades were on StreamView (Options for category subscription, Offline video access in mobile application, RTMP live streaming and adaptive streaming) and TubeNow. ShopyGen is working on optimizing its service marketplace clone script Gentack, with enhanced accessibility features and the version 2.0 is expected to launch soon.

Feedback and improvements

There were personalized UI customization requests from some of Adent’s clients for xCams and xStreamer.

Taking time to assess the progress, mission and the direction we are heading is essential in every organization’s growth journey. This should happen frequently, in a monthly or a quarterly basis, and setting short term goals can highly influence the decision making process, uncovering the path to reach the main objectives.

At Instarama, we have found that a monthly all hands meeting can help us focus better on making meaningful, long-term decisions. We aim to demonstrate our organization’s values of accountability and trust by being transparent on how it functions. The time we spent together, to discuss and evaluate our activities is helping our teams grow and build a shared understanding of our mission. With us catering products of multiple verticals, the all-hands meetings help us to connect with each other, take time to reflect our progress and align our goals accordingly for the upcoming month.

In the recent all-hands meeting that commenced on 07^th August 2018, we had discussed on the marketing and sales achievements of the past month (July’s), targets for the upcoming month (August), product updates and the customer feedback to help us enhance the product development process. Here are some highlights on the same.

Marketing and sales accomplishments

Adent saw an overall increase in traffic on organic searches, online and social media. Among the mediums, Quora witnessed a 500% growth in engagement in July 2018 as compared to June’s, and the maximum traffic pour was from United States. StreamHash, PushMaze and ShopyGen saw an incline in their organic, direct and Quora traffic and a small downfall in that of paid online and social media. StreamHash and ShopyGen saw an increase in the number of unique visits to the website.

The sales of Adent rose up to 40% in July’18 as compared to June’18, with the highest interest shown towards xStreamer, its video streaming and tube script. Notably, xCams witnessed the maximum increase in sales over month. ShopyGen too witnessed an increase in their sales with its multi-vendor eCommerce marketplace, GenStore performing above limits.

Targets

The route to success is built on a constant improvement on everything we are doing. With July month’s overall rise in the marketing and sales achievements, there were high expectations for the forthcoming month. ShopyGen and StreamHash’s main focus was on the USA, UK and Australian markets, and to increase their organic, paid online and social media engagement by at-least 40%. Adent’s plans were to increase their overall online traffic up to 30%, by targeting mediums like Instagram, Quora, YouTube and the affiliate partners.

Product upgrades

Adent’s key customizations were on xStreamer (giving users the option of Premium HD video quality) and xMember (unification of sites, where a user can integrate two or more of their websites under a single functionality). For StreamHash, dynamic landing pages and per-day based subscription plans for StreamTube was included. StreamView’s new version (3.0) upgrades include Landing page changes and additional cast features. ShopyGen’s GenTask had a few customizations done based on the clients’ request, on their respective stores.

Feedback and Improvement

Operational excellence doesn’t spring from anywhere but from the feedback of our clients. We have continuously revamped our products based on the customer feedback, which had made it possible for us to stand among the best turnkey solution providers in the market.

Additional languages, auto-signout and live streaming options were requested by StreamHash’s clients and our tech teams have started optimizing on the requests. Based on the feedback from Adent’s clients, xCams v2.0 is set to launch this month with Kurento tech integration, along with xMarketplace’s upgraded version. ShopyGen’s GenTack, GenTask and GenStore had received a significant amount of feedback, requesting additional design customization features and dynamic homepages.

Giving us an opportunity to work with other team members that we wouldn’t normally interact with, the all-hands meeting helped us to exchange ideas and form links that will strengthen the organization as a whole.