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How does a firm launch a brand new, industry news microsite in next to no time without hiring a web developer or design team? This is the story of how James Nadal, content manager at London, UK-based IRIS Software Group, used Foleon to do exactly that. We recently heard from James about how it all began and what he’s been accomplishing with Foleon ever since.
Continue reading to get the full story, or watch the video below.
“Foleon is a brilliant platform for creating microsites. It has the ability to look almost like a magazine. It's very visually attractive — it's got lots of animation and interactivity built into it. I think we're only just beginning to learn all the benefits it has.”
James Nadal
Content Manager
IRIS Software Group has a vast portfolio of solutions for business productivity, HR, accountancy, compliance, and stakeholder engagement. They are one of the UK’s largest privately held software companies.
As their go-to content creation platform, Foleon helps IRIS fulfill its content marketing goals. So far, Foleon has helped IRIS achieve two primary objectives:
- Publishing visually stunning content befitting of business thought-leaders and experts
- Rapidly launching Your Accountancy Life, a publication dedicated to sharing accounting-related good news
Long-form content gets a makeover
It all started with an increasing awareness that using PDFs to create brochures, white papers, eBooks, and the like was growing increasingly stale. “Some of the long format [content] starts to look a bit tired and old,” James reflected. “There was no interactivity. So, we were looking for something a bit different. Like many marketing teams, we could have carried on doing the same thing with our PDFs, but we’re looking to improve and make things more engaging constantly. Having Foleon on board has enabled us to do that.”
“Like many marketing teams, we could have carried on doing the same thing with our PDFs, but we’re looking to improve and make things more engaging constantly. Having Foleon on board has enabled us to do that.”
An out-of-the-box solution for a no-code microsite
While getting familiar with Foleon’s capabilities, James was emboldened to pitch a big idea internally. His concept involved launching a digital news magazine. The goal was to encourage a sense of community and grow stakeholder engagement amongst UK accounting professionals.
However, setting up this publication couldn’t be your average time-intensive or resource-heavy web project. “For this microsite, I needed something that was going to get up and running in a simple, straightforward, no-frills ways, rather than building a website from scratch,” said James. ”This project would have involved far more technical work — more in-house resources — and the day-to-day running of the site would have been far more difficult to manage. But, thanks to Foleon, it’s been a simple, streamlined task.”
Today, Your Accountancy Life is an immersive, contemporary-looking microsite where accountants share awards and achievements, welcome new industry members, announce new services, talk about client wins, and share charitable initiatives like cause-based fundraising.
The requirements
In addition to the pressing need to launch an exceptionally nimble news site, James recognized that Foleon would have to serve IRIS’s long-term content needs precisely and accurately. He noted, “You've got the ability to look at a dashboard, showing you the page views, which are really useful to keep a close eye on. I have experience using Google Analytics, but Foleon’s trackers are just as good.”
The team can also integrate interactions with Your Accountancy Life and the data in their account-based marketing tool of choice, Marketo. “The ability to plug the two things together has given us extra insight into who (and how many) people are viewing and engaging,” James enthused.
Advice for anyone considering Foleon
For IRIS Software Group, the decision to team up with Foleon came down to:
- Immediate visual impact
- Easy user adoption and shallow learning curve
- Integration with other tools, such as Marketo
- Reliable readership KPIs
“From the first time I saw it, I was very impressed by Foleon’s aesthetics. Moreover, it wouldn't require reams of instructions or difficulties learning new software,” James explained.
“I think that for anybody looking to improve their content, or anyone looking to do projects like microsites or produce things like guides, or ebooks, it’s definitely worth considering Foleon. There’s absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
“I think that for anybody looking to improve their content, or anyone looking to do projects like microsites or produce things like guides, or ebooks, it’s definitely worth considering Foleon. There’s absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
