Carles Bonfill, Easypromos founder and CEO on how innovation and fast response to their customers has been the key to keeping them longer

First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID19 times?

Carles Bonfill: We are all fine, thanks. Children were without school one day to another and we decided to lock in all the family at home mid-March. I believe we must be very proud of our children as they have dealt with COVID-19 time so well. The children understood that keeping away from grandparents and staying at home helps all society and so they adapted to the new situation better than many adults. Children showed their adaptable mindset, a mindset we should all embrace and try to incorporate during these moments.

Regarding work, our platform is based on cloud computing, so it was seamless to stay effective. The same day that schools closed, our company decided to implement working from home. Our staff worked remotely for 3 months. We took this as a nice opportunity to check our digital skills at a high level, and we passed the ‘exam’ with a good mark.

Tell us about you, your career, how you founded or joined Easypromos

Carles Bonfill: I think that everything starts after some failed online projects which were focused on B2C. I realized that I wanted to create something for B2B and in the cloud by selling software licenses. Then, the main idea came in 2009 when businesses could start having a profile on Facebook. Then, a new need was born by businesses: they need to connect with users. We believed that rewards and incentives could be the reason for users to connect with businesses. So we developed an application in Facebook, so brands could launch a giveaway in Facebook in minutes. It really worked.

How does Easypromos innovate?

Carles Bonfill: Easypromos innovates day in, day out.. Our business is based on social media evolution, social trends and innovations, so we must adapt our apps constantly. For example, every time Facebook changes a rule or API settings, we must innovate our apps to continue offering our social media giveaway products at the same high level.

On the other hand, we innovate because it is in our DNA. When we detect some aspect of our service that can be improved, we adjust our methods to achieve maximum quality and performance. If we imagine a tool or app that might be interesting for marketing professionals and evolve how brands market, we develop it and launch it within several weeks. If clients detect a need, we analyze it and create a development solution if it’s a viable concept to our clients.

Our innovation is based in 3 main areas: (1) Active listening to our clients (2) Digital Marketing trends and (3) Best Practices for guarantee Security, High Availability and Robustness.

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business and how are you coping?

Carles Bonfill: First reaction was to lock down at home and starting to work remotely. And then, ideas came to our team. We approached our business the same as before the pandemic, but with more actions and solutions for our clients. We continued offering our full platform with all our team active, and started additional actions to help with COVID-19 difficult situation. We wanted to offer solutions, content and ideas for brands to get maximum benefits out of a marketing action.

We created a microsite full of entertainment games created by our team, just for fun and leisure to the children and families locked down at home and offer distractions to ease the mind. We collaborated with social initiatives to get funds to fight against Coronavirus like this one from catalan scientists, and also we created a survey to gather information about our clients (marketing departments and agencies) to understand how they were coping with the pandemic downturns. Finally, we created an eBook to give advice and ideas to our clients for the next months, as the world faces difficult times and create solutions for businesses to create momentum and awareness.

Did you have to make difficult choices and what are the lessons learned?

Carles Bonfill: Yes, I had to calm down the team and guide them to continue working with full energy and optimism. Team building and flow communication are essential, especially during this period. We implemented daily video meetings to keep the connection of our team, and see each other face to face.

During the recent two weeks, demand went down so we dedicated extra time to learning and improving our skills. We optimized key concepts of our year budget while freezing some projects until September.

How do you deal with stress and anxiety, how do you project yourself and Easypromos in the future ?

Carles Bonfill: Sport has been a must. I normally go to the gym or cycling to the mountains near my city. Another thing is just reading news from official sources or well-known media. About our company, I think we can do our best in the months ahead as people will connect more frequently online. Our product, digital promotions and interactive campaign must be essential for brands to connect and communicate with their customers, as some of them will turn into digital channels and they won’t return to street stores. For me as well as our company, we want to be a solution for people, a way for them to market their business in a cost-effective way, with maximum effectiveness. Keeping a focus on being a solution to others, offers my mind some peace and calm.

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

Carles Bonfill: Easypromos competitors are a few marketing platforms that provide interactive online tools for brands and marketing agencies to connect with customers and target audiences. For example, Woobox, Shortstack, ViralSweep, Wishpond.

Yes, we plan to stay in the game, at the front end. We have been there from the year this economic activity was born, in 2009. We are leaders in Spanish-spoken countries and we’re winning positions in the international market. We have clients all around the world and our platform is set in English and Spanish, and promotions can be built and displayed in more than 30 languages. Our keys are reliability, robustness, security and scalability. And we believe we are the best at supporting our clients with our chat and friendly multi-lingual customer service team.

Your final thoughts

Carles Bonfill: Promotion to a digital business is now a must. Brands must adapt to new trends, so brands should focus on, gamification, digital engaging platforms and interactive campaigns like games, quizzes, giveaways and contests. COVID-19 taught us that if a Business doesn’t adapt quickly to new digital trends, it can die quicker than others. No fear to invest in digital tools!