January 2017

Millennium Integrated Marketing’s President and Strategist, Linda Fanaras, was recently featured in The 4 A’s “See It & Be It” series. The series spotlights women and other minority leaders that have succeeded despite the challenges they face, and through sharing their perspectives seeks to inspire a new generation of galvanizing leaders in the advertising industry. Interviewees are invited to provide their personal experiences and views on gender equality and diversity in the workplace.

In 2017, why do you think it’s still necessary to talk about opportunities for women in the industry, and how women are portrayed in advertising?

Whether it’s 2017, or 100 years from now, I don’t believe there is ever a time we should say, “Our work here is done.” If 25 years in marketing have taught me anything, it’s that things change. Are things the same as when I first started? No. Can we do better? Undoubtedly, yes. Progress, especially social progress, occurs only when people are willing to challenge the status quo and ignite a conversation. It’s when we stop talking or asking if something can be done better that we fall short of our potential.

Do you think women, people of color, LGBTQ and people with disabilities face similar issues in the ad industry?

Yes, in that all people deemed as part of a minority—whether it be by gender, race, sexual orientation or ability—are subject to discrimination. However, I do also believe that the exact nature, form and/or experience of bias, implicit or explicit, is very personal and specific to the individual.

What advice would you give to a 20-year-old woman on succeeding in the advertising industry?
If I could go back and talk to a 20-year-old version of myself, I would probably have about a thousand things to say to her, but my top three would probably be:

Be prepared to fail, but also take each failure as a chance to learn from your mistakes.
Determine what you want to be, have and do—and be persistent and focused.
Take time to enjoy your life.

Would you want your daughter to pursue a career in advertising? If not, why not?
Of course, but only if it were truly what she wanted to do and she had a passion for it. Advertising isn’t for everyone. You really have to like not knowing what will come next and be comfortable with the fact that the current way you do things may need to change to fit new industry standards.

What did you do to survive and thrive in advertising?
Surviving at anything, starts with a self-determination to always be and do better for yourself and others. Creating value for my clients has always been my primary focus, and it is this commitment to consumer-driven, strategic marketing and digital campaigns that has allowed me to accelerate growth for both Millennium and its clients.

Linda A. Fanaras, President & Strategist
Linda A. Fanaras is the President and Founder of Millennium Integrated Marketing, an award-winning data-driven branding, creative strategy and digital and public relations firm in Manchester, New Hampshire and Boston. She holds board positions with the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), and Business and Industry Association. For more information, contact Linda Fanaras at [email protected] or (603)792-2200. You can also reach her through LinkedIn.

This article was originally published on 4A’s.

About Millennium Agency

Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who knows how to create value that emotionally influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your trusted partner in B2B software technology and manufacturing, we provide the branding and positioning framework that make an impact – so you can focus on what you do best – run your business successfully. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business.  Visit www.mill.agency or book time here.

So, you think your company has a good-looking website? That’s great. The problem is appearance is only half the battle. The real question is: do your customers trust it? As digital marketing continues to become a large part of everyday life it is important to gain and maintain customers’ trust. One simple way to do this is through a website design that will increase conversion rates. Building trust through the web has the potential to increase website conversion rates. By following these seven simple steps you can help your company create an authentic web design and build trust with your customers for years to come.

Add a Contact Us Page

Always be sure to incorporate a “Contact Us” page within your website. Contact pages show your company is inviting feedback and listening to customer concerns. Being open to a dialogue with your customers is a great way to build positive relations and a 2015 B2B Web Usability report found 98% of respondents would leave a website without a contact page, diminishing the credibility you’re trying to build online. In addition, be sure to include a phone number and email address, but also a physical address for the company. A physical address gives the customer the appearance the company is tangible and tangible items increase trust as they usually appear more realistic.

Add an About Us Page

Try to include pictures and bios for the employees within your “About Us” section to add a personal connection with the customer and help build trust and loyalty. Also be sure to add each employee’s social media links in the “About Us” section. Customers can use these to build interactions with both employees and the company. It is important to be responsive with your social media accounts and interact with customers as often as possible. This gives customers the impression that you care and are listening.

Publish Papers/Reports

Increasing trust and validity can also come from publishing educational material. Companies who only use social media were found less trustworthy than those with recognized work. If your company is able to, add a link to these publications through a website and allow customers to view them for free. This helps to build trust by eliminating the privacy concerns customers face if they are required to share their personal information.

Keep Your Web Design up to Date

Your web design and content should be kept current and consistent. Keeping up with current design trends is advisable, but avoid changing the design too often as this can decrease brand recognition and negatively impact SEO. Design trends change almost every year, but when your website goes from a calm layout with a menu bar at the top to a scrolling screen with no menu bar customers may get confused. Confusion turns customers away as they do not want to spend the time to navigate your website trying to find what they are looking for.

Incorporate UX and UI

When designing a website, think about the five elements customers want to avoid: busy layouts, pop-up advertisements, small print, lack of color and slow load times. A well-designed UI circumvents common distractions and deterrents, guiding the customer through an ideal UX, which keeps them on your website and leads them to a desired end product.

Implement an Easy Navigation System

Ensure your webpage has an easy navigation system. Customers will spend very little time looking for something on a website. If you are able to guide customers through your website with ease, it will help increase your conversion rates. Utilizing both UX and UI are great ways to ensure your company’s website is easy to navigate.

Provide Social Proofs

Take advantage of social proofs such as press/customer logos, case studies, and number of subscribers, etc. to add credibility to your site. Adding success stories can build trust with customers because it invites them to become part of the story. Additionally, this is a great way to add transparency within your website, allowing the customer to see who you are and what your company is about.

By using these seven elements your website can go from a good-looking website to a user-friendly and trustworthy site all while increasing customer satisfaction. Increased customer satisfaction will lead to longer time spent on your site, leading to a better conversion rate and improved customer relations.

Do you think your website has what it takes to maintain a trustworthy relationship with your customers? Contact us to learn more about website development or for a free website evaluation.

About Millennium Agency

Websites are more than digital brochures for your business. In fact, they can be built to drive lead generation through simplistic yet creative design, well-placed contact forms, and a positive user experience.

Website development best practices are constantly changing, however, and unless you have a designated team to devote to ongoing updates and maintenance, your website may fall flat.

If you are noticing your new and returning user analytics are becoming stagnant, you may need to adjust your website. Online audiences have high expectations when browsing the internet. Ensure your website is meeting their needs by integrating these five optimization tips into your website strategy.

Utilize a Consistent Theme and Style

There are seemingly infinite options for website page templates, themes, color combinations, widgets, multimedia integrations, fonts, and more. It is easy to get distracted by flashy designs and exciting plugins, but more is not always better when it comes to website development. During the beginning stages of website design, your team should determine the number of templates that will be required, a color scheme of three primary colors (usually your logo’s colors), and a consistent style that will be utilized throughout your website. A well-executed website can have many different templates that seamlessly work together to achieve your objectives.

Make it Responsive

The amount of time consumers spend on mobile devices has significantly increased over the past several years. 65% of digital time is now spent on mobile devices, with only 35% of time spent on desktop. With mobile becoming faster and more available, there is no longer a question of whether or not websites should be responsive. Websites that still utilize the fixed image method of display are quickly becoming obsolete due to both user aversion and modern trends. In the spring of 2015, Google announced an update to its search ranking algorithm that penalizes websites that are not responsive. Ensure your audience can access your website no matter what platform they are utilizing.

Integrate an Intuitive Navigation

Once users access your website and are intrigued by a unique design, they need to know where to go next. Creating an intuitive navigation structure requires taking on the perspective of your audience. What topics are they searching for on your website? What paths might they take to get to designated landing pages where they can convert to leads? Some best practices include standard navigation location, simplistic design, informative titles, and secondary navigations for supporting resources. Users should not be responsible for finding their way around your website; they should be naturally led from page to page through an exceptional navigation flow.

Engage Users Through Forms and Comments

User engagement drives contacts to convert into leads. The content on your website should give enough information to allow a user to learn about your business and how you can be of value to theirs, but leaves just enough unsaid to naturally guide the prospect to a contact form. Depending on the industry, a forum or comments section may be useful to grow conversation and build a contact list. Providing links to download eBooks, whitepapers, and case studies is another way to provide your audience with initial information when they are still considering potential partners and vendors. An efficient, clear way for users to communicate with your team members is an essential function for an optimized website.

Increase Retrieval Speed for User Devices

The internet age has brought about an expectation for instantaneous access to information. There is even psychological information behind response times for websites and the affect they have on the user experience. For example, a website that loads in less than a second imbues the user with a sense of power over the content. On the other hand, if the website takes around 10 seconds to appear, the user has most likely lost interest and is in the process of navigating away. Several website issues can affect the speed of your website, including the quality of your hosting service, out-of-date plugins, and unspecified caching metrics. Rarely is there a slowdown in website speed that cannot be fixed, as long as you have access to an experienced development team.

With each passing year, websites become more advanced, and users become more demanding. Your business should have a process in place that involves the review of website content, functionality, and analytics to provide insight into where optimization will add value.

If you are interested in enhancing your website with Millennium Integrated Marketing, contact Linda Fanaras, or call 1-877-873-7445.

About Millennium Agency

Lead generation is the main goal of most business-to-business companies, and a large number of business-to-consumer organizations as well. When it comes to lead generation on websites, the tools have been in place for years now. Contact forms, subscription fields, request a demo buttons; these are excellent for users who are prepared to convert. But how do you generate leads when they are still determining what they need, or learning about your business in general?

These users are known as top-of-the-funnel leads, or website visitors. They are in the first stages of becoming a qualified, valuable lead. Nurturing leads through the process from visitor to customer starts with interesting content that motivates them to take the next step toward a conversion. Your website can be an excellent tool for casting out a net of targeted messaging and reeling in potential leads.

Looking for ideas beyond the basics of contact forms and email subscriptions? Check out these three new tips:

1. Live-Stream Content

The question of how to generate leads has a simple answer: engage your audience. Once they are interested, they will take steps to subscribe to offers or contact you directly when a need arises. Luckily, through the use of social media and modern video production, audience participation is a given. One way to begin the process of lead generation is live-streaming content directly to users.

Facebook Live and Periscope are the current leaders in live-streaming. Viewers can comment and react to content that you are sharing in-the-moment, creating the perception of a discussion board. Rather than leaving the content on the platform you posted it on, embed a recording in a video library on your website. At the end of the live-stream, alert your users that the video will be posted on your website and they can find more information on your products and services there as well. Sharing a link will also help drive traffic back to your website. An additional benefit of this lead generation method is consistently updated video content that search engines are serving up more and more often.

2. GPS-Based Advertising

Advertising on the Google Search and Display Networks, as well as other digital platforms like mobile applications, has become a necessity for increasing website traffic and subsequent conversions. Relevance is the primary focus of the search algorithms; keywords should be in titles, in descriptions, on landing pages, and always organically integrated. Relevance has now expanded to another dimension as well: location.

It’s the future we have been anticipating for years: you walk by a store and suddenly your phone vibrates with an advertisement for a sale that you might be interested in. The increase in wearable technology and vehicle GPS systems will lead to marketing space that is not yet overrun with competition. Businesses are already considering how to generate leads with GPS-based advertising as mobile recently trumped search in online advertising. Start strategizing ways to serve your advertisements within a specified radius during times that users are most likely to take interest. Lead them to landing pages with the exact information they are looking for, like a coupon to the sale you just advertised. Your audience-base will grow with local, valuable leads.

3. Influencer Marketing

If you are on social media for any reason, whether it be networking or leisure, you know there are certain accounts that have millions of followers. These individual users are known as influencers, and their audiences are generally larger than your own. So what do you do when you are a mid-sized automotive company and you find an influencer engaging in the same conversation as you? Enlist them in influencer marketing.

This 2016 trend is only gaining momentum this year, and there is a lot of data to prove it. The keyword alone has grown in search results by 5000%, and 70% of internet users would rather learn about a product or service through a third-party. Influencer marketing primarily works because it is the modern form of word-of-mouth; someone else is advocating on behalf of your brand. In fact, leads generated through word-of-mouth have a 37% higher retention rate.

Recruit an influencer by reaching out to them personally and sharing information about your business. Form a partnership by offering them space on your website in the form of guest blogs or sponsorships, and ask if they can do the same for you. They will send their audience to your website and add credibility to your brand with their endorsements.

Like any form of digital marketing, lead generation is always changing. While the foundation may stay the same, the strategy needs to change regularly in order to consistently attract a new audience. If you are wondering how to generate leads using your website, reach out to Millennium Integrated Marketing at [email protected] or call 1-877-873-7445.

About Millennium Agency

Millennium Agency is a national, award-winning, digital, creative, content/PR, and video marketing firm. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, our team unites creative branding and data analytics to accelerate our clients’ growth, while combining our clients’ vision with our marketing expertise to increase sales opportunities and drive brand success. From video advertising and web design to social media and PR, Millennium can guide your marketing efforts every step of the way. Contact the professionals at Millennium Agency to learn more!

Linda Fanaras is the President and Founder of Millennium Agency (www.mill.agency) located in Manchester, NH, and Boston. She can be reached at 877-873-7445 or [email protected].

The development and launch of a new website is an exciting time for a business or organization; it refreshes the brand, improves functionality, and invites a greater audience. Once the website is live, however, it must be monitored to ensure quality and performance are maintained. This is where dedicated website management comes in: appointing an internal resource or website management firm to strategize and make edits can save time and resources and increase efficiency. Some of the benefits of exceptional website management include:

Accurate Recording of Current Strategies and Goals

It is easy to put aside the goals of a website following launch. Business and lead generation return to the main focus of the workday, and marketing teams move on to the next project. When it comes to websites, goals and strategies cannot be tabled after the project is complete. Goals drive everything on your website from design and content to functionality and user experience. Strategies are the methods to achieving those goals, often through implementing landing pages, contact forms, and blog posts. Dedicated website management ensures your goals and strategies will be optimized based on analytics and industry trends.

Plugins, Hosting, and Security are Regularly Updated

Websites are highly complex with layers of coded information connected together to create a seamless storefront. Unless you have a team member with expertise in the technical details that are the foundation of your website, you could risk losing money on your investment. A development team will need to maintain your website on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to guarantee performance. They will also be in charge of backing up web files to a secure repository in the case that a major incident occurs where files must be restored. These tasks take time, and require dedicated website management.

Design and Content Edits Are Made Quickly and Efficiently

One of the greatest benefits of a website is the ease with which it can be updated in regard to design and content. Small changes, however, can sometimes cause big problems when they are made by someone without website management experience. Shifting a menu, adjusting page layout, and altering the size of a banner can all drastically change your website, leading to additional editing time. A skilled development team can easily make these changes and ensure no resources are wasted, especially if they originally coded the website.

Time is Spent on Business, Not Web Maintenance

When a website is commissioned, it is usually because the business or organization does not have an employee with the training or time to devote to such a large project. After a website is launched, the same state of mind should still apply. Enlist a website management team whose primary responsibility is keeping your website optimized for high performance. Your employees will be able to focus on their work, rather than worrying about the release of the latest version of WordPress.

Dedicated website management is not always easy, because it often starts with a website design or refresh and carries into ongoing maintenance. Whether you need an experienced team to maintain your website, or you are looking for a full redesign, Millennium Integrated Marketing can help. Get in touch today with President and Strategist Linda Fanaras, or call 1-877-873-7445

Whether you are updating your own website content, or you are working with a marketing firm that is, it’s important to know how to create compelling content that achieves what it is intended to achieve. To start, you should avoid some of the common mistakes that even the most experienced professionals make when writing content for the web:

Mistake #1: You don’t consider your audience

Have you ever landed on a website and thought, this just isn’t for me? If so, one of two things has happened: (1) you landed on a website that really isn’t for you, or (2) you landed on a website that is for you, but the content writers didn’t consider their audience. You’ll be able to spot a website like this based on the following:

– Uses a lot of jargon that no one outside of the industry understands
– Has long, complex sentences and paragraphs that no one has time to read
– Reflects the opinions, likes, and desires of the business, not its audience

HubSpot challenges writers to do as much research as possible before putting their first word on a page. By researching your audience, and keeping them in mind in everything you write, you will have a much better chance of making a meaningful connection and motivating them to take a desired action.

Mistake #2: You overuse various font styles

While we agree that your website content should be a work of art, that doesn’t mean it should be overly stylized. As a content writer, you should avoid:

– Hard to read fonts (like those with curly-cues and squiggles)
– Excessive use of bold and italics
– Largeblocksofdensetext
– Hard to read colors (like red on a green background)
– ALL CAPS
– Tiny text

Use this test: if you squint your eyes and can no longer read your content at arms-length, you need to reevaluate your style choices.

Mistake #3: You don’t chunk your content

On average, users read less than 28% of the website content on a page. This means you have a limited opportunity to make an impact with your message. Chunking content is critical in effective writing for websites. The best way to organize your content is to create an outline before you begin, so your content has a logical flow while being organized and compelling. Leave space in your outline for keywords, content type (call-to-actions, forms, transitions, etc.), and visual content including videos, photos, and graphics.

Mistake #4: You don’t use hierarchy

Once you have created an outline, write your content in short concise statements. The deliberate use of white space around your text will also draw the reader’s eye to the text you want them to read. Make sure there is effective hierarchy in your content; there should be content elements that draw attention first, second, third, and so on. Using headlines, sub-headlines, and paragraph text is a great way to establish hierarchy. Utilizing a consistent theme can also help make content easy to digest.

Mistake #5: You try to make too many points

Finally, don’t try to make too many points in each sentence/paragraph. Your sentences should have a clear beginning, middle, and end, and your paragraphs should only be 1-3 sentences long. Get in the habit of self-editing: write your content as a “stream of consciousness” first to get your ideas onto paper, and then work on eliminating unnecessary words. Your end result will be clear, concise, and impactful website content that your audience will actually read and enjoy.

Better content keeps users happy, so they convert

Avoiding these mistakes in your website content can significantly improve the user experience (UX) for your current and potential customers. When users have an easier time digesting your content, and you make them feel like you are speaking their language, they are more likely to trust you and eventually become a lead.

If you’re ready to give yourself a competitive edge while increasing traffic to your website and converting more leads, Millennium can help. Call or email to connect with us at 877-873-7445 ext. 201 or [email protected].

What’s Next in Digital Marketing?

2016 was a great year for digital marketing trends. From blogging to engaging with social media influencers, brands were able to boost awareness through many shifts in technology and social media.

New digital marketing trends will emerge in 2017. Expect videos to drive engagement and personalized content to mean more than ever before.

In a field that is constantly evolving, foresight is needed to dominate competitors. Find out more about what to expect next in digital marketing in 2017 in the full article published in Prime Women.

Do you need help with your digital marketing plan? Need to enhance your content to be search engine optimized? Contact Millennium President and Strategist Linda Fanaras at 877-873-7445 ext. 201 or connect via email at [email protected].