March 2018

Whether you want traditionally-styled landing pages, or you want to show off the creativity capabilities of your business, cutting-edge website design trends are always being developed. It’s important for your business to adopt these trends as consumers prefer websites with current and modern appeal to them.

Here are a few modern website design trends ranging from website functions and features, to their elements of aesthetic appeal.

Mobile Compatibility

Having landing pages that can operate well on a mobile platform is a must for all new web designs. 2014 marked the year that smartphone and tablet web searches exceeded desktop searches. In 2016, mobile searches accounted for 60% of all internet searches. It is expected that this shift from stationary to mobile internet use will only continue to grow for 2018.

Animation

The inclusion of engaging video backgrounds is one of the most effective and current website design trends today. Moving background elements are stylish, attract more attention from the user, and are a great way to incorporate the visualization trend.

Illustration and Hand-drawn Fonts

Injecting custom illustrations into your website is a great way to show a bit of personality. Illustrations can be tailored to your brands voice. Featuring this creative web element adds a fun and energetic appeal to the website, making brands feel more approachable. Illustrations can also work to maintain a feeling of simplicity. The exact type of illustration is entirely up to you, depending on the design and feel you want your brand to have.

Gradients

This trend involves fading two or more colors into each other. The use of gradients in background design is an older trend that has been revamped in the past few years with vibrant and updated colors by many web designers. Gradients create a depth effect that has been growing in popularity and is expected to continue growing in 2018. This effect has been very successful for many businesses, one of the most popular examples is the latest Instagram logo.

AI Assistants

Having this feature as part of your web design is an easy way for customers to reach out and receive a prompt response. As opposed to calling or sending an email, AI is a great way for your business to interact with and help customers who may only have small inquiries. AI assistants have become increasingly common over the past few years and are expected to continue to grow as consumers seek expedient responses.

Minimalism

While minimalism would hardly be described as a new trend, it’s continued growth and popularity is worth mentioning here. By excluding everything except for the bare necessities on a website, the audience’s attention is shifted towards what is important. This “less is more” mentality works especially well for retail sites, where excessive visuals can distract from products, features, pricing, and more.

What is important to keep in mind is that minimalism doesn’t always mean removing features from a website. Simply tucking options into smaller “hamburger” menus is an excellent example of how websites incorporate all of their features into a minimalistic design, as well as ensure mobile compatibility.

Layering

Layering involves placing colors, shapes, or images over each other. Like gradients, layering creates a depth effect. Creating depth through layering is an excellent method for creating an engaging visual experience with a fresh and modern appeal.

Asymmetry

While many websites have been designed on symmetrical grids in previous years, asymmetry offers a more creative appeal that many brands are beginning to incorporate into their landing pages. This trend is ideal for any brand looking to show off their creative side.

Keeping current when it comes to web presence is an important part of maintaining brand relevancy and a competitive edge on the internet. If you feel that your business could benefit from a new and modern web design, contact Jessica Chabot, Vice President, Client Services of Millennium Agency at www.mill.agency.

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.  

The world of marketing is in a constant state of change. New digital marketing trends are always emerging as innovative ways to reach consumers are pioneered. 2018 brings around many new technologies and the associated strategies for reaching customers that go with them.

Here are five new digital marketing trends that are predicted to grow in 2018:

Live Social Content

Live content through social media platforms is a trend that showed tremendous growth over the course of 2017. Many brands have jumped on this bandwagon by using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to live stream events. One of the benefits offered by live streaming is that it capitalizes on the popular trend of visual web elements and attracts far larger levels of viewership than normal video posts, making it a great medium for promotional messages. With more and more users tuning in to view live social media content, this is a trend that will only continue to grow for this year.

Interactive Content

While some may think that email marketing is one of the marketing strategies that are on the decline, this is actually not the case. What is changing is that sending out personalized, engaging, and interactive content is taking over. This is because interactivity offers a far more compelling and engaging experience. A strong content strategy is key to increasing web-based sales which makes interactive emails a solid forerunner for new trends. Surveys, videos, GIFs, menus, and real-time marketing are just a few examples of email elements that saw success in 2017 and will continue to do so this year.

Honesty/Transparency in Advertising

Many of us have seen commercials in 2018 and may have noticed that several different brands take it upon themselves to break the fourth wall and point out that they are selling a product. This form of honesty and transparency (and occasionally, a bit of humor) has been incredibly well received by audiences. This form of advertising serves as an example of how marketers are realizing that audiences crave transparency. This trend will only continue to grow in all facets of marketing for 2018 as brands acknowledge their audience’s awareness that they are viewing an advertisement.

Voice Search and AI

Voice search and AI devices have been a rapidly growing phenomenon over the past few years. Voice controlled personal assistants are currently available through smartphones, speakers, TVs, and are even possibly paving the way to a larger, smart house-esque, future.

We predict that the integration of marketing strategies into these devices will be a growing trend in 2018. Given that these devices are such a new frontier, it is hard to say exactly how marketing efforts will tackle them, but it is certain that micro-moments will play heavily into new strategies.

Virtual & Augmented Reality Marketing

Virtual and augmented reality are two new technologies that are experiencing positive reception by audiences as well as progressively increasing sales. With such an immersive platform, it is guaranteed that marketing strategies will be capitalizing on the interactive capabilities offered by this exciting new technology. We believe that 2018 will be the year that marketing efforts will start to find their footing when it comes to reaching consumers through these mediums.

New marketing strategies are key when it comes to staying ahead of the curve and maintaining a competitive edge. If your business could benefit from new and exciting methods of reaching your target audience, contact Linda Fanaras, President/Strategist of Millennium Agency www.mill.agency.

About Millennium Agency

Consumer data is crucial to the efficiency and success of a business’ marketing efforts. It can be used to learn what worked in the past, what is effective in the present, and which direction to go in the future. After all, casting a wide net for your marketing efforts may get through to your target audience but it can be expensive and time consuming. Homing in and reaching your target market based on their consumer trends is far more cost effective. In addition, it allows for better resource allocation. So, how exactly do you make the most of your consumer data? Here are a few tips that will help with that:

Ensure Accurate Data

Before diving in, it is important to stress that consumer data is only helpful if it is an accurate depiction of your target audience, meaning it needs to be gathered from the right sources, and it needs to reflect exactly where your sales are coming from.

For example, if you are viewing a source report, you will have an excellent idea of how users are reaching your website. But do you know how long they are staying on the site? Or where most of your leads and sales are coming from? Say social media links account for 70% of your web traffic, but search engine result pages yield the most sales. If that is the case, then social media is not necessarily an accurate depiction of consumers that are purchasing your product or service. As you can see, it’s just as important to know how to interpret your consumer data as it is to gather it accurately.

Learn What Works and Change What Doesn’t

The first step to making the most out of your consumer data? Trace where your highest conversions are coming from. Is it social media? Web searches? YouTube ads? The next step is to determine where your marketing efforts need improvement. Once this is established, the best performing strategies can be applied to areas that aren’t experiencing success. For example, if you have a landing page that is achieving a high conversion rate, try designing the features of your other landing pages around emulating that success.

Look for Hidden Trends

Searching for new methods to reach consumers is always an important part of consumer data analysis. Your data might reveal a new way to get through to consumers that you hadn’t thought of yet. For example, perhaps your business was experiencing successful conversion rates from announcing a new product through social media. Writing blogs and creating a news release focusing on keywords surrounding your new product would be a strategic way to capitalize on this social buzz.

Launch New Campaigns and Experiment

Hone your competitive edge by launching new campaigns that focus on your successful lead conversions. Were your old marketing campaigns mildly successful overall but had one very successful facet? Then launch a new campaign focusing on that facet and experiment with what makes it effective.

The world of marketing is in a constant state of change. New technologies and communicative trends require new strategies to adapt to these changes. While current strategies may achieve peak success this year, they may not be as successful next year. This is why it is essential to study what resonates with consumers. Experiment with new cutting-edge campaigns to repeatedly hit your mark year after year.

If analyzing consumer data and developing a new marketing strategy around it is something that you feel could benefit your business, contact Jessica Chabot, Vice President, Client Services of Millennium Agency at www.mill.agency.

About Millennium Agency

If you are a successful business owner, chances are your business’ website has a blog/article section, news releases, and a strong social media presence. If your business doesn’t publish content such as this regularly, you may want to reconsider the benefits offered by content creation.

Here are three reasons why content is key when it comes to strengthening your brand and promoting your business:

Build Your Brand

Content creation is exponentially beneficial to your branding efforts for a variety of reasons. The most significant way in which branding is strengthened is through the establishment of your positioning. Content displays your presence in your industry and gives your business a platform to discuss exactly who you are and what you’re all about.

A solid content creation strategy will not only strengthen your website but your social media standing as well. Posting full sized blogs and articles gives your social media pages more substance and gives followers more reason to frequently visit your pages as well. Engaging content functions to both maintain your social following and attract new followers too.

Show Yourself as a Thought Leader with Industry Presence

Generating content shows audiences that you are an authority in your field and a leading player in the conversations surrounding your industry.

By regularly publishing blogs and articles, you are consistently displaying your expertise in what you do. When consumers view your content and understand that you are a knowledgeable and trustworthy source, they are far more likely to come to you with their business. For example, if you owned “Joe’s Plumbing” and consumers could see on your website that you offer key tips on tracing a leak in a sink, there is a far higher chance that they will come to you to fix their sink.

Content is additionally beneficial because topics can be diversified to show your audience that you are more than just the product/service you offer. Offering a variety of engaging topics creates the thought-leader presence that many successful businesses hold. Presenting your business as a thought-leader separates your brand from the crowd and keeps you current and relevant to consumers in an ever-changing market.

Increase Website Traffic with Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This last section is a critical advantage of publishing content. Search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. prefer to place search results at the top of the page if their websites are constantly updated. This is because they want to provide users with the most up-to-date answers to their inquiries.

After conducting keyword and market research, you can home in on what it is your target audience is looking for on the web. Once you know this information, you can set up a content creation strategy that caters exactly to what they are looking for.

When content is both relevant and consistently published your business will begin to climb search result pages and therefore your business will experience higher website traffic, ultimately creating more leads and more sales.

In today’s day and age where consumers frequently turn to the internet for all of their inquiries, it is becoming increasingly more important for businesses to have a strong web presence. Filling a website with content strengthens your brand, creates a thought-leader presence, and enhances your SEO. If you feel that your business could benefit from a powerful content creation strategy, contact Linda Fanaras, President/Strategist of Millennium Agency www.mill.agency.