Branding Archives

For content marketing to be an effective tool in promoting website traffic and conversions, it must speak to the company’s target audience. Customers have specific pain points and challenges, and capturing their attention and interest requires content that has a particular buyer persona in mind. Marketers who use persona-based marketing obtain a better return on marketing investments and higher levels of audience engagement. Here’s how to develop and define personas to present a detailed picture of exactly who your audience is and what motivates them to buy.

Defining Your Buyer Persona

How do you go about clarifying your buyer persona? A buyer persona is a representation of your actual customers, based on detailed research. Social media is one of the most powerful mediums available for getting to know your customers, including their primary challenges and what solutions they are hoping to find. Using social media, there are a variety of tools you can use to help create a buyer persona, including:

Interview customers and encourage feedback
Anonymous surveys
Interactive content
Reviewing current trends and statistics
Social Media Intelligence
Lead intelligence

Data is gathered using the above methods, in combination with understanding trends in the overall market. The information you gather will help develop an image of your ideal customer. You can learn background information and various demographics such as family size, career title, household income, and interests outside of work. With this information, you begin to understand their needs and pain points. Via data collection, you may end up with any number of different buyer personas, each of which may correspond to distinct products or services.

Is Your Buyer Persona a Team?

For some products and services, you are actually selling to a team, not an individual. This is especially true in B2B sales where you are not likely to be selling to individuals. In this case, your buying persona is a team that consists of several different personalities, each with a different title, job function, and pain point.

Persona-Based Content and The Buying Cycle

Whether you are marketing to individual buyers or buying teams, you should realize that both types of buyers make purchases in a linear fashion. A buyer starts with awareness that there is a problem to be solved and looks for content that addresses their problem. When the prospect finds content that demonstrates an understanding of their problem, they begin considering solutions proposed by the content. They will review different options and demonstrations, comparing information and possible solutions. Ultimately a buyer approaches the decision phase. Once they have been convinced emotionally and logically by at least some of the content they have discovered, they decide to buy. If you want the best chance of developing content that leads to a purchase, you’ll need to clearly understand your buyers’ persona(s).

Delivering content based on buyer persona equates to recognizing exactly whom you are talking to and what problem(s) they need solved. The time it takes to research and define your personas may seem cumbersome, but it tends to be worth it when it comes to marketing ROI. That’s because, as alluded to above, persona-based content is developed with a much clearer understanding of the buyer. Hence, it speaks more directly to your audience’s problems and can more effectively convince them that your products are the right solutions.

Persona-based content is becoming increasingly more important to remain competitive. For help with targeting your audience using personas, contact Linda Fanaras, President/Strategist of Millennium Agency 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.  

Social media outreach is a necessity when marketing your business. With over 81% of the population having at least one social profile, it is a great way to reach consumers and promote your brand. A successful social media outreach strategy strives to gain followers and keep them engaged with the long-term goal of converting them into leads.

So how exactly do you grow your following and keep them engaged? Here are a few tips that your business can use to boost engagement among your social following:

Keep it Current

People are interested in current events which is why these posts are great for encouraging conversations. Current events should not be overly political or controversial in any way, but light topics such as local weather and fun industry related events are excellent post topics.

Offer Discounts and Run Promotions

Offering discounts, coupons, and running promotions over social media is eye catching to followers. A few examples of offers that often see success include:

Free shipping,
X% percent off
Buy 1 get 1 free
Offer expires on (date)

If your business already runs discounts and promotions for customers, this is an ideal social media outreach strategy.

Post Regularly

Engaging a social media audience requires regular posting. Posts that are too sporadic or too far spaced apart may lose interest. Posting too frequently, however, may lose follower engagement as well. Every business is different which is why it is important to find your “sweet spot” for post frequency. This may require a bit of time and gathering consumer data to home in on.

If your business is open 7 days a week and does daily promotions, then frequent posting may be for you. If your business is in manufacturing, operating Monday – Friday, then perhaps 2-4 posts per week is right for you. The important thing is to be consistent, once you find the most engaging post schedule for your business, try not to deviate too much from it.

Educate Audience

People love to learn quick, interesting facts. This is an opportunity to implement your social media outreach strategy by sharing industry news as well as engaging followers in a fun and creative way. “Did you know that…” posts are an effective way to garner likes and encourage conversations. Whether it be fun facts or links to informative statistics, blogs, or news articles, these types of posts are an excellent option for any business.

Ask Questions

Asking questions turns one-way posts into a two-way channel, stimulating interaction with consumers and fueling engagement. “What do you think?” or “post below with your opinion!” are just a few options for motivating followers to reply. Questions are especially effective for showing that you care and encouraging participation and community among your customers.

Speak in a Human Voice

Posting with the voice of a large corporation shows professionalism and demonstrates your business as a trusted, solidified organization but it can be intimidating when it comes to follower responses. A down-to-earth voice is much more approachable and, depending on your business, may suit you better for encouraging replies.

Showing that you are in touch with your roots is an excellent way to connect with your customer base. Brief posts about how your business started or perhaps a few words from your founders are just a few ways that you can show followers that you are professional, but also down to earth and approachable.

Incentivize

Small contests, trivia, games, and so on appeal to the gamer in everyone. Depending on your business, raffling off a prize could be right for you. This is an excellent incentive that encourages participation among your followers. The incentive does not have to be huge, even small winnings catch the eyes of followers scrolling through a social feed. One useful method that also provides feedback is to offer a gift or discount in return for filling out a survey.

Having social media presence has shifted from being optional for businesses to a necessity. An engaging social strategy builds your brand image and creates lead generation. To learn more about how your business could benefit from a stronger social media outreach, contact Jessica Chabot, Vice President, Client Services of Millennium Agency at www.mill.agency.

About Millennium Agency

Developing a brand around your business is essential to building a strong following and having industry presence. Many people may think of a brand as being as simple as a logo, but it is far more than that, your brand is everything that encapsulates who you are as a business.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind in order to develop a successful brand:

Identity and Purpose

This is considered to be one of the most important aspects of branding. A few questions to ask yourself in this stage of branding are:

Who are you as a business?
What problems exist in the market and what is your solution?
Who is your target audience and why?
What differentiates you from the herd?

Seek to answer these questions when you create your brand purpose. Understanding your target market’s core values is key here. Developing a mission statement is an important step for businesses.

Voice

This is the communicative style that you use to reach out to consumers. Once you have your purpose, it is time to vocalize that purpose to your audience using language they can understand and relate to. This also includes choosing the right mediums and forums to represent your brand.

If you are a family-oriented business, you should communicate in a way that speaks from a family perspective. If you sell hair grooming products and your target audience is men aged 18-35, be sure that you truly understand the culture of that group and can speak their language.

Consistency

You have your purpose and you have your voice, now it is time to keep your word and be consistent with who you say you are as a brand. This means that when you develop product packaging, manage customer service, or write articles for your website, there should be a standardized format. This is so that consumers can recognize your brand and know what to expect time and time again.

Being consistent does not mean that your brand cannot also be flexible. Times change, and many businesses change and sometimes even reinvent themselves to reflect this. Consistency as a brand means that when you do make changes, you stand by them so that consumers know you are reliable. Constantly flip-flopping back and forth, so your audience does not know what to expect from your brand, is what you want to avoid.

Community

A strong brand following involves providing a sense of community for your customers. One example of a successful brand community is My Starbucks Idea. Starbucks created this forum for customers to communicate with each other and share thoughts and suggestions. By giving consumers a sense of being a part of something bigger, rather than just a coffee-drinker, Starbucks has created a community of dedicated fans.

These days, a business is so much more than the product/service that they provide. It is all about the values and lifestyle that they represent. If a new and exciting brand strategy is something that you feel could benefit your business, contact Linda Fanaras, President/Strategist of Millennium Agency www.mill.agency.

About Millennium Agency

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

Have you ever seen a flash out of the corner of your eye only to look and realize it was just light bouncing off a window or water body? That head-spinning effect is essentially the goal of all logos, to jump out and catch the attention of passersby. When a logo is fresh and new, it has the highest chance of attracting consumer attention. Over time however, logo trends can become outdated, losing the flare that they used to have. This is why it is important to update your logo from time to time based on the newest eye-catching trends.

Regardless of whether you are updating your logo or creating an entirely new one from scratch, here are 3 new logo trends that will be making a splash for this year:

Simplicity

Keeping it simple is an effective logo trend that is both aesthetically pleasing and functional. While this is not necessarily a new trend, simplicity can be considered the backbone of successful logo design and should serve as a jumping off point. Simplicity in a logo’s design can be divided into two categories: text and design.

Simple text: If your logo is too wordy, you may be losing the interest of passing glances that just don’t have the time to stop and take everything in. Reducing unnecessary text is an important and successful trend that many businesses will be utilizing this year.

One effective method of simplifying text that is storming this year is letter stacking. By shifting a lengthy logo from the horizontal plane to the vertical plane, a consolidated effect is created and the logo becomes easier to digest. If your business simply can’t reduce a single letter from your logo, perhaps stacking is the proper direction to head in.

Simple design: If there is too much action going on in your logo (i.e., multiple shapes or overly detailed pictures), this can be distracting and, in fact, less memorable. Over the past few years many successful businesses have simplified their logo designs to create the memorable ones that we all know today.

Retro-Style Design

Logos that have a retro feel to them are becoming more and more popular for 2018. Trends such as coats of arms are making a popular comeback. Retro-style logos invoke feelings of nostalgia and are associated with heritage, longevity, and tradition. This is important because these three notions establish trust with consumers. When your logo feels like you are a brand that has been around for a significant period of time, customers are more willing to trust your product or service.

Another alluring factor of retro-style logos is that they appeal to a wide variety of target audiences. This is a valuable feature for businesses that offer products/services to a diverse target market.

Color Transitioning

This is a very popular trend. There are two major ways in which color transitioning is being used for this year: gradation and overlapping.

Gradation: When a logo features this color transitioning effect, a feeling of depth is created. Depth is an important effect because it helps the design stand out to consumers. When done properly, color gradation in a logo will create the jump out effect that grabs the attention of passersby.

Overlapping: This is another form of color transition that allows for the use of at least two colors in a logo while still maintaining simplicity. The Venn diagram-esque method of overlapping two shapes with different colors creates a pleasing color shifting effect that is both eye-catching and memorable.

As many businesses know, staying current is important when it comes to being relevant to consumers. If you feel that an updated or new logo design could assist in elevating your brand’s appeal, contact Jessica Chabot, Vice President, Client Services of Millennium Agency at www.mill.agency.

About Millennium Agency

Every industry is in a constant state of change, as new and more efficient methods of providing products and services are developed, old methods are phased out. The field of marketing is no exception, in fact it is one of the fastest industries to adopt new campaign methods.

Here are four marketing campaigns that are losing their ability to effectively target consumers.

Non-Personalized Content and Emails

Personalization is becoming a marketing must. Market research has shown that many consumers will overlook or skim past emails that are not specific to them, even if they feature a product or service that would be useful to them. Hello User is just simply not as enticing as Hello Jane Doe.

Targeted emails and ads that feature information relevant to a consumer’s values are slowly usurping the throne that non-personalized content used to hold. With so many ways to gather information on your target audience, personalized content is both an easy and efficient method for getting through to customers.

Purely Textual Advertisements and Emails

People crave excitement in their media. Plain text just doesn’t have the same effect in marketing campaigns that it used to, unless done very strategically.

Advertisements that are finding the most success are ones that feature visual elements such as pictures or videos. Using quality imagery helps your target market visualize your business model far more vividly than if they only had a few words or sentences to go off of.

Excessive Content in Advertisements

With so many forms of media vying for their attention, consumers don’t have time to take in and digest extensive content like they used to. Emails that feature multiple paragraphs or advertisements that feature excessive content and visuals are often too much for a passing glance to take in.

Content that is concise and to the point is the most effective when it comes to consumer action. The goal of an internet advertisement is purely to encourage a user to click on the link to learn more. These short and provoking messages can then link to content that features more substance. Once they have already clicked to learn more, it is much more likely that a user will be willing to read what you have to say in depth.

Websites and Social Media Without Updated Content

A good website and a solid social media outreach are the cornerstone to a successful internet presence for a business but, just like watering plants, it is important to constantly maintain these mediums. If your platforms have not been updated with new and interesting content, it is likely that you are missing out on traffic that could lead to sales.

Websites that experience the most success when it comes to consumer visits and sales are ones that frequently update both their business’ webpages and social media. Updated, interesting content about your business and industry keeps your brand relevant in the eyes of a user, meaning they will be much more likely to come to you when they need the product or service you offer.

When it comes to marketing, the classic saying “out with the old, in with the new,” really is true. Keeping your campaign efforts current is paramount to your marketing success. If you feel that a new marketing strategy could be advantageous for your business, contact Linda Fanaras, President/Strategist of Millennium Agency www.mill.agency.

About Millennium Agency

Music and jingles have been a part of advertising since the very early stages of mass communication. This is because advertisers know that consumers form an emotional connection to music, much more so than regular text-based advertising. So how exactly does this process work?

Here are a few ways lyrics and songs can be used to advertise your business:

Emotional Persuasion

It is well known that a “feel-good” song can be used to advertise to listeners and associate feeling “happy” with your brand. From a scientific perspective, this is because musical communication creates a deep empathic and neurologic connection in a potential buyer. Due to this, music can be used to evoke an emotional connection in a few different ways.

How to Create Emotional Connections With Music

Use songs to create an emotional connection with your target audience through positive associations with your brand. Although positive music is not required to create a successful advertisement, the basic rule of thumb is to use music that reflects the emotion you would like your customer base to associate with your brand. From there you can alter your music to achieve specific goals in many different ways, such as:

Adding lyrics to specifically mention your brand and build awareness.
Using well known public domain music to grab the attention of listeners who are familiar with it.
Creating unique and catchy compositions that separate your brand from the crowd.
Utilizing tempo to focus on your specific customer base. For example, a fast-paced song may be ideal for an upbeat coffee commercial. In contrast, a relaxing rhythm may work better for a travel agency offering vacation getaway packages.

Instrumental vs Lyrical Content

Both the lyrical and instrumental aspects of music play distinct and powerful roles in the persuasive effect of an advertisement. While both lyrical and instrumental content use music as an advertising tool to make meaningful impressions, there are some key differences between them.

Lyrical Content

Lyrical content can help achieve the “song-stuck-in-head” syndrome that helps engrain a brand within a consumer’s memory. People are far better at remembering things when they can place a beat or rhythm to them. Musically wording a certain message assists brand recall and recognition. Listen briefly to the lyrics in the following advertisement, created by Honda for the 2017 holiday season, to see this effect in action:

Honda Holiday Commercial

This advertisement featured lyrics that were relatable to the customer base Honda was trying to reach, those who needed a family friendly vehicle for traveling and running errands. The catchy beat and the fact that it is rehash of a well-known song make for a memorable advertisement.

Instrumental Content

Instrumental content, on the other hand, is more impactful when it comes to reaching a customer’s emotional side. Note the following two contrasting, yet similarly designed advertisements:

U.S. Army Commercial

Animal Shelter PSA Commercial

Both use plain-spoken language and an instrumental backdrop. The Army commercial features instrumentation that instills feelings of greatness, empowerment, and strength while the animal shelter commercial uses melancholy instrumentation that invokes sympathy. Both instrumentals work towards the advertiser’s goals of instilling an emotion that encourages action. The actions and messages in these particular cases are joining the military to be part of a greater cause and donating to help animals because of empathy for their condition.

Length

Length is an important factor when it comes to how songs can be used to advertise. Consumers are often faced with multiple forms of media competing for their attention throughout their day. As a result, consumers have very short attention spans when it comes to advertising. Short and to the point is the most successful form of musical content in advertising, so leave your power ballads at home for this one.

Remember, there are many ways to get in touch with your customer base. Using an optimal advertising strategy, specific to your target market, is key to growing your brand and achieving your business goals. If your business is in need of a new marketing plan to promote your brand, contact Jessica Chabot, Vice President, Client Services of Millennium Agency at www.mill.agency.

About Millennium Agency

With so many ways to market your business, it’s important to have the right consumer data. You may have heard the term “big data,” but are not sure how to take advantage of this data to learn about your potential consumers. Here are three proven strategies for gathering viable consumer data:

Email Segmentation

Your customer base is diverse, and it is important for your email marketing efforts to reflect this. Utilizing email segmentation helps your content resonate with consumers. For example, suppose that your business sells LED light products with a variety of industrial, household, and automotive applications. Segmenting your email content by audience will help you reach your customer base with relevant information.

Believe it or not, even subtle segmentation can be very effective. For example, “How XYZ lights keep the road ahead visible for you and your family” may resonate better with family-oriented customers than simply, “How XYZ lights keep the road ahead visible.”

Moreover, there are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to email segmentation:

Monitoring your segmented email success rate will give you actionable data on your customers. Much like A/B testing, small tweaks and changes will help you connect your message with the values of your customers.
There is no such thing as too much segmentation! The more personal the email, the better the chance of connecting with your audience.

Keyword Research

Keywords are “key” when it comes to reaching the right customers. Roughly 50% of search queries are under four words, which makes it important to identify which keywords work and which ones aren’t as effective.

Thus, enhancing your keywords is central to the cause of improving your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and increasing sales. Consumers rely almost entirely on the internet for information on where to buy what they are looking for.

Additionally, by monitoring data on your keyword conversion rates, you can enhance your business’ SEO and reach a larger population of potential customers.

Closed Loop Marketing

Closed loop marketing is another strategy for gathering customer data and learning more about what converts users to leads. Today, there are four steps to closed loop marketing that provide highly useful data on consumer behavior:

Visitor arrives on your site: Can be used to determined how users find your website. Perhaps they entered through a search engine, by clicking on an email link, or through links from content/social media. Whatever the source, you can learn more about how people are hearing about you from this step.
Visitor browses your site: Provides data on where the user travels on your website before they become a lead. This data demonstrates what works on your website for visitor conversion and what elements could be improved.
Visitor becomes a lead: A visitor can become a lead by filling out a submission form, creating an account, or signing up to receive emails. Regardless of how they become a lead, this step will provide you with valuable data on who your customers are.
Visitor becomes a customer: Monitoring data on visitors who become customers is critical to learning about their buying journey. Follows buyers from their first point of contact with your brand up until their purchase of your product or service.

Utilizing and researching email segmentation, keyword research, and closed loop marketing can provide valuable consumer data that can help you expand your customer-base and achieve your business goals. If you feel that your business could use assistance gathering actionable consumer data, contact Jessica Chabot, Vice President, Client Services of Millennium Agency at www.mill.agency.

About Millennium Agency

Blogging is easily one of the biggest marketing trends of the decade. It is well known in the marketing world that there are a variety of benefits blogging creates for business. Just a few of the benefits of starting your own blog include:

Establishment of a business as a thought leader in their industry
Higher credibility with customers/readers
Increased brand awareness through a variety of mediums such as social media
Increased Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

If you interested in starting your own blog to take advantage of some of these benefits, here are a few tips to help you begin:

Style and Format

One of the first steps to starting your own blog is to choose a style and format. Consistency is important when it comes to the display of your blogs because you will be using the same style and format for all future blogs further down the line. It is also important that this display lines up with your overall brand image. If your brand and logo incorporate the colors green and blue, then your blog design should reflect this.

It may sound like a lot at first, but don’t sweat this step too much. The most important part of your blogs is the content, so a simple design that doesn’t distract your readers with too many visuals will do just fine.

Tagging and Links

If you are serious about starting your own blog, be sure to set up a tagging system. Tags allow readers to quickly find relevant content, and a few solid tags relating to your blog topic will go a long way. It can be easy to go tag-crazy if you write about a large variety of topics but only a few are necessary per blog. Sweeping tags that encompass the basic premise of your blogs will do just fine when it comes to searchability. Remember, tags can always be added if you do feel that you missed something, but tags are difficult to remove because this could affect the tagging on content created prior.

Links within your blogs are also important because they will help direct the reader to other useful content either on your webpage or on another site. For example, if you are reading this blog now and would like to learn more about Millennium Agency or perhaps other useful marketing information, these links will help you easily get through to useful content. Another major benefit of having links on your blogs is that your SEO gets a big boost.

Authorship and Comment Sections

Setting up author profiles and comment sections are an important part of starting your own blog. Author profiles encourage recognition of the author of each blog for their work and help the readers form a more personal connection with each blog. In addition to this, there is an added benefit of increased SEO for blogs with author profiles. These profiles don’t have to be very long or extensively detailed, a few descriptive words as well as links to personal social media pages work just fine.

Comment sections also allow readers to form a deeper connection to the blogs by posting their reactions. These reactions can be a great source of feedback for future blogs as well as an opportunity to learn more about your customers. Comment sections are very flexible in how they can be displayed and managed. If you decide to add a comment section on your blogs, you can decide things such as whether you want to screen comments or not, how many comments are allowed, and how many levels of comments there are so that you can address each post individually.

Sharing Options for Social Media

This tip is short and sweet. Social media is the one of the most used platforms for sharing news between consumers. In fact, 72% of adult internet users use Facebook. With over one billion active users per day on Facebook alone, that’s a lot of sharing.

Including social media sharing options when starting your own blog is exponentially helpful when it comes to brand awareness. By including these links, readers can share with friends and help provide free promotion for your content as well as your overall brand.

Subscribe Options and Calls-To-Action

Including options that encourage consumers to subscribe is beneficial when it comes to creating regular blog readers. This can open the door to email marketing efforts as well. When a reader decides they would like to subscribe, you can present them with options detailing how often they would like to be notified as well as what type of promotional emails they would like to receive from you.

The final tip we have to offer you on blogging is to include at least one call to action (CTA). CTAs can be considered any type of writing or blurb at the end of your blog that encourages your reader to either read on or utilize your business’ products or services. Of all the people who read your blogs, it is very likely that a portion of them would be interested in learning more or perhaps doing business with you, which is why it is important to include the option for them to do these things. If you’re not entirely sure about how to create a CTA for your blogs, check out ours below:

Not every business may realize it but featuring a blogging initiative on their website is extremely beneficial for a variety of reasons. Utilizing these tips and creating powerful, unique, and enticing content will help you design blogs with maximum impact. If a new blogging strategy is something that you think would be advantageous for your business, contact Linda Fanaras, President/Strategist of Millennium Agency www.mill.agency.

About Millennium Agency

Native advertising. It is truly the future of advertising. For those of you who aren’t familiar with native ads, they are a form of advertising that “blends in” with a webpage environment to create a seamless transition between the page content and sponsored content. Native advertising can come in many different forms online; it can be in the form of a sponsored article or a video link on the side of a webpage promoting similar content to the topic of the page. This type of advertising has seen exponentially increasing popularity in recent years due to the booming internet era and the way it aligns with the interests of many members of the internet community.

Not to be confused with programmatic advertising, native advertising has seen some immensely successful campaigns in the past few years. Millennium would like to share with you some of the native ad trends that seem to work better than others. Here are four ways your business can gain the best visibility with your native ads:

Provide Entertainment

Catching the attention of potential customers with your native ads is important. Providing entertainment for consumers creates a positive experience for them and, as a result, they are more likely to associate your business with that positivity. Just because the content is sponsored doesn’t mean that it can’t have elements of excitement or intrigue. Tell a story or maybe provide a list of interesting and unusual facts. Creating unique content that contains captivating entertainment is a large part of getting through to your audience.

Know your Customers’ Interests

Knowing your customers and what they are interested in is an important factor when it comes to native ads. If you are publishing a native ad in the form of an article, be sure that the article’s subject is pertinent to the interests of your customer base. Market research is key here, learning about your customers’ values will truly help in the creation of content that hits home with them and builds your brand with your customer-base.

Be Relevant to the Page

Relevance to the page that your ad is located on is important. For example, if your ad is linked to a webpage that provides easy-to-make holiday recipes, then your ad should relate to either the holiday or to home cooking in some way. Doing this creates seamlessness which is the foundation of successful native ads. Relevance to the page is also important in capturing the reader’s attention. If a person is interested in the page your ad is linked to, it is likely they will be interested in your ad as well if it contains a similar subject.

Be Straightforward

Let your readers know that they are reading an advertisement. Transparency is an important trend these days and, more often than not, consumers appreciate businesses that are direct in their advertising methods. This layer of honesty can really help your business connect with your customers. An advertisement that shoots straight with a consumer and also provides interesting/useful content has the best chance of getting through to potential customers.

Native advertising is a field that will only continue to grow. Each year, much like the internet as a whole, native ads are changing in order to enhance the user experience. If native advertising is something that you are interested in for your business, contact Jessica Chabot, Vice President, Client Services of Millennium Agency at www.mill.agency.