Digital Marketing Archives

With 2.38 billion active users per month (as of the first quarter of 2019), Facebook is the biggest social network worldwide and a highly effective social advertising channel. And, if you’re like many business owners, you may have started investing in social media advertising by boosting a post on Facebook. Perhaps you were the recipient of one of Facebook’s promotions for its boosted posts: “Get more likes, comments, and shares! Boost this post for $$” or “Claim your $$ credit now to boost your post to reach xxxx number of people.”

These promotions sound like a great deal. But thanks to the ever-changing Facebook algorithm, only a small segment of people will ever see your boosted post at any given time. But before you abandon boosted posts entirely, let’s examine exactly what boosted posts are and why they may or may not be worth your advertising dollars.

What is a Boosted Post on Facebook?

Boosted posts are paid content promotions that help you extend your reach across Facebook’s mobile and desktop news feed. To put it simply, they are a method of making your post stand out from all of the viral videos, photo shares, and status updates familiar to most Facebook users.

While you’re writing an update for your page, a little blue “boost post” button will appear on the bottom right of your post, prompting you to choose a target audience, the duration you want the ad to run for, and your total budget. You can also choose between two objectives. Do you want more engagement (likes, shares, and comments) or do you want to encourage people to visit your website? Note: this option is only available if your post contains a link.

Boosting a post is simple and quick—and available as an option for most of your older posts. Your content will likely reach more people than it would have organically, and it may also reach new people who are likely interested in your page or business but don’t currently follow you.

What is a Paid Advertisement on Facebook?

Paid ads are fully customizable promotions or product offers that businesses can create from the Ads Manager, Facebook’s targeted advertising platform. Using metrics such as gender, age, location, marital status, interests, and more, the Ads Manager allows you to the target specific people who are most likely to become your customers. These tools for customization and targeting also allow you to engage with your customers and track your campaign’s progress.

Facebook also gives its advertisers a choice of ad placement. While boosted posts can only appear in Facebook’s news feed, paid ads can appear in stories, messenger, marketplace, and the right sidebar. The full Ads Manager system also lets you choose marketing objectives such as store visits, brand awareness, conversions, and lead generation. And, if you decide to change anything about your ad, Facebook allows you to alter it at any time.

Facebook’s paid advertisement system relies on the auction model where businesses compete to show ads to their desired audience. Advertisers enter the auction by setting the amount they are willing to pay for an impression, action, or conversion from someone in their target audience. This amount is known as the bid. Advertisers can choose to have Facebook automate their bid or they can enter it manually to have more control over their costs.

After a bid amount is set and a campaign is scheduled to run, the Facebook Ads Manager offers a comprehensive tool for analyzing results. Here, you can separate campaigns by objectives and dates, and measure the performance of every single ad by cost-per-click, cost-per-conversion, impressions, unique link clicks, and more.

Conclusion

We’ve determined that Facebook ads offer more real estate and targeting options than boosted posts. They also offer more insights on campaign effectiveness so you can adjust your ads for a higher success rate in the future.

However, don’t discount the benefits of boosted posts. Remember, they’re quick and easy—and a great way to start becoming familiar with Facebook’s ad terminology and reporting features. Overall, they are less expensive than paid advertising and a great way to gain social exposure for existing Facebook posts.

Do you want to take advantage of everything that a Facebook ad campaign offers, but don’t have the time, social media savvy, or resources to do it yourself? Give the social media experts at Millennium a call. Our social media marketing plans help clients build social campaigns that increase lead generation and brand awareness.

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].

Display ads are really good at grabbing your attention. You’ve undoubtedly seen a display ad before; they are like billboards — but for the internet. One of the incredible benefits of display advertising is that it enables you to target your ideal customers based on their browsing behavior and other demographic data. But what makes them different from other types of ads?

Woman in Blue Floral Top Sitting While Using Laptop

When combined with other strategies, display ads can be an even bigger boost for your business! Keep reading to learn the best display advertising benefits you can use to capture attention and drive results.

What is a Display Ad?

A display ad is an advertisement that appears alongside website content. Display ads are usually displayed above or below an article or blog post. The most common type of display ad is the banner ad which appears across the top of a website. These ads are often used to promote products and services. Display ads often make use of imagery, logos, animations, buttons, rich media, videos, or other graphics to communicate a message. Unlike text-based ads, display ads show on websites, apps, and social media platforms—not in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). They help promote businesses or brands when people browse online, watch YouTube videos, check their email, or use mobile apps.

Benefits of Display Advertising

Although display ads typically have low click-through rates (CTR)–just 0.35% across all formats and platforms—their effectiveness is not easily measured by CTR alone. When other metrics are considered, display ads boost brand awareness and intent to purchase significantly.

Still not convinced? Here are five advantages of display ads that will make you reconsider.

1) They are eye-catching and visually appealing.

Display-style ads made with graphic content and designed in the style of your business or brand. With display ads, you can be as creative as possible. The use of bright colors, large text, video, audio, rich media, or even animation are all ways to make your display ads stand out. The goal is to draw viewers’ attention towards the content you want them to see and move them in the direction you want them to go.

Display ads, like paid search or pay-per-click ads, include a headline, text, and URL. However, display ads also contain some type of graphic, video, or audio element which makes them stand out. In addition, regular SEM (Search Engine Marketing) advertisements include character counts, limiting your messaging opportunity. Display ads allow for catchy messaging, plus graphics, video, and your company’s branding to stand out and attract attention.

2) They familiarize your intended audience with your brand.

While search advertising influences an audience with an intent to purchase, display advertising helps create initial interest. In fact, a recent study found that brand awareness increased by 21% in campaigns that utilized digital display ads. Display ads have a wide reach and are popular on websites that receive potential customers frequently. For example, running a campaign using the Google Display Network (GDN), which integrates your ads into carefully chosen websites, will place your ads in front of targeted audiences across the globe.

Let’s say a customer is on a website for gardening ideas. An example of a display ad that might appear is an advertisement for a garden center or landscaping supply shop. The customer may not have known about the store being advertised. They may not even be looking to make a purchase. But the ad would let them know about a nearby place to shop the next time they need gardening supplies. This shows how effective display advertising can keep your brand front of mind for potential customers and convert them when the time is right.

3) They allow for remarketing opportunities.

Remarketing allows your business to position targeted display ads in front of a defined audience that has previously visited your website as they browse elsewhere on the internet. Once a potential customer knows about your product or service, a well-placed display ad can remind them to make a purchase.

Remarketing is a smart way to connect with potential customers who may not have made an initial purchase or inquiry. There is a high degree of targeting flexibility and the Google Display Network also allows you to filter your targeting to show only on specific sites or exclude specific sites. You can even showcase display ads that include a brand message or a specific product that your potential customer viewed while on your website.

4) They give you the ability to track and monitor your ad engagement and the success of your campaign.

The Google Display Network and Facebook Advertising offer detailed reports that include which display advertisements have the most clicks and what the value is for those clicks. In addition, the GDN has what is called a view-through window, which monitors anyone who has seen your display ad in a specific time frame and whether or not they converted into a customer or lead.

GDN’s view-through window shows you if your display and video ads are contributing to conversions. Plus, the view-through window is an important tool because research has shown that an ad being seen has a greater conversion than an ad being clicked.

5) They are a less expensive advertising option.

Unlike other advertising channels such as television or radio, which require large investments in production, it’s relatively inexpensive to start running display ads. With only an image and some text, you can start creating display ad campaigns that will help you drive traffic back to your website.

Display ad pricing is inexpensive as well. Typically calculated according to “number of impressions” (with one impression equivalent to a single page view by an internet user), rates can go as low as 50 cents per one thousand impressions (CPM) for highly targeted campaigns. This means that for 50 cents, your ad can be seen 1000 times.

After discovering how beneficial display advertising can be, it’s clear that this marketing strategy is an excellent way to increase brand awareness, drive traffic back to your website, and ultimately, improve conversions. Millennium Agency offers a variety of display advertising options as part of our larger digital marketing services. Want to get in on the display advertising action? Contact us to plan your online media buying strategy today.

About Millennium Agency

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].

Want to engage your audience while sharing your deepest insights and best content in real time? Add live video to your marketing strategy.

It’s no secret that people are now watching billions of hours of video daily on platforms like YouTube and Facebook. While pre-recorded video still dominates the video marketing landscape, its live counterpart is catching up. Live videos are meaningful and personal, and they produce more engagement and impressions than pre-recorded video. In fact, Facebook video viewers will spend three times longer watching a live video than a produced one.

The Newest Trend in Video Marketing

Live video has a widespread user base and growing popularity. It’s extremely popular among millennials (63% of people aged 18-34 watch live streaming content regularly) as well as internet users of all ages.

People prefer to receive the greatest amount of information in the shortest amount of time. They would rather watch a video to see what a product can do instead of reading about it on a website product page. In fact, 80% of consumers prefer to watch live videos from a brand rather than read a blog.

Increased Views, Traffic, and Engagement

Live video offers the potential to reach thousands of new customers. Most social media platforms have integrated live streaming, making it even easier for businesses to connect to customers. Live videos on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram allow audiences to engage with those filming with “likes,” comments, questions, and reviews. According to Facebook, people comment 10 times more on Facebook Live videos than on pre-recorded videos. These direct audience responses provide instant feedback that businesses can leverage to improve their videos immediately or in the future.

Getting Started: Determine Your Objectives

What do you want to achieve with your live video(s)? What are your key messages and core brand objectives? Although live video is less polished than a commercial or a pre-recorded video, it still requires thoughtful consideration of its content. Take time to think about what your live video is about and what you want to say or do in it.

Decide What Type of Video to Create

What type of live video(s) are right for your business? Here are a few of our favorite ideas:

Live events such as conferences, expos, sales, fairs, concerts, or other places you think that your audience would want to get a glimpse of in real time. Share your experience at these events live—and don’t forget to engage with the audience while you are filming.
Interviews and Q&A sessions with your company’s CEO, clients, employees, or other key people in your industry. Live video interviews are authentic and allow for greater transparency. Plus, you can encourage your audience to participate throughout the video and ask questions that you can answer in real time.
Behind-the-scenes at your office, warehouse, showroom, manufacturing facility, or anywhere that is typically “off-limits” to customers. Share how you create your products, what goes into a “typical day” at the office, or what the team is working on.

A few weeks before you begin your video, inform your audience about when and where they can watch it. Cross-promote and publicize your video on all of your social media platforms, not just the one you are using to host the video. Once you create your first video, think about releasing future videos on a regular schedule so people can make tuning in part of their routine.

Remember that viewers want to watch captivating, information-rich videos in real time. And although any businessperson with an iPhone and a social media account can broadcast live, that doesn’t make for the best quality viewing experience. For companies wanting a more professional investment in live video, give the video marketing experts at Millennium Agency a call today.

About Millennium Agency

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].

Pay-per-click advertising, also known as PPC, is a form of online advertising in which advertisers accrue costs when users click their ads. PPC ads appear on Google above the organic search results, which makes them the first results users see. Advertisers bid on the value of a click in relation to targeting factors such as keywords, platforms, demographics, location, and time of day.

Why Should You Use PPC?

Given the wealth of online advertising space, PPC is a direct and effective way to reach customers and has many advantages over SEO. Statistics show that 46% of clicks go to the top three paid ads on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). With that in mind, let’s take a look at why pay-per-click advertising should be part of your overall marketing strategy.

PPC Gets Quick Results

Pay-per-click advertising will send customers to your website within hours of setting up a campaign, whereas quality SEO results can take months to generate. In addition, SEO requires constant maintenance and attention to sustain the results.

PPC Allows for Better Tracking

Pay-per-click advertising providers allow you to closely track results and provide detailed insights into the financial performance of your campaigns. This way, you can make sure to use your budget wisely and ensure you aren’t paying more per click than what you are earning from a new lead.

PPC Provides a Positive Financial Return

In most cases, pay-per-click advertising will help you achieve a positive financial return on your marketing spend. Click-throughs from PPC results convert at a 1.5 times higher rate than organic clicks.

PPC is Ideal for Local Businesses

Big businesses like national insurance and mortgage companies have likely bought a large amount of PCC advertising, driving the average cost-per-click prices up and making it nearly impossible for small companies who sell the same product or service to compete. However, companies who are targeting local communities online are very likely to receive a profitable ROI from pay-per-click advertising.

When used in conjunction with other marketing strategies, pay-per-click advertising can drive a much greater number of customers and sales to your website. However, PPC requires a strong understanding of how Google Ads and other PPC providers work. At Millennium Agency, our developers have experience in advanced pay-per-click campaign management—and keep up-to-date with the latest PPC updates. Don’t wait to start your pay-per-click advertising campaign—give Millennium Agency a call today.

About Millennium Agency

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].

On-page SEO marketing is the process of letting Google know what your page is about to improve your search rankings. It includes making sure your website content is visible to search engines and ensuring that your website isn’t blocking any search engines.

On-page SEO marketing also helps Google pick up the keywords that you want to be ranked for, which sends traffic to your site. We’ve rounded up a list of easy-to-implement SEO marketing strategies to help you quickly improve your website’s performance.

Use Text Links for Site Navigation—Not Images

First, make sure your website’s navigation links are made up of text and not images. Images are almost always invisible to Google and other search engines. Include links to pages you want visible on your homepage. That way, search engines can easily find them and include them in search results.

Create Search-Engine Friendly URLs

Next, use clean URLs are logical and easy-to-read by Google and website visitors. An example of a clean URL is https://mill.agency/digital/three-secrets-to-email-marketing-success. Naturally, clean URLs are more sharable and linkable. As a result, they help increase search rankings and web traffic.

Be Subtle When Adding Keywords to Content

In the past, SEO marketers sprinkled dozens of keywords throughout webpages. They even added words that were out of context and created copy that was difficult to read—all in an attempt to manipulate their website’s ranking in Google. Search engines will now penalize you for this and flag keyword-stuffed content as spam. Google’s quality guidelines offer tips on how to weave your keyword naturally throughout your content.

Add LSI Keywords to Your Page

LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords is an SEO marketing term for related phrases. It’s important to add these LSI keywords to your page because Google wants to deliver high quality, relevant content to its users. For example, if we wrote a blog about email marketing, Google would also scan our page for LSI keywords such as “email campaign,” “email blast,” and “email newsletter.” Google looks for these closely related terms to ensure that our blog topic is actually email marketing.

Fill Out Meta Tags

Finally, meta tags are sections of text on your website that provide data about your page to search engines and website visitors. Meta tags that are important for on-page SEO marketing include title tags, description tags, and keyword tags. If your meta tags are missing, Google will automatically use text from your website to create your search listing. Therefore, optimize your meta tags for search and include your keywords. You can manually change your tags in the HTML code. Alternatively, you can use the platform your website is built on or a plugin to make changes.

These tips offer a starting point for on-page SEO marketing strategies. If you are looking for more ideas to increase your website traffic, or if you need help implementing SEO on your website or social platforms, give the web designers and developers at Millennium Agency a call.

About Millennium Agency

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].

Voice search is changing the world of digital marketing. By simply talking into a phone or voice-activated smart speaker, users can now conduct internet searches, order pizza, send or request money, set an alarm, and shop. And voice-enabled devices such as Alexa and Google Home are now ubiquitous. According to recent research from NPR and Edison Research, one in six Americans now own a voice-activated smart speaker.

As voice-activated technology becomes more popular among consumers, smart marketers should start optimizing for voice search now to adapt to this shift in consumer search behavior. Unsure of where to start with your voice search strategy? Here a few tips to ensure your business stays competitive in today’s voice-enabled world.

Answer Conversational Questions

People ask questions in a conversational manner using voice search. For example, instead of typing “best marketing agency in New Hampshire,” they ask: “what’s the best marketing agency in New Hampshire?” Therefore, focus on optimizing for full questions instead of abbreviated search terms.

Learn what questions prospective customers have about your business and services by conducting surveys, asking for feedback, and using Google’s autocomplete feature to obtain search query suggestions. Build your content around the answers to these questions.

Add FAQ Pages to Your Website

Ensure your website has a page for frequently asked questions (FAQs)—or multiple, keyword-friendly FAQ pages—to directly answer consumer questions. Voice search results are 1.7 times more likely to come from a FAQ page versus text-based search queries. Insert Q&A content into blog posts and articles to further optimize for voice search.

Optimize for Featured Snippets

A featured snippet (also known as the Answer Box) is a summary of an answer to a search query, which is displayed on top of Google’s search results. The snippet is extracted from a webpage and includes a link to the page, the title, and the URL. Optimizing for Google’s featured snippets is an advanced SEO technique explained in detail on the Moz blog and the HubSpot blog.

Google Home and Alexa only provide one answer to your query: the featured snippet. So, if you don’t rank as a featured snippet, your content will be invisible.

Create an Alexa Skill or a Google Action

Google Actions and Alexa Skills are functions that allow voice-activated devices to react to user commands and queries. Amazon boasts over 80,000 Alexa Skills worldwide—these include everything from voice-enabled cooking instructions to email management and package tracking services.

Many companies have created useful skills that enhance brand engagement such as Zyrtec’s AllergyCast weather and pollen count alert and Ask Purina’s dog breed reference guide. These are examples of useful skills that meet customer needs and support company goals. Be sure to create a skill with a clear objective that is aligned with your brand—and check what skills have already been created.

Voice technology is changing the world of digital marketing. To learn how to implement a voice search strategy for your business or organization, contact Millennium Agency today.

About Millennium Agency

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].

With Internet content trending toward video, marketers have turned to YouTube to publish videos and boost their brand’s visibility. And with good reason: YouTube is ranked the second most-visited site in the world and is visited by 1.9 billion logged-in users every month. But simply uploading great videos to YouTube and hoping for the best isn’t enough to gain an audience and foster business growth. In order to make your videos discoverable to a wider viewership, you must implement a YouTube SEO strategy.

Write a Keyword-Optimized Title

Just like you would when optimizing content on your website or blog, use a YouTube SEO tool to find popular topics and search terms for your video title. KeywordTool.io offers YouTube autocomplete suggestions and variations as well as keyword-based video tags and captions. Google Trends also has a YouTube search option. Once you’ve chosen a target keyword, make sure to use it just once in your 100-character title (including spaces), and keep in mind that titles longer than 70 characters will be truncated.

Add a Well-Written Description

Use the description field to write a click-compelling and well-thought-out synopsis of your video. Include information about your channel; metadata; and links to your website and social networks. Although YouTube gives you 5000 characters to use in the description box, prioritize keywords in the first few sentences because the first 150 characters will appear in your SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).

Tag and Categorize Your Video

Tags help YouTube associate your video with comparable videos, which can expand your reach. Choose tags the same way you chose your target keyword, with YouTube SEO tools like KeywordTool.io or get keyword suggestions from the autofill drop-down results in the YouTube search bar. Unlike titles, tags don’t have character limits, so feel free to expand on your target keyword with phrases. Don’t forget to choose a category to group your video with similar content and gain exposure to more viewers who identify with your audience.

Create a Great-Looking Thumbnail

All YouTube videos have thumbnails: the static image that is shown to viewers when they find your video. Thumbnails should be accurate representations of the title and content of your videos. Customized thumbnails are preferable to automatically generated thumbnails, in fact 90% of the best-performing videos on YouTube have custom thumbnails. A video’s thumbnail is an important piece of your video’s metadata and is displayed in the Google search results.

Transcribe Your Video and Add Captions

Although YouTube transcribes every uploaded video, this automated process is not error free—you must proofread and edit the automated transcript or use a third-party transcription service. An SEO-optimized video transcript enables search engines to index the text of your video. In addition, captioned videos allow search engines to crawl the caption text and extend viewership (another part of the rankings algorithm) because they keep the viewer engaged for longer time periods regardless of their access to audio.

For more information on YouTube SEO, check out our blog on Video Marketing for Business Success or give Millennium Agency a call to discuss the best video strategy for your business.

About Millennium Agency

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].

With 6 billion text messages sent daily in the U.S., texting has seemingly become a national pastime. Luckily for businesses, texting has evolved from facilitating small talk into a viable marketing strategy.

Text message or SMS (short message service) marketing is highly effective because customers and prospects opt-in to receive texts from businesses. This creates the perception among subscribers that businesses are providing a welcome service rather than overtly marketing to them. In addition, approximately 98 percent of text messages are opened and read; a significantly higher open rate than any other form of marketing. This provides businesses with a rare guarantee that their marketing messages will be received.

SMS Short Codes

Integrating SMS marketing into an overall marketing plan is relatively simple and inexpensive. Businesses can register for a five- or six-digit short code or choose to share one with another company. The short code should then be promoted across all marketing strategies including websites, social media platforms, signage, marketing collaterals, direct mailers, radio, and TV ads. To find out who owns a short code and how it is being used, visit the U.S Short Code Directory. Most companies utilize an SMS service provider or an SMS aggregator like BSG to submit a short code application on their behalf.

Mobile and Web Opt-In

With mobile opt-in, prospective customers opt-in by texting a message to your business’s short code in order to receive information about your business and its products or services. Sign-on incentives like discounts, coupons, product giveaways, and contests are quite effective in garnering subscribers. With web opt-in, customers enter their phone numbers into a website form and receive a confirmation via text message. Ideally, every form of advertising—social media, print, email, point-of-purchase and your website—should include your SMS marketing campaign and short code.

SMS Automation

With a solid subscriber list in place, businesses can text sales notifications, announcements about new products and services, and other customer-focused news on a regular basis. SMS marketing automation allows businesses to have their messages automatically sent out according to a predefined schedule. While it isn’t wise to bombard subscribers with daily texts unless you indicate that frequency in your advertising, restaurants have found success in sending text alerts about their daily specials.

Alternatively, service providers often use texts to remind customers about upcoming appointments. Messages can also be tailored to certain customer groups, like boutique customers who only purchase accessories or auto shop patrons who get oil changes but not repairs. This allows for targeted marketing efforts to specific aspects of a business that need a sales boost, while also connecting with customers about their interests.

Text Message Writing Tips

When creating your SMS marketing messages, remember to be succinct–texts are limited to 160 characters–and lead with your offer to attract attention. In addition, resist the temptation to use abbreviated texts (e.g. “This $ale will b gr8!”). A more professional approach is most appreciated by patrons of all age groups.

Lastly, always provide the option for subscribers to opt-out of your text message list. This usually takes the form “Text STOP to stop.” This demonstrates respect for your customers and their privacy, and when utilized by subscribers, assists you in maintaining an accurate customer list.

SMS marketing allows for an almost instantaneous delivery of information and can be used to drive customers to action. When integrated into an overall marketing campaign, SMS marketing has proven to build customer trust, loyalty, and significant business revenue. For more information on SMS marketing and help achieving your marketing goals this year, contact Millennium Agency.

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].

Did you know that there are over 237 million mobile internet users in the United States? And the average mobile user touches their phone over 2,617 times a day. Plus, the number of online users that access the internet exclusively via mobile devices is expected to increase, and business owners must realize that their customers’ digital interaction is more and more likely to come from a mobile device—not internet browsing on a desktop. That’s why mobile marketing, defined as any promotional activity created specifically for smartphones, is a requirement for business owners seeking to increase visibility and reach current and potential customers in real time. We’re addicted to our phones—and projections indicate that time spent on mobile devices will only increase as mobile apps and location-based services improve. That said, it’s no wonder that some of today’s most effective mobile marketing tips and strategies are being implemented by Fortune 500 companies like Intel and Paramount.

Now that you’re fully convinced of the necessity of a mobile marketing plan, here are some of the best mobile marketing tips to try from the experts at Millennium Agency:

5 Effective Mobile Marketing Tips

Utilize in-app mobile marketing—also known as app-based marketing—to place advertisements within different apps. Because apps account for over 90% of time spent on smartphones, it’s ideal to employ a few different in-app marketing services, such as GoogleAdMob and Facebook’s SDK (Software Developer Kit). These platforms help users create ads that are integrated into a third-party app or the Facebook app.
Deploy in-game marketing, which can refer to placing video ads that appear while loading games or more subtle, organically integrated ads, such as the name of a company on a billboard in a virtual city or on a car in a racing game. The key to in-game marketing is ensuring that the advertiser is paired well with the gaming audience.
SMS mobile marketing, or text-message marketing, and MMS (which refers to text messages plus multimedia like pictures) allow advertisers to directly communicate with consumers via text messages. It requires consumers to opt into an automated system, usually by texting an initial short code in order to receive specials, sales, product updates or more information. Following the opt-in, their phone number is stored by the SMS marketing software used by the company, allowing for future communication. With eight times the response rate of email, SMS text messages are a surefire way to drive retail and online sales traffic. However, because of the disruptive nature of text messages, the key to effective SMS marketing is to be timely and selective in your communication.
Mobile search ads are search engine advertisements that are indexed and developed specifically for mobile devices. They are displayed through a search engine such as Google, and often feature add-on extensions like click-to-call or maps. In addition, location services on user devices can narrow down the search to relevant local companies. Approximately 57% of search queries come from mobile devices as opposed to desktop, which illustrates the importance of reaching mobile searchers and optimizing advertisements for mobile devices.
QR codes—or quick-response codes—are two-dimensional barcodes that can be read by smartphones with a camera. Generating QR codes are free and allow mobile users to access your content after scanning the code. They make effective mobile marketing tools because they can be placed everywhere—on product packaging, business cards, posters, flyers, sales receipts or really anywhere you can think of. They can link to your website, customer feedback form, directions to your business, an event page or social media sites. QR codes also offer built-in analytics, which makes it simple to track their effectiveness.

Mobile marketing is an increasingly complicated field and offers many ways to engage with your audience and grow your business. If you find you require assistance with jumpstarting or enhancing your mobile marketing plan, contact Millennium 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 value of an informative website targeted to the needs of prospects and customers can never be underestimated. But business owners who take website content planning and development a step further and create a simple system of website-content links and tools tailored to their industry will enjoy continuous site traffic and the intake of qualified leads.

Build a 2D Representation of Your Website with a Sitemap

A sitemap, or a flow chart diagram, is an effective website content development method to help organize a website’s structure and determine where information should be placed. Design trends favor a streamlined navigation structure with well-organized categories so visitors can find the content they are searching for, quickly and easily. Gloomaps provides simple site mapping tools to help create and build visual sitemaps.

The Crucial Question: Does Your Website Need a Blog?

Whether it’s a “blog” or not, you do need new, updated content on a consistent basis. The ideal place to put this website content is in a blog. You could post this content on a webpage, but it isn’t nearly as effective because readers can’t subscribe, and therefore you can’t obtain their emails to turn them into customers.

Your blog’s unique content also showcases your knowledge, and by posting links to it on your email campaigns, advertisements, and external blog sites your web site will receive more hits and email subscribers. In addition, branded social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube demonstrates your expertise and develop inbound traffic.

Drive Traffic to Your Website with Email Marketing Campaigns

It is vitally important to produce email campaigns featuring links to websites, blogs, and social media pages to complement business marketing strategies. These campaigns are a critical piece of a successful website content planning strategy. Think of your business website as the hub of the system. Your email marketing campaigns promote the content you create for your customers and prospects, and they drive traffic to the hub. If you are not currently using this strategy to promote your business, it’s time to add email marketing to the mix.

Everything else that connects and enriches the information on the hub will be content driven by external websites. Examples include websites like Yelp that provide reviews of businesses, industry associations, news media, and other websites that share press releases and blog posts.

Using this organized and consistent approach to website content planning and development will ensure that your site is information-rich and always up-to-date. Not only does it encourage you to blog about current trends and design fresh email campaigns, but it also demonstrates your connectivity to the industry at large and to your target market. To learn more about why developing a website content planning strategy is key for your business, contact us at Millennium Agency.