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Burger King’s NFT strategy matures beyond stunts toward real engagement

Burger King's NFT strategy matures beyond stunts toward real engagement

Have you heard about Burger King’s ‘Keep It Real Meals’ campaign?

Well, this course of action highlights its caring attitude for the health of its customers. 

 In other words, it goes on to show that their customers’ health is a priority for them. 

Burger King's NFT strategy matures beyond stunts toward real engagement

The campaign:

–  Expands on Burger King’s existing commitment to provide fresher meals with more natural ingredients

–  Shows that the company is blacklisting harmful, non-essential components like sodium ethyl hydroxybenzoate and potassium hydrogen sulphite.

 Keep It Real Meals campaign.

 Burger King agency’s David Miami developed the ‘Keep It Real Meals’ campaign, which in turn is booming due to marketing campaigns like ‘Moldy Whopper.’

 The Moldy Whopper campaign shows its top-rated signature items rot over time and eventually get covered in mould. 

Burger King's NFT strategy matures beyond stunts toward real engagement

Anyone will tell you that such a campaign was difficult, but Burger King successfully pulled this off. It informs and educates the public at the same time. Its promotions declare by saying it is blacklisting and discontinuing harmful, unimportant ingredients. It educates by showing how mouldy even a premium-priced fast food becomes once it is dated.

 It will be interesting to know that McDonald’s promotions inspire Burger King’s campaign. For instance, just like the latter has been investing twice as much on celebrity partnerships since last year, Burger King is following suit. Such promotional campaigns have been very successful. It has led to increased demand and sales for the companies.

 But is there a reason why these companies have produced this campaign just now?

 Well, the time is perfect. For instance, McDonald’s campaign started last year during the pandemic. By reminding people just how much the company cares for its customers, the promotions increase activity and orders through its delivery app.

Burger King is using the idea, of course, but with its twist. What makes their campaign different is that the company asks its brand ambassadors to use their real names in ads and promotions. This aligns their positive image and identity with the more prominent theme of ‘real food.’

 For instance, in ads: 

–  Nelly, a well-known rapper, got a Cornell Heynes Jr Meal with a Whopper Burger, a small Sprite and small fries.

–  Anita, a known singer, got a Larissa Machado Meal with an Impossible Whopper burger with several toppings but with the same sides as above. 

–  A well-known social influencer, Lil Huddy, showed a Chase Hudson Meal that included a Spicy Ch’King Sandwich, four-piece mozzarella sticks, and a 16-ounce chocolate shake.

 As you can see, Burger King is investing considerably in star power to bolster support and loyalty for its brand. 

 Royal Perks loyalty program

Burger King's NFT strategy matures beyond stunts toward real engagement

Apart from investing in brand ambassadors, the company incorporates the ambassador sponsorship program into its Royal Perks Loyalty Program. They rolled out this program nationwide in the USA, in which meals were offered for $6 when customers signed up for the program.

 Burger King’s NFT strategy matures beyond stunts causing real engagement. 

 To leverage the impact of its campaign, the company is partnering with Sweet, a Non-fungible Token marketplace (NFT). Together they have developed a set completion game through which technology from Burger King’s digital art-based marketing can function as a customer engagement tool. 

Burger King's NFT strategy matures beyond stunts toward real engagement

Burger King’s Keep It Real Meal boxes, from now on, will have QR codes. These can be scanned and will give access to interactive brand experiences. One can scan a QR code on these boxes to get one of three NFT collective tokens. 

 Those who collect the whole set will receive the fourth NFT automatically. Rewards range from: 

–  Digital 3D collectibles to free whopper sandwiches for an entire year

–  Burger King merchandise

–  One phone call from brand ambassadors

 In the words of Sweet’s founder Tom Mizzone, “We’re taking a more enterprise solution-based approach to NFTs. How do you enable brands to go beyond crypto-art drops and into consumer experiences?”

 The partnership aims to use blockchain-based technology for the long term and is a persistent effort. 

 Instead of physical toys, they will be giving virtual gifts through NFTs.

 Burger King’s NFT strategy was unleashed a few weeks after the launch of its loyalty program nationwide in the USA. The process continues to function as the pathway for the company’s investments in several digital platforms. It became essential during the pandemic, which had a negative and accelerated impact on many consumer trends. 

Benefits and use of NFT and the metaverse

Burger King's NFT strategy matures beyond stunts toward real engagement

Burger King is not the only one delving into the metaverse. Facebook is doing it, and so is Coca Cola. Big names in the marketing world are gearing up for using NFTs in the metaverse to bring special inducements and rewards for their customers.

 The downside is that only 38% of customers worldwide even understand the concept of the metaverse. This is one of the several hurdles that lie before companies wishing to access and use this technology. 

 It is advised that such companies should ease their customer base to the metaverse gradually. Once their customers understand this technology, companies can aim for mass adoption, opening up broader opportunities.

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How‌ ‌to‌ ‌build‌ ‌an‌ ‌eCommerce‌ ‌website‌ ‌that‌ ‌ranks‌ ‌above‌ ‌your‌ ‌competitors‌

How to build an eCommerce website that ranks above your competitors

The E-commerce industry is on the rise. 

As more people get access to the internet each year, sales in e-commerce are indeed rising proportionately. In 2020, more than 2 billion people had purchased goods and services online. In the same year, sales were more than USD 4.2 trillion globally.

How to build an eCommerce website that ranks above your competitors

While the pandemic affected most other industries adversely, the global e-commerce industry grew by more than 25%.

How to build an eCommerce website that ranks above your competitors

Is it any wonder that more and more people are opening their e-commerce stores now? Yes, it can be risky, but the potential rewards are great as well. What separates a successful e-commerce store from an unsuccessful one?  Just a few minor details!

You may be offering a good product, but if a crucial step of building the website is missing, the whole business will suffer. 

In this article, we will tell you how to build a successful e-commerce store.
Let us get started.

How to build an e-commerce website that beats your competitors

ecommerce

Here are the steps you need to follow to create such a site. Your website will not just look great but also do your selling while you sleep. 

Here are the nine simple steps.

1. Choose a website builder specializing in e-commerce: You may want to look at several such websites. These include WordPress.com and Wix.com. While WordPress has always been at the top of the list, Wix has never been far behind. Both of these make creating e-commerce sites very easy. Website building on WordPress can be technical for you, while doing the same on Wix may prove to be easier. Wix makes it a lot easier, but WordPress does give you more SEO benefits.

2. Buy a proper domain name from a well-known domain registration company: When you’re taking your business online, domain name matters. Domain names typically reflect a brand, services, products, ideas, etc. There are hundreds of domain registration companies, but we recommend GoDaddy.com and BlueHost.com.

3. Choose an e-commerce template: Now that you have picked your website builder and your domain name, it is time to choose an e-commerce template. Website builders have many such templates ready for you so that you can start right away. It may happen that these templates may not be suitable for your purposes. That’s all right. You can always create your website’s structure yourself. Yes, it may take time but it can be an alternative if you want to save costs when starting out.

4. Personalize your chosen template: Whether you have picked a website template or have built a custom template, you may now want to personalize and brand the site. This is important to make your website stand out. For inspiration, check out your competitors’ websites. Are they missing anything? What have they done well? Can you use it too?

5. Add your products to the site: Now is the time to showcase your products. Remember, your customers won’t be able to check your products physically. To offset this problem, their pictures need to be both appealing and instructive. Photos, and even videos when required, need to be of high quality. All products should have an attractive description which both informs and allures. Additionally, photos and videos need to be mobile-friendly since most of your customers may be browsing your site from mobile devices. 

6. Configure your payment options: Most e-commerce and online store sites have a PayPal gateway as a payment option due to its popularity. However, try to give your customers other options too. You may want to provide options like Cash on Delivery, EMI payment, payment by debit and credit cards, payment by Netbanking, and so on.

7. Check your shipping settings: Shipping information has to be completely transparent. After all, your customer will want to know when their purchases will be arriving. If there is a shipping fee involved, break down the whole cost. Customers pay more attention to the shipping cost and time. Tell them within how many days they’ll receive their purchases, and what to do in case of any problems.

8. Don’t forget SEO: After making the site live, don’t forget SEO. But before going for expensive SEO tools, ask yourself these. Where do you want to stand in the competition? How do you wish to position your site in relation to your competitors when it comes to keywords? Having a robust SEO strategy makes your brand name memorable and your website a success.

9. Preview. Test. Improve. Repeat: Once your e-commerce site is live, it will not be the end of your work. You, or your team, will still need to keep testing. Are all its functions working perfectly? Are your customers facing any problems when browsing the site? Most people make their site live only after this step!

Here are the nine tips you need for a successful e-commerce website. But there are still a few more!ecommerce

1. When choosing a web hosting service, don’t go for the cheapest. Yes, you may save money, but the service quality may not be satisfactory. Since you are starting a business, you may want to pick the best hosting service.

2. Have a search bar on your site. It allows viewers to search with ease.

3. Let customers buy as guests if they want. Some people do not have the time nor inclination to register.

4. Set up abandoned shopping cart reminder emails for your customers. This significantly drops the abandoned cart percentage.

To Sum Up

A business in the e-commerce industry can be advantageous, but the risks are real too. That is why you need to have a game plan from the get-go. And now, you know How to build an e-commerce website to outrank your competitors.

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10 Content Writing Examples to Help You Reach Your Audience

10 Content Writing Examples to Help You Reach Your Audience

How do you write content?
What are examples of content marketing?
What does a content writer do?

If you ask yourself all of that, you wish to learn more about content writing and content marketing.

Online content nowadays is not just in written form. Video content is a big field right now. Video has started selling more in some cases since it is entertaining, interactive, and is easy to digest. Image-based content is quite popular as well.

However, none of these developments has come even close to surpassing the written word. Content writing, therefore, is only one cog in the whole machinery of content marketing. It remains the foundation of any brand’s marketing strategy.

Of content writing, there are many varieties—these range from social posts to standard blogs and everything else in between.

In this article, we are going to look at ten examples of content writing. We hope these will inspire you in your journey to make suitable content for your organization.

10 examples of content writing

Blog posts

Have you ever wondered why companies and social influencers alike have their blog?

This is because blogs offer a wide range of benefits, especially for a business. Blogs help you rank high on Google’s search engine with SEO, even rank on its first page!

Brainstorming topics

But what if you are starting and do not know what to write about? The first place to get help from is your team. Brainstorm topics for content. You’ll be surprised how many relevant blog topics you will come across!

Another way to find ideas is to find out what your competitors, people in your industry, and social influencers are blogging about. If these topics are in your industry and are relevant to your company, it can be a good idea to use their ideas.

What to do after setting up your blog?

Regardless of how you get the idea, the important thing is to keep going once the blog is set up. And that means posting new blogs regularly. Also, give quality content. Just don’t do a rehash of things that are already out there on the internet. Your audience has probably seen them. Instead, take inspiration from other sources but give your spin. Please talk about your experiences, or that of your company or brand, its products and services.

Social media posts

If you want to hone your skills in content writing, there’s nothing better than creating social media posts. These posts are not just short but also attractive and are quick to read. Thus, you learn copywriting too. Copywriting is a valuable skill that teaches you how to grab attention and make someone buy something.

Writing social media posts enables you to try various writing styles to find out which one suits you. You’ll learn how to do A/B Testing for social media ads, creating two versions of the same post to see which one gets a better reaction.

Website content

You can create all manners of content and give advertisements all over the internet. Still, if your website does not convey information completely or adequately, then your promotional efforts may result in nothing.

That’s why you should have relevant and adequate content on your website. In addition, these must be easy to find. One essential content page you must create is the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions.) This is the first point of contact between you and your customers. There should be an About Us page, Our Services page, Contact Us page, and so on.

Newsletters and emails

What sets emails and newsletters apart from other forms of content writing is that these are for customers who have already opted to receive them. Since they have already subscribed to your newsletters/emails, such customers have varying degrees of brand loyalty. When creating newsletter content, the goal is to keep them engaged and interested in your brand, products, services, and recent developments. Offering unique content will certainly keep them engaged.

Infographics

Like it or not, infographics are here to stay.
Why?

It is not just informative. Even a para of text can be instructive. But an infographic conveys a lot of information at a glance. These combine written and visual senses and therefore score over written content.

Infographics are great for showing statistics, lots of information at a glance, or even information about your company’s products, services and brands.
These don’t have to be complicated. Comparison sheets and charts are good examples of simple infographics.

Infographics are ideal for informing your customers while promoting your products and services.

E-books

If your customers desire in-depth knowledge of what you are offering, an e-book can be the perfect publication choice. E-books are exception tools for educating or informing your customers about your products. But these can be promotional materials as well! You can use e-books to convert readers into loyal, paying customers! Writing these may be a bit technical since you want to give readers comprehensive knowledge, but you still need to keep industrial jargon to a minimum, if you can. If that’s not possible, make sure you explain the terms.

White papers

People who write white papers are typically subject matter experts. In other words, they are authorities in their field. White papers tend to be longer than e-books and give more in-depth information and research on a subject.
Writing and publishing these will establish your company as an industry expert, which boosts your value in your customer’s eyes. White papers can work in conjunction with your blog topics. A white paper can be a follow-up piece on a topic you have already written an article about.

User Guides and How-To Manuals

If you already have loyal customers or have people who are very close to making a purchase decision, you need a different type of content material.
Enter user guides and how-to manuals. These inform the reader how to use a product. These are technical material and are not promotional. However, their utilitarian value is exceptional.

Case studies

Over the years, you surely have had many happy customers. You can use their experiences and testimonials to create promotional material. You can do this by making a case study.

A case study can be short or in-depth material, but it is the former in most cases. It showcases the problem faced, followed by the solution provided, and the results enjoyed afterwards. Case studies are invaluable for showing your services, products, sales history, and much more.

Video content

Video content is gaining ground.
But how to best use it? Start by penning down conversation points or writing the script before shooting. This ensures you stay on topic.

To sum up

In this article, you have read about 10 examples of content writing. Depending on your company’s needs, you can use these individually or in tandem.

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9 Tips to Drive More Web Traffic From Social Media

9 Tips to Drive More Web Traffic From Social Media

Here are nine ways to help you reap web traffic and several other benefits as follows:

When people try to sort out any specific brand or service, they sort names and links. So, with the help of SEO experts, try to optimize your profile page. 

When the web traffic is trying to understand your brand, they generally turn to your profile. It should quickly communicate your brand value proposition while establishing your style and tone. Personal business websites are online bio-data related to your business profile. Do not go for writing full business details there. Just a couple of lines is enough. Next, connect the bio to your site with a call to action for your homepage.

Gain social creditability in social media:

There are three significant ways to gain creditability in social media. First, it is one of the most successful social media tactics to drive traffic to your website.

    1. Personable Interaction is the most important category to consider in social media to build creditability.
    2. To make your credibility in social media, expertise is an important aspect.
    3. Trustworthiness is the essential aspect here.

Use social proof to attract online traffic:

To drive website traffic through social media, you need to enhance the value of your site. Use social creditability here. Clients’ reviews are critical to strengthening social creditability because, just like any check or testimonial, social proof helps build human trust in your product brand name.

Incorporate reviews, social comments, feedback etc., into your media content and website, and your about-us page works well for this purpose. Whenever online shoppers want to purchase something from a specific concern, they want to go for recommendations.

If you wish to fast-track your website traffic and social media focus, Pinterest and Reddit are two actively growing social media platforms. These will help generate an online audience for your business growth.

Promote your blog content:

One may put tons of effort into writing content for your blog to be displayed online. However, it may take months for a handful of people to feast their eyes on it. 

Unless and until not much response from online viewers, there is no point in displaying your blog content online. You may fix it by promoting your post on social media.

Start creating a social media schedule to promote your old content. You can use tools like Buffer, Social Jukebox and Hootsuite.

You may repurpose your blog posts by using options such as:

  • Quoting with different snippets of your article
  • Online survey type form fill-up including questionnaire from the target audience
  • Asking your target audience questions
  • Changing the headline of your article after every 2-3 months
  • Varying your choice of images

Promoting your blog content with various messages keeps your blog fresh and attracts your target audience.

Nine tips for driving more web traffic from social media in 2021:

In the 21st Century era, modern methods for deriving more website traffic is easier with several modern online tools. We are going to clarify it slowly and gradually below.

Focus on the keywords representing your niche to specify your blog content and store pages in your ready website. Focus on using not more than one or two main keywords per webpage. Apart from that, take the help of SEO tools like Semrush or Keywords Everywhere.

For new website builders, it is advisable to start with keywords having a search volume of fewer than ten thousand searches in a month. However, after few months of creating blog content and optimizing a web page, you may focus on going after higher volume keywords.

 Content freshness is an SEO hack people generally do to drive traffic to the respective website. It is a quick touch-up on old webpage content. You must require to remove all the outdated content from the webpage.

How is content freshness measured?

An excellent way to determine this is to Google your search term and gauge the average inception age of the pages returned in the results. If they all appear more than a few years old, it is evident that a brand-new new page. Such pages may have a hard time competing.

One of the most straightforward ways to determine content freshness for product pages is to have a product review app. This can be like Stamped.io’s Product Review Add ons. It facilitates customers to add their reviews on your product pages. This automatically indicates Google about regular activity on the page. It also tells Google about the presentation of new content matters.

Requesting customer feedback and giving ideal descriptions assists you keep the product pages fresh.

 Submit your website to Search Engines. Request for crawling and indexing, which makes the website SEO friendly.

Following are the ways you may submit to Google :

  1. Google webmaster tools
  2. By using links
  3. Auto crawling by Google (webserver)

Indexing is the process of submitting your website pages in Google’s database, so the websites are readily available in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

SEO friendly content writing:

 Try to write SEO friendly content matters. A limited number of primary keywords and secondary keywords are to be given.

Taking help of Content Management Systems (CMS) like :

  • WordPress (26 per cent of WordPress are used for website building).
  • Joomla
  • Magento etc 

All these are online platforms user friendly and easy to use by individuals to build up websites without any help from professionals.

 For digital marketing of page input of various types of keywords plays an important role. These are the types of keywords:-

Primary keywords (e.g.) for making a website for a training academy Professional Course Trainings form the primary keyword.

Secondary Keywords: Linking the content matter with the above mentioned primary keyword here Training on Web Development, Digital Marketing, Advance-Excel and MIS applications, Tally with GST plays the role of the secondary keywords.

Highly searched keywords-Say for sale of buyers website (product and its brand name and its full details including photos, the price range of the products gets displayed online).

Season or seasonal: For special festival seasons, specific keywords here are provided, say- Valentine Day gift for your lover or Great Discount offer during Christmas. 

 High competitive Keywords: Depends on its market value, quality, and quantity of the offered products say-Auto Insurance, De Beers diamonds are worldwide etc. 

Long Tail Keywords: According to its graphical presentation, it is a concept based on search volume and competition (according to its visual representation).

Make your content matter easy to share with others:

Allow and encourage the existing visitors to share the content hosted on your blog, articles by embedding a social sharing tool. 

Some of them will even display several shares earned by each post, say-if you include the option like Click to Twitter buttons so that the readers can quickly share exciting facts or snippets with their friends, colleagues, acquaintance etc. Thus, it indirectly helps in promoting blog content matters, whether business-related or others.

 Social Media Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Linked In, Tumbler etc., are networking sites to build up free pages related to your business concepts, and it is easier to reach online viewers rather than professional business websites.

It is notable that websites once build are generally static (not updated regularly). However, blogs made in the domains mentioned above, say Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc., usually gets updated.

Researching how the competitors are displaying their products and services online. This concept is called online spying (not any illegal one, though). Surveying the competitors online helps you gain information to generate online traffic. When it comes to competitor analysis enables you to understand the marketing channels you should focus upon.

Guest Posting, also termed guest blogging is basically when the guest bloggers write similar types of blogs for their own business for attracting traffic back to their websites.

Conclusion:
Getting traffic online can be a struggle. But if you use time-tested tactics, your path can be smooth. So go ahead and use these strategies we’ve talked about here. We promise these will be effective for you!

Contact MIU for digital advertising that brings results.

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Utilises Future in XR productions for advertising

Utilises Future in XR productions for advertising

Extended Reality or XR is the term that refers to both Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality technologies. Extended Reality is not something completely new. However, you’ll be surprised to know for how long it has existed. The first Extended Reality or XR device was a head-mounted display created as early as 1960 for training simulators in the military. 

More recently, we have seen the rise of affordable and readily available XR devices used in the gaming and entertainment industries. Interestingly, consumers are spending more than twice in 2018 than what they gave in 2017. Extended Reality, which virtually takes you places, is certainly a significant market player, is now a valuable training and education tool. Various industries are now seeing its actual value and potential. 

For what can Extended Reality be used?

Now that is an exciting question. Over the years, XR technology has improved a lot, thanks to sophisticated technology, premium-grade imaging modules, and its inherent perception of spatial movements and hand tracking. This makes XR environments very similar to the actual physical environment. So the current time is fascinating as far as these developments go. 

VR in education

Students are using Oculus Rift at schools to glimpse the future and see other new technologies. VR headsets are readily available at a heap price. In the education industry, it utilises 50% of Extended Reality’s use. Unique interactive experiences like Google Expeditions allow students to see virtual words while still at their seats. Other apps like Unimersiv enable students to experience the sights and sounds of a foreign culture. Technologies like these certainly aid a lot in boosting learning and development. For one, almost all teachers in the UK believe that their schools should use XR to teach children.

VR in healthcare

In healthcare, VR is used in various applications and specialisations, from doctors to surgeons. For example, the demand for VR in healthcare is that medical professors from Stanford University have said they wish to teach VR students. Similarly, one of Cambridge University’s research teams wishes to create 3D models of tumours to study and explore in far greater detail. 

Research in Virtual Reality has found that it allows healthcare specialists to change instantly as the situation demands. Thus, they can decide on the spot. For instance, such research has showcased that practising and rehearsing surgery in Virtual Reality aids in speeding up surgery and other operations. It also shows that VR aids emergency responders and health and safety trainees respond to emergencies faster and safely. 

Use of XR Technology in other industries

Besides education and healthcare, XR technology is used in other fields like architecture, design, and engineering. For example, with the benefits of VR, architects can make scale models of their projects. These they explore, test and manipulate before creating a building in the real world. In automobile engineering, engineers are not creating new vehicles and engines in the virtual world first—this aids in bringing down costs by a considerable margin.

Virtual Reality helps fashion retailers to enable customers to customise the costumes they like. It also helps retailers in creating virtual shops where people can browse goods online. Furniture and eyewear retailers are using it in this way, as we can now see widely. 

As we can see, Extended Reality is here to stay. It helps people to learn, experience and improve the real world around them safely. Moreover, it aids in finding logical solutions to new challenges. 

How has the pandemic increased interest in XR?

Since the pandemic, hybrid experiences which blend digital elements with interpersonal communication have seen a considerable increase. According to research, the AR market will grow from $15.3 billion in 2020 to more than $77 billion in 2025 alone. And this will continue to grow. In its own right, the VR market will grow from $ 6.1 billion in 2020 to more than $20.9 billion in 2025.

This growth is here because industries like education, healthcare, retail, eCommerce, video game, and entertainment invest in XR to reach more customers during the pandemic. This has led XR to come into the mainstream, which aids companies in finding out new customers and creating more demand for their offerings. Their products are made interactive, immersive, high quality and innovative. 

Future in XR productions for advertising

XR technologies will play a big part in the future of marketing, advertising and storytelling. Technology continues to become cheaper and advanced. XR now helps directors and creatives to embrace the new technology with ease while getting customers curious and excited about it at the same time.

The pandemic is far from being over. But brands are not letting that stop them. Instead, they are using the challenges and opportunities to change how they use new technologies entirely. Consumers now want to experience services and products from the safety of their homes due to the pandemic. Due to this new demand, companies using XR had more success than companies that did not use it. 

For instance, take the eCommerce and retail industries. With AR, Virtual Reality and 3D technologies, they allow customers to experience their products. See Lenskart’s website, for instance. After picking a product you like, you can upload a picture of your face. The website then creates a digital 3D model of your head. You then try out all products and check if they fit on you. 

The Future Of XR In A Post-Pandemic World

XR is set to grow in the future as new products and services rise. It will also increase as more and more companies start XR technologies to gain more customers and sales. The pandemic is considerably responsible for showing people how entertaining XR experiences can be.

Contact MIU for effective advertising that brings results.

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The importance of guest blogging (Top 11 benefits in 2021!)

Importance of Guest Blogging

Perhaps you are already working hard at growing your blog and wish to let the world know about your services or products. Or maybe you are heading a company’s marketing division and want to bring in more clients. In both these cases, as in many others, guest blogging can help. In this article, we are going to learn about the importance of guest blogging.

Yes, guest blogging seems to be in the rage these days. But believe it or not, there was indeed a time when almost no one knew of the power of this marketing strategy.

For instance, in 2006, when Brian Clark was laying the foundations of the now-famous Copyblogger.com, he experimented with guest blogging as a marketing strategy. He began writing for other websites. In the beginning, he took whatever guest blogging opportunity came his way, but soon he was writing for some of the best web portals having some of the highest footfalls on the web. In time, he got insane amounts of organic traffic from his efforts.

Or take the example of Gregory Ciotti, who used this strategy to get more than 36,000 new email subscribers.

Or consider Brian Harris, who uses just one guest post to kick-start a business that now earns him a recurring $15k a month.

Today, the strategy is used by bloggers, website owners, companies, freelancers and content marketers.

So why is guest posting so effective? We’ll find out in this article. Read on!

11 Benefits of Guest Blogging

You get instant exposure

Whether or not you get a link back to your website, the guest post should always be interesting and informative to readers. It should have something which is not yet there in other sources on the internet. If the post is of high quality, organic traffic will start pouring in soon. Traffic is essential for any business on the web, as it is for blogs. Writing a guest post is a one-time thing, but its benefits are forever as long as the post stays up. And the longer it stays up, the more traffic you continue to get. So look at it as a one-time investment! To boost traffic conversion, optimize your landing pages, your CTAs, and the other elements on your site.

It increases your network

Guest blogging has made it easy and more streamlined to connect to top influencers. It was not like this all the time. Today, many websites accept posts from both new and experienced bloggers and even have a community of dedicated writers in their chosen niches. Other sites have email discussions where post ideas are brainstormed. You can even plan to co-author posts with others. Whatever the structure is, you can always leverage your authority to seek out partnerships with top influencers. To do this, you need to be active in the community. Provide help and valuable comments. Additionally, you can also invite your chosen influencers to contribute to your blog.

Get social media shares

One of the top and proven ways to extend your reach on the web is by generating social media shares. It would help if you stimulated social media shares since the more shared your content is, the more it will be shared and seen as valuable. Guest blogging is helpful for this. For instance, if the blogging site is like Entrepreneur.com, you won’t need to lift a finger most likely to stimulate social media shares. But for smaller portals, you may have to make some effort. Consider incorporating infographics and videos with your content to get 3x engagement.

Nurture and grow your social media following

Guest blogging even helps you grow the existing list of your followers’ count and accelerate lead generation. When you write for an authoritative blog like Huffington Post, you get readers to see your brand as trustworthy. Thus, you get the trust of your readers, which you can turn into social media followers. To nurture them, give regular updates and helpful information.

Guest posting boosts your online authority

You may not be getting many organic leads and social media followers if your online authority is not strong enough. If people don’t trust you, it won’t make a difference if you write the best content on the web. One way to strengthen authority is through guest blogging. You can do this by regularly contributing to authoritative sites.

Guest blogging strengthens your backlink profile

Most blogs won’t give you a monetary reward for contributing, but they allow you to give at least one link back to your website. You need to mention a bit about your brand and provide an SEO keyword-optimized link. This aids search engines in discovering and indexing your website.

It builds your brand awareness

There have been many success stories of people hitting it rich with just guest blogging, even though they were virtually unknown before. Guest posting, if done right, establishes you as an authority in your niche. When that happens, people flock to you for advice and more awareness about your brand, products and services.

Guest blogging gives you qualified leads

This is one of the most significant benefits of this marketing strategy. The leads you get from guest blogging are already qualified beforehand. When you post on niche websites, you ensure that only interested parties will be reading and then reaching out to you. Thus, you connect with only qualified leads, which increases the chances of a sale.

It shortens the sales cycle

With a guest post, you introduce your brand to readers directly. It familiarizes them with your brand and makes them more receptive to your offers.

You get valuable feedback from readers

Feedback is always important, especially when it comes to running a business. You need to know what your readers and customers are thinking about your products and services. Guest posting gives you this benefit. With their feedback and comments, you can refine your marketing strategy for more leads and sales.

Guest blogging strengthens your skills in content marketing

To be successful, guest blogging requires you to research, use the ideal writing voice, write for a particular audience, do influencer outreach, and more. By using guest blogging, you learn more about content marketing.

To sum up

Guest blogging is undoubtedly beneficial. It comes with a slew of benefits that are hard to ignore. If you are taking your business online, you cannot overlook the importance of guest blogging.

You can contact MIU for effective advertising.

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Branding tips for small business

Branding tips for small business

A company is not just a service or goods provider. For if it were that way, companies would be almost obscure. 

Having a strong brand that connects you with your customers. It makes them remember your name, your company, what you offer, and the quality of what you offer. That’s why whenever we see the iconic white and blue colours of successful brands like Facebook, we think of the company even when the company’s name is not there, for instance, on the banners and headers. 

But is brand and brand image only for multinationals and big companies like that? What about startups? 

One mistake startup owners make is that they think they will create or develop their brand image later on as their company progresses. Doing so is a big mistake. You see, as soon as you start your business, you want your customers to remember you. Just offering good products and services is not enough if they don’t have anything to remember you.

What is a brand? 

To put it simply, a brand can be a logo, a punchline, colors, and fonts, or a combination of them all. It can also be an idea, a promise, or something else.

What is a brand identity? 

Companies have to build up their brand identity over time, with which customers remember them or know them. 

What is a brand image?

It is similar to brand identity. It can be positive or negative, and it is your reputation. 

By now, you may be thinking about how you can do branding for your small business. Is it possible? 

Yes, it is, and we are going to show you how in this article. Here are Branding tips for small businesses.

Five inexpensive branding strategies for small businesses

Building your brand

Your brand image is everything. Firstly, it tells the public who you are, what the company is all about, and what its goals and values are. Secondly, based on this information, people may or may not mentally associate with you. Due to this, it is crucial to create a strong brand identity. But how do you do that? Here’s how to do it.

  1. Do a brand audit.
  2. Determine your organization’s values and mission statement.
  3. Determine what your brand’s voice, look and feel would be.
  4. Take steps to create a brand identity.
  5. Analyze and finally refine your brand image.

If you follow these simple steps, you can create a memorable and strong brand image.

Create a memorable visual brand

It is now time actually to design your brand. In other words, you have to create a visual brand. 

The easiest way to do this is by designing your website since this is the first place your customers will come to know more about you. You need to create the look, the feel, and the design of the website consistent with your brand identity. Secondly, create a logo that engages visitors. Remember, your logo is often the first point of contact with your audience. Third, create business cards. Lastly, create a brand style guide that will help you in making the visual brand.

Know your target market

Knowing and developing your brand image is one half of the battle. You also need to know about your target market. Know about your customers more than they know themselves! Research is essential for this. A strong brand image aids in building and maintaining a solid customer base. To understand and define your target customers, you need to:

  • Check out your competition.
  • See what you are offering and how it solves customer’s problems.
  • Consider the demographics of your ideal customer.
  • Consider psychographics, including the personality, values and attitudes of your ideal customer.
  • Create a customer profile and be consistent with that.  

When you know who you are targeting, you can fine-tune your marketing efforts. 

Create and develop a vibrant online community

If yours is a small business, having a vibrant online community centred on your brand is essential. Having such a community enables your customers to interact, reach out to you, and, most importantly, know and share news about your company. It creates a sense of brand loyalty, given enough time and effort. Building a community paves a road for your customers to become a part of your company’s brand and, in time to spread the news about your brand. In short, through this, you get brand loyalty and increased customer success.


To create such a community, follow these steps: 

  1. Take time and make an effort to create a community around your company or business.
  2. Create a team and tell them of your vision for creating such a community. 
  3. Support some social causes as it is seen as customer impact and CSR.
  4. Create social media strategies to offer value to your target audience.
  5. Give your target audience more information about your company or brand through blogs or emails.

Write a blog every day

Publishing a blog every day drives more traffic to your website and attracts relevant customers. Blogging is inexpensive and can generate the majority of your leads. Publish blogs on your website, but also share them on social media. Blogging creates and enhances your online brand visibility, establishes you as an industry expert, and improves your search engine ranking. 

To sum up

In this article, you have seen a list of just the inexpensive things you can do to develop your company’s brand. Yes, you can do many other things, but those require both time and money. You may want to start with these 5 Effective Branding Tips for Small Business.

Contact us for effective and powerful branding of your business that brings results.

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Facebook Marketing Tips For Small Businesses

Facebook Marketing Tips For Small Businesses

Are your demands screaming at you or inspiring you every morning to start your day and look forward to it? Both of these indicate a separate set of minds and result in different moods at day end. They have a different effect on you, even after you have achieved your goals. 

Are you wondering why am I saying this when the headline read something related to Facebook marketing tips? 

Most of us own a small business or intend to have one within this lifetime. Don’t you? It is an aspiration and uncharted demand of our lives that we have subscribed to. You may name it as one of your life goals or anything else. It is this demand that I spoke of at the very beginning. Some of us sell our self-made products too. That might be a tiny scale business, but trust me, it is business indeed, and many people do that. It is for this reason that you need to promote it well. Facebook is the first option that we can spontaneously think of. Thus, Facebook comes into the frame. 

All you need to do is have a Facebook business page. It will open your venture to a sea of possibilities because this social media giant has an enormous data bank. Got my point?

Facebook Marketing Tips For Small Businesses

Has Facebook’s Enormous Popularity Affected Its Effectiveness As A Promoting Platform?

Innovations and everything new attracts people. Facebook has been a hugely successful social media platform that now serves as an excellent channel for marketing. However, its popularity has made it familiar, and critics often question its effectiveness as a promotional platform. 

Such speculations are expected fallout of sky-high popularity, but you don’t have anything to worry about yet. 

Let’s understand this; the market doesn’t have any specific geographic periphery. It is as wide as the world is. That’s your market, and there is no shortage of potential customers. An enormous number of Facebook users might have made your task more challenging. To reach your target audience, you will need to prepare sharper strategies than before and increase promotional activities. This never means you have lost your target audience; it just got a bit tougher than before. Local businesses can now reach their target audience with minimum effort and increase their sales. 

On the other side, Facebook tools and utility features give you crucial insight into user data. This is a huge advantage for brands for creating effective strategies. Accurate data feed strategies, it has been proven to be highly effective for increasing sales and brand impression. You can also use exclusive Facebook marketing tips for enhancing your brand strategies. 

One of the most effective ways to promote your business to local buyers is through a relevant Facebook group. You can join as many as you want as long they serve your purpose and have your target audience. Make it a point to interact with the members of the group every day if possible. Through regular interaction, you can build customer trust, know their preferences and serve them accordingly. Thus, a massive number of Facebook users is an advantage for your brand. 

Facebook Marketing Tips For Small Businesses

Facebook Marketing Tips For Small Businesses On A Budget

With increasing popularity, the business prospects of Facebook flourished. Currently, organic content on business pages doesn’t reach a wider audience as it did a few years ago. Change is inevitable, and sometimes it might not be in your favour. 

Ideally, you must share content every day on Facebook. However, posting a paid content regularly is challenging for small businesses. That’s why I am sharing some tried and tested practical marketing tips for organically promoting your business page. 

Firstly, spare some time to know your audience and understand them. Standard promotional tips and hacks might not work for every venture always. Be very mindful while creating the content for your Facebook page and experiment with the type of content. Audiences love good content and will engage with a brand that offers it to them. So, make it a point not to offer your audience regular stuff; try to keep it as exclusive as possible. 

Secondly, keep your content relatable and thus acceptable. No audience will entertain foreign content. It is, in fact, why some beautiful and heavy-weight pages go unnoticed. When you know your audience and understand them, you can create relatable content. To experiment, you can create a Facebook story every day and track their performances. It will help you in finding relatable content ideas. 

Thirdly, you need to have a concrete plan or a good content strategy for your brand. Make sure you prepare a content calendar for it and materialize your goals accordingly. This will include types of posts, blogs, articles, Facebook ads, Facebook advertising, and even campaigns. However, make sure to update this calendar from time to time because preferences change within a short time. Audiences are exposed to a wide variety of content from different sources. So make it a point to stay updated with the changing trends and offer unique content to your audience. 

Fourthly, take time out to organize the tabs on your business page. These are a few minor details that can create a difference in customer experience. On your business page, you will find different tabs. Wisely choose the tabs that help them to interact with your brand easily. When you care to save their time and effort, they will prefer you over difficult brands to communicate with. 

Fifthly, besides your business page, create a Facebook group in line with your page. Study Facebook insights to know about your content performance and other details. Based on your findings, you can create engaging content and promotional campaigns. For organic marketing, you need to progress step by step for effective and sustainable results. 

The idea is to provide value; it never goes out of fashion. The best part of using Facebook for business is it takes your products or services to the largest possible audience. You can create prospects and convert them into customers with good content with appealing calls to action. It’s irreplaceable. 

Facebook Marketing Tips For Small Businesses

Tips For Creating A Sustainable Brand

Success without sustainability doesn’t live for long. If you are planning for a business, focus on creating a sustainable business. Let me take you through a few easy and practical ways by which you can make a sustainable venture. 

  • Build a business based on your strong belief:

Having a business, surviving the challenges and earning from can test your patience and is immensely tough. The odds will challenge your motives and try to change many things. They can change a few or more things but cannot alter your core belief. Instead, it will keep you motivated and anchored to your business despite the odds. 

  • Embrace the change and never resist it:

Progress and development are the other names of change. It is easier to stick with successful ideas and processes, but that won’t help you to improve your business. Improvement is to move ahead of your existing position. So, it is always wiser to embrace change and related prospects rather than resist them. 

  • Make value a priority:

You may offer great products and services but someone may offer much better than what you have been doing. What’s exclusive today might not be so tomorrow. However, things are different when you offer value with every purchase or subscription. It will bring people back to you and earn you customer loyalty. It can buy sustainability for your brand. 

  • Don’t be uncomfortable out of your comfort zone:

    We all love what we are comfortable with. It is fine for stability, but it can even make things stagnant and prevent you from achieving more. I am sure you don’t want that to happen. If you want to sustain your business and its profitability, then you must take chances. 

  • Find your area to excel and focus on it:

Every business is unique in its ways, even if it’s selling standard products or services. Similarly, you can identify what’s working best for your customers and improve it accordingly. You can identify your areas of excellence and work on them for further improvement. It only makes you better from your current best.

Facebook Marketing Tips For Small Businesses

Social media platforms have emerged as highly effective influencers. The popularity of Facebook makes it all the more important for your brand. So, make sure to optimally use Facebook marketing strategy for better sales and business sustainability. You can also contact us for advertising on social media channels that brings result. 

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Popular Social Messaging Apps For Your Business

Popular Social Messaging Apps For Your Business

You can make your life easier with a few taps and swipes. Smartphones, dynamic technological developments and apps allow you to do that and much more. Mobile apps were primarily used for messaging service, but their roles have evolved and diversified. You do have an app for almost everything – financial services, beauty and grooming, photo editing, social media, news, buying stuff, learning and what not? Aren’t you reading this blog on your phone? That’s convenience, and it’s hard to avoid falling for it. 

It is why you need an app, whether you have your business or want to improve your brand value. 

Popular Social Messaging Apps For Your Business

Mobile apps – A star agent transforming business across the world 

Smartphones were communication devices. It didn’t just jazz up interaction over long distances but have been transforming business and other areas as well. Mobile apps are dynamic, and it’s growing fast as a business tool. 

Immediate communication with customers

Communication is the key to a long-term relationship. It holds true for customer relationships as well. A mobile app enables your customers to reach you within a fraction of a second in real-time. Often it gets difficult to squeeze out time to visit a store. Apps make shopping easier for customers. It gets more manageable for you to update customers on the latest launch, offers and campaigns through the app. 

Enhance customer engagement

Apps ensure convenient shopping. Besides its captivating designs, it has smart interactive features which engage users. Smartphones enable uninterrupted interpersonal communication, which favours engagement. The more a customer interacts with your brand, the more they get influenced. It creates a spontaneous likeness for the brand – its products or services, resulting in repetitive sales. 

Attach value to what you offer

I might have mentioned before that often, we cannot provide exclusive products or services. It is humanly impossible, but you can either modify them or add value to them. The latter idea would be more relevant because the market is crowded, and every brand is vying for attention. Selling through an app shows your brand in good light and fetches customers from all over the globe. It also attracts more eyeballs and adds value to the products and services that you offer. 

Get heard

You must have come across people who are great speakers, but they cannot always influence people. As a brand, you need to be very assertive and not react to everything. Mobile apps are an effective tool for brand communication too. You can use ‘push notifications’ for this purpose. It allows app admins to popup messages on the app when a user is using it. 

Sell or serve with an edge

Selling through an app makes a difference when customers have always bought products from the store. The same holds true for services. Customers have always walked up to the utility provider and hired a service. However, when you offer your services through an app, they can choose their services from their comfort zones. It’s highly satisfying. Interestingly, often they tend to buy more than they intended to. 

Popular Social Messaging Apps For Your Business

Direct selling platform

Direct selling is profitable. Intermediaries in business push up the price and often create distractions. However, with a business app, you can avoid that. If you are a small businessman or businesswoman, selling handmade items, it is perfect. You produce and sell your stuff on your business app; the buyer contacts you and gets it. You get the price you want, and the buyer buys at a fair price. 

Influence customers on social media platforms

Apps are linked to different social media platforms that make the customer experience sharable. These platforms have emerged as highly influential mediums of communication. When you have your business app, you can use it for your brand’s maximum benefit. When your customers share their experience, it informs their social network. It organically promotes your products or service. It does that without any additional cost! When you want to amplify the results, then you can engage social media marketing experts too. 

Instant feedback

Customers can send their feedback to the app itself within seconds. Such feedbacks are a great way to increase your brand credibility; of course, when they are positive. If you get negative feedback, even then, it helps you in improvising your brand. Securing feedback is an essential part of your business too, and a business app gets it done for you without any additional effort or resource. 

Quick customer service

Often customers have queries and may even have complaints. They can reach you and get their purpose sorted through the app. Usually, group chat links are created for sending messages, customer groups. However, this is an unorganized way of managing customers. On the other hand, apps enable customers to check it when they want and not bother them with frequent group messages.

Obtain authentic customer data

When customers start using your app, they would need to provide you with a few basic details. That basic information gives you an insight into their demography. Customer data is the key to creating compelling brand strategies for increasing sales, brand awareness and brand sustainability. Data is the new oil. People pay vast amounts for securing accurate customer data while a business app gets it for you without extra charges. 

Popular Social Messaging Apps For Your Business

Five popular social messaging apps for your business

A messaging app doesn’t just enable you to send a message but boost business as well. Instant messaging has opened up new scopes of business and channels of marketing. You can connect with your target audience better through a messaging platform. It’s dynamic and influences customer choice more effectively. Not just 5, there are more than 8 popular social messaging apps for your business. I will walk you through five of the most popular messaging apps that can be a tool for your business. 

WhatsApp:

It is one of the best instant messaging apps that revolutionized communication. Currently, it has more than 1.5 billion users. Using WhatsApp gave you the raw joy of instant messaging. Even though you write, texting and messaging aren’t the same. Texting refers to sending a message to phone numbers using the mobile service provider. When you send message through WhatsApp or any other popular messaging app, it uses the internet. It may include video call or voice calls, and other multimedia features are generally absent in text messaging. 

WhatsApp’s ‘story’ feature is an exciting way to engage an audience and send your message to them without saying much. It creates a unique visual appeal impressing your followers. 

Kik:

Younger people are experimental with their choices and end up being good consumers. It’s great if they are your target audience, too, because Kik is most suitable for young users. This social messaging app doesn’t need your phone numbers; instead, it facilitates communication with individual user names. 

Besides texts, you can use GIFs, emojis, stickers and short video in your messages. It adds to the fun factor, and it’s pretty easy to use. 

Often we assume salaried or people who earn are valued for their purchasing power. However, buying decisions are not made like this now. Children and young adults too, take part in the process and follow what they like. So make sure to use this app to your utmost advantage. 

Skype:

It is a viral video calling app. Besides video chat and calling, users can send messages, photographs, short videos and other files. You can also use the group chat and group messages utility on Skype for connecting with several people at the same time. 

Interestingly, as businesses started to diversify, the setup grew liberal with multiple variants. Meetings were no longer restricted to boardrooms and within specific premises. Online conferences soon became standard. Skype thus emerged as a popular tool for carrying on professional communication on a friendly and secured platform. You can also get the paid business version of Skype with special features suitable for your business. However, this is useful only when you have enough monthly active users. 

Snapchat:

Visuals are compelling in creating an impression and sustaining it for a longer time. Snapchat rose to popularity because of the unique feature of sending photos and videos to your contacts. It is not a typical chatting app or a messaging app but an app with a difference. 

A user sends photos and videos to another user; it creates a thread. When the other user forwards it to another user, the thread passes from one to the other. This way it spreads to the entire Snapchat network. However, no one of the photographs, or videos, or messages remain forever. They disappear soon unless you save it. It’s a kind of ‘no strings attached’ communication that encouraged users to interact. 

As a brand, you can use captivating visuals – photos, videos, or GIFs for engaging the audience with your content. 

Viber:

Audience engagement is crucial and extremely important when you want to create a sustainable brand. Viber is a very popular social messaging app for sending messages, photos, GIFs, stickers, and even for making voice calls. It gives a complete virtual experience to its users. Besides communication between individuals, it even allows group communication.  

Having your brand on this platform can add an advantage to its immense popularity and a pool of young potential customers. It also assures you effective customer engagement at a micro-level. 

Popular Social Messaging Apps For Your Business

Creating a successful business is neither rocket science nor a matter of luck. It is purely the outcome of a strategically planned venture, complemented with suitable business tools. And, of course, right timing! So, I have just elaborated on five of the most popular social messaging apps. Any of them can be a valued tool for an entrepreneur. If you have a business idea in mind, take time out to plan it well, decide your target audience and choose the most popular messaging app for your venture.