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How to Brand Your Band

We’re serious music fanatics over here at Z Coast and our taste is spread across multiple genres—we’re talking everything from  Marian Hill to Jessie Reyez to Eric Church to alt-J to Ed Sheeran. We like music, okay?

Speaking of which, feel free to check out our Spotify playlist and see what we’re listening to this week. Now back to our regularly scheduled writing…

While we appreciate these musical artists for the tunes they produce, the marketer’s in us can’t help but appreciate the brands they have established (and are establishing) for themselves.

All of the musicians we mentioned have something in common: they know what their unique identity is and they express it with authenticity, confidence, and consistency. These three things are what enable anyone, but especially musicians, to connect and engage with other people in a meaningful manner.

Authenticity, confidence, and consistency are also the key to a long-lasting career in the music industry. So we ask you, garage bands and solo artists of America who have yet to break into the industry (we know your time is coming!), are you comfortable in your musician’s skin?

Let that float around in your mind for a minute while we do you a favor. Below is a little advice for how to brand your band (or solo career). We hope you put it to good use and when you hit it big, remember us when you need that debut album cover designed *winks*.


How to Brand Your Band: Tip #1

Invest in storytelling. “Storytelling” is certainly overhyped these days but it’s also a marketing tool that isn’t used nearly enough for the amount of attention it gets. In the world of music and branding, storytelling is how you choose to focus the message you send out on a consistent basis.

Your story just gives people another reason to invest in you emotionally and financially. Sure, the music you’re producing is phenomenal, but it’s the story of your personal relationship with music and who you are artistically that gives you something to market.

Just look at Ed Sheeran and his latest album release ÷ (Divide).  The album has blown up across the globe since its release on March 3rd, 2017. Why? Because Sheeran tells a story people the world over relate to. ÷ (Divide) focuses on love, friendship, loss, family and Sheeran’s own personal struggles with fame.

It’s authentic. It’s credible. It’s raw and it’s real. It’s also on repeat while we assemble this post. Could we be any more in love with the man? Probably.

Don’t be afraid to let your guard down and your story flow. Who knows. You could be the next Ed Sheeran (we doubt it, but you could be).


How to Brand Your Band: Tip #2

Do some blogging. Seriously. Expanding on the storytelling tip here, another great place to promote your music and tell your story is a blog. Part of being a successful musician is keeping your audience captivated right?

What better way to grab their attention—besides via your music of course—than to tell your fans what an awesome time you had at your last gig all thanks to them? Blogging is a great way to connect with people and help them feel like they’re getting something a little extra from you in return for all of their undying adoration.

Blogging about all your events also opens up the opportunity for you to start a newsletter that can be delivered directly to fan inboxes. And *boom* you’ve instantly created two new ways for people to learn about who you are and check out your music.

But just like learning to play the electric guitar, it takes time and practice to develop the skills necessary to put together a successful blog post.

Don’t let that intimidate you. However, if you’d rather focus your efforts more on writing new songs than blog posts, you know where to find us…


How to Brand Your Band: Tip #3

Be consistent, boys and girls. This is very important. Especially when it comes to things like your social media accounts and marketing materials. It’s great to be creative, but throwing every idea and photo you’ve ever taken out there on the internet isn’t going to help you much. In fact, it might hurt you.

Marketers and branding experts in any industry will talk to you for hours about how your Facebook fan page needs to match your website, which needs to match Twitter, which needs to match your ReverbNation account, which needs to match anywhere else you put yourself and your music online.

They ain’t lying. It’s important.

Here’s a helpful list of things you need to keep consistent with your band branding across things like your website, social media accounts, emails and gig posters:

  • Language (voice/tone)
  • Color Schemes
  • Fonts
  • Images

Why is this important, you ask? Because you want to be easily identifiable. A big reason you should want to brand your band (or brand yourself as a solo musician, we know you’re reading too) is because you want to be easily recognized. You want people to know who you are.

Maintaining consistency throughout all your media and marketing materials is a super easy way to achieve that. So do yourself a favor, sit down for a few minutes and hammer out the message you want to send to people.


How to Brand Your Band: Tip #4

Interact with fans on social media. This goes with that whole “be consistent and authentic” thing we mentioned at the beginning of the post and in Tip #3. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are all wonderful tools for branding your band.

Social media platforms give you a grand opportunity to establish your voice and connect with new people. Connecting with new people is great for your music because it widens the potential audience your music can reach.

Social media also gives you an opportunity to listen to your fans. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all make it easy for you quickly learn what’s entertaining your fans and what isn’t. You should always stay true to yourself and your brand, but it doesn’t hurt to keep your ear to the ground either.

People won’t invest energy and money into you if they don’t feel connected with you. And in order for people to feel connected to you, you have to make the effort to connect with them. It doesn’t hurt to slip in some nicely branded merch giveaways every once in awhile either.


How to Brand Your Band: Tip #5

Be selective. Let’s say you’ve already got your message down and you’ve created some really sick posters, a couple of blog posts, some social media accounts, and a newsletter to promote your upcoming gigs and new set list.

That’s awesome. But what sets you apart from the hundreds of thousands of other bands and musicians out there? How will you rise above the noise? There’s a fine line between promoting yourself and being desperate for someone to know you.

When and how often should you be sending all this stuff out? If you’re tweeting 30 times per day, booking as many gigs as your rickety old van can get you to, and emailing novel length newsletters to everybody and their mom because you think they might be interested, you’re going to have a lot of people start covering their ears real fast.

If you want to brand your band and be good at promoting it, you have to learn to be selective. Focus on writing the best music you possibly can and then clearly and selectively communicate it to your fans.

Sure, there’s nothing wrong with throwing together a quick blog post about how stoked you are to release the 3 new songs you just perfected, but you’re going to get on people’s nerves if you’re blowing up their social feeds and inboxes every few hours with “updates” about the verse you just rhymed.

Good marketers and branding professionals know that timing is everything. Think of it like a beat you want to keep.

We’re not going to sugarcoat it for you, developing your own brand and voice as a musical artist is hard. And it’s neverending. How you choose to brand your band is something you’ll have to keep up with for the entire length of your career.

As music fans ourselves, we want to see you succeed. We also know how tough it can be to get started. If you have questions about branding your band and all it entails—like setting up a website and designing epic posters—don’t be afraid to reach out. We’d probably totally fangirl over the opportunity to work on a design project with you. No shame.

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12 Books Every Creative Entrepreneur Needs to Read

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

― Dr. Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!

Creative entrepreneurs wear all kinds of hats—we’re digital marketers, we’re designers, we’re copywriters, we’re a little bit of everything. In any case, as a creative entrepreneur, you must have the ability to transform the beige and boring into something that everybody wants.

But this is easier said than done.

We know plenty of designers who want to improve their copywriting skills and plenty of copywriters who want to know how to do a thing or two in Illustrator. Why? Because they know it will set them apart from the competition.

It doesn’t hurt for digital marketers to know a thing two about design and copywriting both but creative entrepreneurs should have at least a basic understanding of all three—digital marketing, copywriting, and design—if they want to succeed.

A little harsh, but true.

Loosely translated, our little quote from Dr.Seuss at the beginning of this post means you should never stop learning and expanding your skill set if you want to continue to grow.

If you want to excel as a creative entrepreneur we recommend checking out any and all of the books on this list.

What’s your favorite book about design, digital marketing, or copywriting? Tell us in the comments, please.  We’re looking for new titles to add to our bookshelf.

Sharpen-your-copywriting-skills-read

Sharpen your copywriting skills, read

  • Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life – This book is a treasure and by far one of the best things you will read in your life. Creative entrepreneur or not. It’s targeted more towards creative writers and novelists. It won’t help you write copy that sells but it will inspire you and teach you how to keep creating every single day.
  • D&AD: The Copy Book – The Copy Book is a must have for creatives and copywriters. The lessons found here on writing clearly and persuasively apply to all creative entrepreneurs.
  • Read Me: 10 Lessons for Writing Great Copy – If your goal in life is to master the written word Read Me will teach you how. The 10 lessons inside are easy to understand, difficult to apply. But that’s kind of the whole point. Once you’ve mastered the application you should consider yourself a great copywriter.
  • The Idea Writers – Do you want to understand the realities of creative business today? Read this book. The Idea Writers provides an in-depth understanding of how the advertising business works and how we as creatives can bring our terrific ideas to life.

Fine-tune-your-design-skills-read

Fine-tune your design skills, read

Whet-your-digital-marketing-appetite-read

Whet your digital marketing appetite, read

  • All Marketers Are Liars – Seth Godin discusses the importance of being authentic with your branding campaigns. To be a great digital marketer / creative entrepreneur, you have to be genuine.
  • Content Inc. – The full title of this one is actually Content Inc.: How Entrepreneurs Use Content to Build Massive Audiences and Create Radically Successful Businesses. It’s a mouthful, but it’s a fundamental read for anyone who wants to understand the importance of content in marketing campaigns.
  • Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers – Although this book is more about customer service than straight up digital marketing, it’s an important read for everyone because smartphones and social media have fundamentally altered the science of how people make and respond to complaints.
  • You’re My Favorite Client – Successful marketing campaigns are built on a foundation of understanding your client’s expectations. You’re My Favorite Client provides you with tools and techniques you can use to ensure you kick every project off right: with a clear understanding of what your client wants.

Just like Dr.Seuss said, “The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” That’s what creative entrepreneurship is all about, right? Learning and growing your creative abilities for success?

That’s how we interpret anyway. If you think differently, feel free to tell us about in the comments. We’d be happy to talk.

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7 Valuable Technical Skills for Digital Marketers

The road to becoming the digital marketer on everybody’s wish list isn’t always paved. But we can tell you that if you want to make the ride a little easier you need to put some work in on developing your technical skills.

Right about now you might be thinking, “Well, you’re sending me mixed signals, Z.”  We promise we’re not! It is possible to be both creative and technical.

In fact, it’s almost crucial if you want to have a career in digital marketing. For clarity’s sake though, we’ll answer your questions real fast before we dive into our must have technical skills list.

What’s a technical skill?

Honestly, it depends on who you ask. Answers to this question could include:

  • SEO
  • PPC
  • Analytics
  • Content Writing
  • Sales copywriting
  • Graphic Design

Then again, if you go looking somewhere like The Balance for your answer, you’d get something like this:

“Technical skills are abilities and knowledge needed to perform specific tasks. They are practical and often relate to mechanical, IT, mathematical, or scientific tasks. Some examples include knowledge of programming languages, mechanical equipment, or tools.”

Technical skills are in demand

The search for digital marketers with technical skills, technical marketers if you will, isn’t new, but they do seem to be in higher demand than ever before.

More and more brands are going digital and the more digital a brand becomes, the more technical their approach is. V3B summed it up nicely when they wrote:

“…marketers of the future will need to add a technological skill set to their creative talents if they want to take advantage of the opportunities digital marketing offers.”

And we’re here to tell you that the future is now.

 

technical-skills-every-digital-marketer-needs

7 technical skills every digital marketer needs

The skills we listed below weren’t just pulled from a hat. They’re technical skills that we use every day in marketing. They’re also widely used by other marketers we know outside of Z Coast and our day jobs.

Do yourself a favor and add these bad boys to your skill set:

  1. Basic Code Skills – HTML/CSS/JavaScriptOnly add JavaScript if you’re feeling frisky. Get familiar with HTML/CSS first. Ask anybody if you should learn some basic front end development and we’d be real concerned if they told you no. Why? Because knowing HTML/CSS/JavaScript makes you more valuable as a digital marketer.Knowing these coding languages it means you can whip up landing pages that don’t look like crap, fully operate within a CMS (like WordPress) and interact with the web more confidently—SEO requires a good understanding of HTML for anything technical or on-page.

    If you know JavaScript, you’ll get a lot more out of Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager because you’ll enable yourself to work with custom variable and advanced tracking.

    Just because you didn’t get a formal education in front end web development doesn’t mean there aren’t a ton of awesome resources out there for you to learn.We’d suggest starting with W3Schools or Code Academy (which as come along way in the past few years in terms of courses offered).

  2. Content Support Skills – Content Management SystemsSpeaking of Content Management Systems (CMS), it doesn’t hurt to know how they work either. WordPress and Drupal are two of the most in demand CMS skills on digital marketing resumes so you might want to familiarize with at least one of them.It all depends on what you plan to do. WordPress is very easy to use, Drupal is best suited for enterprise sized websites and both are mobile friendly. Take your pick.

    Our personal preferences drift towards WordPress but here’s a resource for each so you can choose for yourself which you would rather learn:

    Learn WordPress

    Learn Drupal

  3. Data Support Skills – Google Analytics

    You may think you know Google Analytics (GA), and we hate to be the ones to break it to you, but you’re probably not getting as much out of it as you could.Analytics technology in general, not just GA, are constantly getting more sophisticated and there’s an increasingly diverse number of tools available to help you get the job done.It’s inexcusable not to have a basic understanding of how tracking and measurement works as a digital marketer. Let us help you out. Give this a whirl:

    Google Analytics Academy

    Learn. Go forth and be successful.

  4. Data Support/Social Media Skills – Google Tag Manager (GTM)Tag management is the new kid on the block but it fits right in with analytics.GTM is a completely separate tool from GA. It’s a user-friendly solution to managing the tags, or the snippets of JavaScript that send information to third-parties, on your website or mobile app.

    To learn about GTM in more detail, we suggest reading this informative article from Lunametrics.

  5. Content Support Skills – Graphic DesignSpecifically, you need to add some skills from Adobe CC to your resume. You may not necessarily need to have the skills as a full-blown graphic designer but your life will be a lot easier (as will the lives of the designers you actually work with) if you pick up some design skills in your spare time.This can be an especially useful technical skill if you work on a small team with less than a handful of time-constrained designers. The better you are at visual design, the more deliverables you unlock.

    If you’ve got an Adobe CC subscription, there’s already a ton of great tutorials at your disposal. However, we’d also suggest poking around Lynda.com to step up your design game.

  6. Data Support Skills – ExcelWe thought long and hard about including this one on the list because we have a serious love-hate relationship with Microsoft Excel. It’s one of those necessary evil kinda things.Knowing Excel is a valuable technical skill to have because you develop an entirely different expertise with the software than your friends in the accounting department.

    For example, you could hone your Excel skills for anything from task management to complex predictive analysis. Learn it:

    10 Excel Tricks Every Marketer Should Know

    Microsoft Excel – From Beginner to Expert in 6 Hours

  7. Marketing Tool SkillsThis one is a little more “generalized” but it’s just as important as everything else you’ve read up to this point. You can’t be a digital marketer if you lack knowledge in common digital marketing tools like:

    MailChimp

    Buffer

    HubSpot

    Salesforce

    Just to name a few. If you’re in email marketing, master a tool like MailChimp. If you’re area of expertise is more social media related, get to know a tool like Buffer. Of course, it never hurts to know both HubSpot and Salesforce too.

    Salesforce and HubSpot even offer free certifications that can help you stand out from the crowd. Why not grab them?

And there ya have it folks, the technical skills that make great digital marketers. You don’t have to be an expert in all of these things and by gosh if you’re a killer copywriter, nobody’s going to care if you think AJAX is just a dish soap.

Fun fact: it’s not.

But if you want to be a well-rounded digital marketer, learning any of the above technical skills will help you achieve your goal.

How have these technical skills helped you in your job? Which do you want to learn next? Let us know in the comments.

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24 Simple Ways to Inspire Yourself

We all lack inspiration sometimes. It’s just a natural part of the creative process.

However, we understand how irritating it can be when your creativity gets stuck in a rut. Hence the infographic below. We’d like to share 24 of our favorite methods for inspiring ourselves when it just won’t strike and we hope you find it helpful.

Is there something you like to do to get inspired that’s not on our list? Please share it with us in the comments! We’re always looking for new places, ideas, and things to draw inspiration from. 

Isn’t it funny to think about? The fact that inspiration for a new marketing campaign or website design or poem or whatever it is you like to do can come from doing something as simple as going for a jog or talking to another person? Our minds are truly amazing things. Make the most of yours.

All of these inspiring tips are simple and all of these things are available for anyone to try. This list is comprised of some our favorite things to do when we’re not working. That’s kind of the point, ya know? Inspiration often strikes when you least expect it. Something brilliant comes to you when you’re relaxed, gearing up for a workout or jamming out to your favorite playlist. Jot down your idea and keep going.

The next time you need to get yourself inspired and you ask our advice, for starters, we’re going to point you towards these inspirational tips. We hope you make the most of them.

Are you stuck and in need of a little inspiration to kick off your next marketing or design project? Contact us! We’re here to help you launch brilliant and creative campaigns and designs.

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How to Not Suck at Email Marketing

Email marketing is an artform. It’s also an important tool for your business because you can use email marketing to build awesome relationships with prospects, leads, current customers, and past customers.

Email provides you with a direct line of convenient communication to the people you want to talk to.So you better not suck at it.

It’s not easy being an email marketer

We know. It’s tough out there. You have to keep up with new email marketing terms and trends on a daily basis. There’s always some new technique or tactic to try that will make you better at what you do—we’re not even going to get started on software.

And while we encourage trying new email marketing tactics and techniques that are proven to work, we also believe in avoiding the 7 sucky email marketing practices below that absolutely drive us up a wall when encountered in the wild of our own inboxes.

So you have two options with this list of worst email marketing practices:

  1. Follow this list like the yellow brick road, suck at email marketing, and keep wasting opportunities to communicate with past, prospective, and current clients.
  2. Print off this list, tape it above your desk, and remind yourself to avoid this shiznit like the plague every day.

We’d really appreciate it if you went with option two. So would your subscribers.

These are pet peeves we should have in common so feel free to comment below about your biggest email marketing pet peeves and we’ll complain together!

You want to know how to not suck at email marketing. This is how: avoid everything on this list 👇

 

7-bad-email-marketing-practices-to-avoid

7 bad email marketing practices to avoid

  1. Emailing people who don’t opt in.

    Do you know why they didn’t opt into your emails? Because they don’t want to receive them! It’s pretty simple.

    Emailing people who don’t want your emails leads to nasty unsubscribe rates that can put the deliverability rates of future campaigns in jeopardy. Just don’t do it.

    Here’s a fun fact for you: According to Litmus, roughly 52% of people, regardless of age, have marked an email as spam because they didn’t knowingly and willingly subscribe to receive it.

    But if you’re having trouble grasping the concept, maybe you need to take another look at CAN-SPAM laws. If that doesn’t deter you then—well you’ve got some other issues that need to be addressed outside of email marketing.

  2. Making it hard to unsubscribe.

    Newsflash: Even if your email marketing is superb you’re going to have someone who wants to unsubscribe every now and then.

    It happens. Maybe they moved and your business only serves people in the southeast.  Maybe they’re just tired of getting so many emails and they’re spring cleaning the emails they subscribe to.

    Whatever their reason, there’s nothing more irritating than scrolling to the bottom of an email and not having an option to unsubscribe.

    Not to mention the fact that it’s kinda, sorta, super illegal.

    Don’t do illegal things. Always give your recipients the option to unsubscribe. Make it simple and leave it at that.

  3. Bombarding inboxes.

    Speaking of unsubscribing, there’s no better way to ensure a mass exodus from your mailing list than to bombard your subscribers’ inboxes.

    It takes time, effort, and a whole lot of testing to find the sending frequency for your subscribers. But you can bet your bottom dollar doing something like sending the same email day after day won’t help you figure it out.

    That’s just bad email marketing. It’s lazy. We don’t like lazy. If you’re not sure how to start scheduling your email sends, check out this article from Smart Insights.

  4. Sending emails infrequently.

    Sending emails once in a blue moon is just as bad as bombarding your recipients’ inboxes. That’s why it’s important to get your send frequency down.

    Have you ever subscribed to a newsletter that you expected to receive on a monthly basis and wound up only getting three over the course of the year?

    It sucks. Eventually, you probably stopped caring. And finally, you unsubscribed. (And when we say you we really mean us ‘cause we’ve totally done that.)

    We’ve all been there. Don’t be a flaky email marketer. Leads need to be nurtured so they stay interested in your company. You’ve got to find some balance so you don’t pester your leads but they don’t forget about you either.

  5. Sending emails that aren’t mobile friendly.

    Your emails have to be mobile friendly. If your emails are not mobile friendly then you have no business sending them. Let’s go over that one more time:

    If your emails are not mobile friendly then you have no business sending them.

    According to Email Monday and Litmus, 55% of all email is opened on a mobile device now. Part of providing a great email experience is taking the time to make sure that your emails look beautiful across all devices.

  6. Forgetting to proofread.

    We’re all human. Spelling errors slip into our copy sometimes. Grammar mistakes happen. But not taking the time to proofread your emails before hitting send is again, lazy, and disrespectful to your recipients.

    Inboxes are personal spaces; respect them. Proofread your emails, test to make sure all your links are working and your subscribers will appreciate your emails more.

  7. Not optimizing for HTML and plain text.

    Your email looks bomb when HTML is enabled but there are people out there who have their emails defaulted to only show plain text. In fact, we’re willing to bet you have a few of those people on your email list.

    If your email is only optimized to look stellar in HTML, your plain text readers are going to wind up with jumbled message in their inbox. Be a good email marketer and optimize your messages for both HTML and plain text enabled inboxes.

    Not sure how to do that? Don’t worry! We’ve got your back. Here are a few tips that will help you craft emails that look great no matter what type of inbox they end up in:

    – Always include a link to the web version of your email
    – Use light background colors so text doesn’t disappear
    – Don’t copy and paste from different word processors
    – Make your email comprehensive without images
    – Always assign clear alt text to your images

We hope you enjoyed the post and will avoid these bad email marketing practices.

What gets on your nerves about email marketing? Let’s talk about what bugs you in the comments!

 

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10 Brilliant Web Fonts You Should Try On Your Site

Why is the web font you choose so important for your web pages? Great question!

Otherwise known as typography, the web fonts we choose for our websites can have a massive impact on things like:

  • Mood
  • Readability
  • Perceived article length
  • User Experience (UX)

The typography you choose for your website plays a big role in the first impression visitors get when they come to your site. It’s part of the whole user experience you provide. But…

Finding the perfect font isn’t always easy. We want to help you provide your site visitors with an awesome user experience. That’s why we compiled a top 10 list of web fonts developed by reputable type designers, all of which are available for free via Google Fonts.

Can you figure out the typography we use on Z Coast? Take a guess in the comments section, it’ll be fun.

Anyway, on to the good stuff!

*Note: We’re intentionally not including single-weight fonts because their usefulness is limited in good, real-world design.

It’s cool, you can thank us later.

Give Your Website Character With The Right Web Font

  1. Cabin



  2. Neuton



  3. Lato – Personal Fave. Just saying.


  4. Bitter

  5. Domine

  6. Karla

  7. Poppins

  8. Josefin Slab

  9. Vollkorn

  10. Source Sans Pro


Remember, when setting the typography for your website you don’t have to limit yourself to a single web font.  It’s okay to use more than one (as long as you don’t overdo it).

If you want some tips on choosing and combining web fonts for your website, we recommend checking out The Definitive Guide to Free Font’s by Typewolf or shooting us a message if you have any questions about typography. Or both.

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15 SEO Tools To Help You Take Command of 2017

As online marketers, bloggers, and small business owners, SEO is important. Why? Because no matter what your website is about, you’re competing with a hefty number of other sites for traffic from search engines.

Fun fact: there are 1.2 billion websites on the internet right now.

If you’re a beginner to SEO or you just want to increase your site traffic, this post is packed full of incredible SEO tools and services that will help you crush the competition in 2017 (if you use them right).

How can we help you with your 2017 SEO and marketing?

Let’s dive in!


Best SEO Tools and Services of 2017

  1. SEMrush – SEMrush is not your average SEO tool. It’s often the first choice on everybody’s wish list because they’ve taken competitor research to a whole new level. SEMrush provides over 20 ways (stealth tactics) to research your competition and their SEO strategies. Paid
  2. Screaming Frog – What? You need another reason to try Screaming Frog besides the cool name? Okay, no problem. Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider software uses an algorithm, not bots, to help increase your visibility in search results.  Freemium
  3. Ahrefs –  Out of all the SEO tools out there, Ahrefs Site Explorer is the best among backlink analysis. They also have a nifty Content Explorer that searches the web for the most popular content for any keyword or topic. Freemium
  4. Moz – Moz offers several SEO research tools and link management tools designed to help you launch a top-notch SEO campaign. It’s a resource center, a complete toolkit, and great for all users. It’s the complete package.  Freemium
  5. Buzzsumo – This SEO tool should be in your toolbox for the following reasons: 1.) You can use Buzzsumo to set up alerts on keywords, brand names, links, and author names. 2.) You can track competitors and analyze their content. 3.) Their Sumo mascot. Paid
  6. Keywordtool.io – If you want a free SEO tool that’s quick, simple and similar to Google Trends, try Keywordtool.io.  You can utilize this tool for Google, YouTube, Amazon, Bing and App Store keywords. It comes in handy as a long-tail keyword research tool too.  Freemium
  7. Getstat – Six words: Limitless rank tracking and SERP analytics. And the Wizard of Moz himself (Rand Fishkin) recommends it so you know it’s good.  Paid
  8. Long Tail Pro – Long Tail Pro was already a highly recommended SEO tool. Then they went through an ownership change, made the decision to be cloud-based, and now this SEO tool is 10x faster and 10x easier to use. Try it. Paid
  9. Google Search Console – Powerful and simple to use, Google Search Console is a free SEO  tool that helps you visualize how your site appears in search. It also supplies you with crawling errors, HTML improvement suggestions, and more.
  10. Ubersuggest – This is another neat little alternative to Google Trends/Keyword Planner or Keywordtool.io that provides you with keyword ideas that are organized alphabetically and visually based on preference.

    Another Fun Fact: We used Ubersuggest for this post today! Free
  11. SEOquake – SEOquake is a browser extension that packs a punch. This free online SEO tool simplifies on-page SEO audits, provides you with page data and metrics, and allows you to export all of your data into one file.  Free
  12. Impactana – If you’re creating content with SEO in mind this tool is perfect for you. It’s similar to Buzzsumo in that it shows you the most popular content based on social popularity, but it does more than that. Impactana also shows you the most popular content in terms of links the content gained. Unique and useful.  Paid
  13. SEOptimer – Do you know how well your overall SEO is performing? SEOptimer can give you the answer. Knowing how good or bad your SEO is doing tells you what you should keep doing and what you should change up. Take a look at your on-page metrics. It’s Free.
  14. Majestic – Majestic takes you on a deep diving expedition into SEO and link analysis. Don’t worry though, all your data can be organized into easy-read reports for improving your SEO. Paid
  15. Answer The Public – Everything about the SEO tool is awesome from the old guy who judges you while you work to the content ideas it helps you generate from your seed keywords. Ask the Seeker. Free

Whether it excites you or makes you queasy, SEO is a big part of your online business. It’s the largest source of free organic traffic, leads, and customers available to you.

Don’t blow it. The 15 SEO tools and services we listed in this post will help you improve in 2017 if you use them. It’s your time to shine.

Did we forget something? Feel free to share your must-have SEO tools in the comments below. Have a question about your own SEO strategy? Think we can help? Talk to us today!

 

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How We Increased Blog Traffic With a Two-Week Twitter Trial

Do you have any goals for 2017?

Of course you do! And so do we.

In fact, one of our biggest goals for 2017 is to:

Establish Z Coast Media as the premier web design agency for businesses and teams in Atlanta with a focus on branding, content, and community.

Pretty broad and a bit lofty, right? It’s okay to say so. We know it is. But we like to dream big around here. We also like to ask questions.

And one of the questions we asked ourselves right around the beginning of the new year was how can social media help us achieve our vision?

Get your own Social Media Test Worksheet.

The awesome thing about social media is that there a lot of ways to measure your success. Whether you’re growing your community by acquiring new followers or boosting website traffic, the possibilities are endless.

Our Goals

All that possibility can be overwhelming at times. That’s okay! We understand the struggle. It’s not always easy to stay on track and focused. That’s why we decided to run a little test on Twitter over the last two weeks with some goals in place:

  • Drive traffic to our site/blog and generate leads
  • Grow brand awareness around Z Coast Media
  • Build our community

While there was some planning involved, this test was run on what can basically be chalked up to a “Hey y’all, watch this” moment. For those of you who didn’t grow up in the Southeast, that means it was spur of the moment because we got an idea and got excited.

Sometimes, you just have let yourself have fun and go for it when you get an idea and that’s what we did. Our test started on January 8th and ended on January 21st.

Just for fun, we took a look at analytics from December 8th through December 21st compared to our test dates in January.

Before & After

December 8th, 2016 through December 21st, 2016 our Twitter efforts resulted in an average 797 impressions per day as you can see here thanks to Twitter Analytics:

 


That works out to a total of 11.2k impressions over the 14 day period. Not bad, but we want more people to know who we are.

Now look at this graph but for the January 8th through January 21st dates:

 

 


Comparing the two-week spans, our Tweets earned 1.2k more impressions in January than in December.

It’s not a huge jump or anything but you don’t have to be clearing canyons every other week to say you’re being successful. During our test, we saw an increase in impressions, engagement rate, link clicks, retweets, likes and replies.

Were any of these numbers huge? No. Did they increase from the numbers we were seeing in December? Yes. And that’s what’s important here! We weren’t dipping and we weren’t remaining stagnant. We improved.

One of our goals was to grow brand awareness with our little test and that’s what we did. Our follower base is growing, more people are seeing and engaging with our tweets, and more people are starting to mention Z Coast Media on Twitter.

Another one of our goals for this test was to increase traffic to our website/blog. Let’s turn to Google Analytics and look at what our network referrals looked like December 8th through December 21st, 2016:

 

 


In case you’re blind, that graph is trending down. Not something we really want to see. Here’s the rest of the December Social Referrals report:

Not great. This is exactly why something had to change. So we ran our test (we’re going to tell you what we did, we promise!). Here’s the January Social Referrals graph:

 

 


Now that’s what I’m talking about.Much better. That graph is going up, baby! And we’re pumped about it.  And the rest:

Again, these numbers aren’t massive but the point of this post is to help you (and us) remember that just because you aren’t seeing “I went viral” numbers doesn’t mean you aren’t being successful. As long as you aren’t going backwards or frozen in place, you’re doing something right.

If you look at the December Twitter numbers:

  • 16 sessions
  • 34 pageviews
  • 2.12 pages per session

Vs. the January Twitter numbers:

  • 26 sessions
  • 321 pageviews
  • 12.35 pages per session

There’s a big difference in those numbers. A Good difference. We’ve seen a large increase in the number of pageviews and time spent on the Z Coast blog.  In December, specifically December 8th through December 21st we saw these numbers:

  • 143 pageviews
  • 34 unique views
  • Average time of 1 minute 11 seconds

But during our January test dates, January 8th through January 21st, we’ve seen those numbers increase to:

  • 556 pageviews
  • 47 unique views
  • Average time of 2 minutes 4 seconds  

We’re improving our ability to get the right information in front of the right people at the right time on social media. How are we doing it?

Two-Weeks of Trial & Error

Everything we do is trial and error. You’re never going to learn what works for your business and what doesn’t if you’re too afraid to try out your ideas.

To put it bluntly, you just have to suck it up and go for it if you want to be successful. It’s a success if something you try fails because now you know you need to try something else.

That’s what our little two-week social media test is all about. We said whatever happened, whether we saw results or not, we were going to consider the test successful because it would show us one of two things:

  • The idea was good and showed us positive results
  • The idea didn’t work

No matter what happened, we’d know what move to make going forward.  If you’d like to run two-weeks of trial and error for yourself on Twitter, you’re welcome to give our method a try, it’s all laid out for you in this Two-Week Twitter Trial & Error Cheat Sheet.

If you do give it a try, we’d love to hear about the results of your test and what it did (or didn’t do) for your business. Call us, message us, Tweet us, Instagram us, whatever. We just want to know if you try it.

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10 Simple Tips for Designing Logos

Designing a logo is easy, right? Wrong. So, so, very wrong. A logo serves as a brand’s visual identity and there’s so much more to creating a logo than just slapping the company name in a colored box and calling it a day.

To consumers, a company’s logo reminds them who the company is and what they do.

To the company, a logo is a visual representation of who they are and what they stand for. Their logo is part of their brand’s voice.

To designers, a logo is a challenge. You know what we’re talking about if you’ve ever tried incorporating an entire organization’s ideologies and values into a single graphic.

No matter your relation to logos, we can all probably agree that logos are important. The fact that they’re so important is what inspired us to write this post and share some easy to follow advice about designing logos.  We hope you learn something new and exciting today!

If you have a question about something you read here, don’t hesitate to reach out or leave a comment. We love talking about graphic design around here.

An Easy-Read Guide About Logo Design

  1. Your logo has to be simple. Simple logos are easy to recognize, versatile, and memorable. The best logos feature something unique or unexpected without being overdone.
  2. Your logo has to be evergreen. You’ve heard of evergreen content, right? Evergreen content is content that stays relevant to your customers. Just like the content you create, your logo should be evergreen too. The logo your client is using today should still be relevant 20+ years from now.
  3. Your logo should match your client’s voice. The way a logo is positioned should be appropriate for the company’s target audience, every intended use of the logo, and the voice they’re trying to establish.
  4. Design briefs are important. When you’re designing a logo for a client, it’s important to ask questions for a design brief so you have a reference guide while working.
  5. Research is always necessary. In order to design the perfect logo for a client, you’ve got to do your homework. Research the industry your client operates in, its history and competitors.
  6. Look for inspiration everywhere. Look at websites, successful trends, current trends, and current styles related to what you put together in your design brief.
  7. Cliches should be avoided at all costs. Idea light bulbs and international globes are so overdone. Be original. Be clever. Think outside the box.
  8. You better be picky about the typeface you choose. Good typography is essential to a good logo and you’ve got two options: create your own typeface or adapt an existing one. Whatever you choose, just make sure it’s simple, legible and matches the brand.
  9. You have to remember to take breaks. No designer has ever successfully completed a logo design in a single sit-down. It’s okay to take breaks while designing logos, heck, it’s even recommended. Breaks give your ideas time to mature and your client the opportunity to provide you with feedback.
  10. Limit options. When you present a logo idea to a client, we suggest never giving them more than designs to look at. Too many options at once can be overwhelming. Let your client see what you’ve come up with, take their feedback, and repeat until they see what they want (within reason of course).


Don’t Forget About Color, Color can make or break your logo design. Every color in the color wheel implies something different. Don’t convey the wrong message when designing a logo by picking the wrong color(s). The Science Behind Color, an article by The Logo Company, serves as an excellent resource when choosing colors for a project. For example:
 
BLACK is a color best suited for the marketing, financial, and corporate industries. It is most often associated with qualities such as strength, power, and precision.
 
BLUE is a color best suited for tech, health-care, and government. It is most often associated with qualities such as clean, calm, and professional.
 
ORANGE is a color best suited for sports, entertainment, and food and drink. It is most often associated with qualities such as energy, creativity, and youthfulness.  
 
Yay for bonus tips! You can learn about other colors by reading the article linked above.
 
But more importantly, you read this article so that means you’re one of two people:

  1. A designer who’s bright, shiny and new. You’re gearing up for your first logo design project. That’s awesome! We’re glad you stopped by our blog.If you’d like to continue learning about logo design, we suggest reading:
     
    2016 Logo Design Trends & Inspiration
     
    11 Brilliant Resources for Logo Designers
     
    10 Tips for Designing Logos That Don’t Suck
     
    Don’t be shy about letting us know if you found this article useful or have a tip you think should be included. Leave your two-cents in the comments section.

    2. or

  2. A new business owner who’s trying to figure out all this branding and logo stuff.
     
    If this is you, let’s talk! We’d be thrilled to help you create the best logo for your brand. Shoot us a message or give us a ring and let’s get started!

Design community: What are some of your favorite logo designs? Let’s get a discussion going.

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A Short and Sweet Guide for Finding Your Brand’s Voice

Your voice—the things you talk about and how you talk about them—is the most important part of your brand. It doesn’t matter what you do and it doesn’t matter what media channels you use to broadcast it. Your voice is the most important part of your brand.

Why does it matter so much? Because your voice is what communicates your values and informs your audience and most importantly, it’s how your audience recognizes you. The whole point of establishing your branding voice is so that people will recognize the things you put out no matter what.

So, how do you go about molding your brand’s tone of voice to communicate your brand message effectively? Use the short and sweet guide for finding your brand’s voice below.

 

Start With a Strong Foundation

  • Establish what your brand stands for:

    • Here are some ideas to help get your wheels turning: fun community luxury excitement progress adventure

  • Establish your key message to the world:

    • To take the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful (Google)
    • To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world (Nike)
    • To make it easy for people to do themselves some good (Innocent Smoothies)

Want some help figuring this out? We’ve got you covered.

 

Find Some Inspiration

  • Look for inspiration outside the walls of your office:

    • Ask team members for opinions of what they think your company values should be
    • Hold a meeting where you ask people to list words, phrases they associate with your company, and phrases they don’t associate with the company

  • Asking for help establishing brand voice can have a big impact on the loyalty of your customers:

    • 66% of millennials have abandoned what had been their brand of choice because the brand no longer fit their identity (Source)
    • The most important driver of brand loyalty for millennials is a great product at 77%, followed closely by brand recognition and trust at 69% (Source)
    • 73% of consumers cite value as the leading factor that determines brand loyalty (Source)

 

Address Your Target Audience

  • Decide how you’re going to say what  you want to say to whoever you want to say it to:

    • Should your voice be formal? stiff authoritative serious
    • Should your voice be informal? fun distinctive characterful

  • It all comes down to target audience because if your brand voice doesn’t appeal to them:

    • 81% of consumers have un-liked a brand’s Facebook page if they felt the brand’s voice no longer resonated with them (Source)
    • 41% have unfollowed a brand’s Twitter handle (Source)
    • 97% have marked an email message as spam (Source)

Take your cues from your audience!

 

Find Your Funny Bone…Just Be Yourself

  • Consider if humor fits into your brand’s voice. If humor is part of your brand voice, remember to:

    • Stay humble – it’s better to laugh at yourself rather than your customer
    • Be subtle – in most cases, gentle humor is the way to go for lighter copy
    • Go with your gut – if you’re ever in doubt, leave your joke out

  • Humorous or not, the most important things you can do when establishing your brand’s voice is:

    • Build trust – 54% of people don’t trust brands. Ouch. (Source)
    • Be authentic – 80% of consumers say authenticity is the most influential factor in their decision to follow a brand (Source)
    • Meet needs – 48% of consumers expect brands to know them and help them discover products and services that meet their needs (Source)

45% of a brands image can be attributed to what it says and how it says it. Your brand is your promise, what you say you do, how you say you do it, and how it’s done. Make sure your company delivers on what you say you do with a well-established brand voice.

Are you ready to find your brand’s voice? Talk to us today and let’s establish the message that sets you apart from your competition.

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