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Creating Your First Website (Everything You Need to Know)

Owning a business and not having a business website is insane.

We get it. Your speciality is costume design, or roadside BBQ, or selling kayaks.

You do alright with word of mouth referrals and your Instagram account is okay. But you wouldn’t have a clue how to get started if somebody offered to help you build a website tomorrow so you keep missing out on a crap ton of potential new customers day after day.

Don’t be that person. Please. We know there’s a ton of literature available for people out there who already have sites and the interwebs are lacking with helpful guides on how to get started with your first website.

Hence this post, friends. We want you to be 100% confident in yourself when you’re ready to get (your business) a website so we’re going to help you prep. Right here, right now.

Let’s do this.

“This post looks bomb and all but I’d rather just email and ask y’all how to create a website for my business.” — You? Click here.

Skip to the section you’re most interested in by clicking a link:

Where to Start With Your Website Name

Your website’s name, otherwise known as your domain name, is your identity on the web so choosing one is an extremely important decision. Great domain names help you build a brand that sticks with your customers and draws new ones to you.

*Disclaimer: You’ll probably see me use website name/domain name interchangeably. They’re the same thing so it doesn’t matter, I don’t feel like picking just one to go with, and I’m feeling rebellious towards my editor.

*Disclaimer: I’m also the editor.

If you already have a business that you’ve named, you’re most likely going to want to try and snag that as your website name. Why? Because if you’ve already named your business then that means you’ve already found the name that perfectly fits who you are and what you do.

But then again, you might just be starting out or you’re looking to refresh your brand. That’s cool too! Just make sure you take the time to pick a domain name that:

  • Speaks to who you are and what your business does
  • Is easy for you to promote to your target audience
  • Is available

Picking your website name/domain name isn’t something to rush into. Take your time. Your website name is one of, if not the first piece of marketing most people who don’t live in your hometown are going to see.

And you know what they say about first impressions.

How to Choose a Domain Name for Your Business

When choosing a domain name, or helping a client choose a domain name for their business, I like to keep this quote from Kurt Vonnegut in mind:

“Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind.”

― Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

In other words, you want your domain name to spark interest and compel people to visit. You don’t want to attract just anybody to your business website though. You want to attract the people who are looking for what you do or sell.

We’ve already admitted choosing a charming website name is hard. But it’s not impossible and we’ve got a few tips to help guide you as you try to settle on the perfect website name:

  • Get to the point.
    The longer your website name, the harder it’s going to be for potential customers to remember it. Keep it simple. Ideally, your website name will be short and memorable.

    Charming people don’t waste time on small talk. They get to the point and invoke emotion in their conversations. The same thing should be applied to your website name.

    Folks should have a  pretty clear picture of what kind of website they’re visiting when they come across your domain. Which goes back to why it’s important to choose a business name that reflects what you’re all about and what you actually do.

    Another good rule of thumb is to pick a name that’s easy to pronounce and spell. Test out some of your ideas on friends and family. Show them your potential website name / business name written down on a napkin or whatever’s close by and ask them to read it out loud.

    If there’s even the slightest hint of a struggle, go back to the drawing board.
  • Keep it real.
    Dude, it’s so important to just be you / let your business be your business when picking a website name. Building a brand that stands out from your competitors isn’t a walk in the park.

    Be creative. Be unique. Be brandable. But most importantly: be yourself. Tips:
    + Try merging two words like TechCrunch or WaterAid
    + Try tweaking words like MVMT and Tumblr
    + Try making up your own unique word like Tattly or Bombas

    As long as your website name is on brand, short, and simple we say go for it. Don’t be afraid to get creative with it and try something new if it’s who you are.

    Authenticity goes a long way. You can’t believe everything you read and see online but people should be able to look at your website name and know who you are simply because it serves as a testament to your brand.
  • Research it.
    Just because you think you’ve come up with something totally original and true to your brand doesn’t mean you have. Sorry, but the internet is a big place.

    And sometimes people register domain names just to make a buck off somebody who really wants it. Yeah, that’s a thing.

    Do yourself a favor and make sure your website name / domain name isn’t trademarked, copyrighted, or being used by another business. It could cost you all kinds of legal problems (and loads of money) if you don’t.

    Some places we suggest doing your domain name research:
    + GoDaddy
    + Namecheap
    + 1 and 1

Mistakes to Avoid When Selecting a Domain Name

Alright, so we gave you some tips for picking your website name but it’s also important that we cover some of the things you need to avoid when picking your domain name.

Like:

  • Numbers and hyphens. Numbers and hyphens are easily misconstrued. For example, let’s say you’re in a band called 29 Jellyfish and instead of using a website name like thatjellyfishband.com or a nickname your fans call you, you registered the domain name 29jellyfish.com.

    Yes, that’s totally on brand but let’s say somebody hears you open up for another band and remember your name but they can’t remember if it’s Twenty-Nine Jellyfish or 29 Jellyfish. They search twenty-ninejellyfish.com on Google and wind up with about 556,000 results for jellyfish books and reports.

    Some people would try searching again until they found your domain if they really liked your music. Some of them would get lost in jellyfish research in the deep places of the internet. But most of them would just move on and assume you don’t have a website yet because people are lazy and that’s what we do.
  • Paying too much for a domain name.We’ll cover setting a website / domain budget more in depth later on but we’d like to go ahead and make a note here that you shouldn’t pay a fortune for your domain name. Ever.

    If the domain you had your heart set on is going to cost you an arm and a leg, go with your backup plan. If that one’s super expensive too, drop back to option C.
  • Forcing your domain name to match your business. We can go back to our band example again, 29 Jellyfish. Many people start bands and businesses without considering if a matching domain name will be available.

    Or if there’s already a band / business out there with a really similar name, like Jellyfish (a power pop band from San Francisco who broke up in 1989).

    When you make this mistake you can wind up stuck with a domain name that has no relationship to your business so if you haven’t gone too far yet, we suggest researching your business name and domain name at the same time.

Where to Start With Your Website Hosting

If you aren’t familiar with website hosting it’s cool. That’s what this post is here for. To help you learn.
Web hosting is a service that allows you to post a website on the internet. Most hosting companies require that you own your domain to host with them so that’s why you need to select/purchase a website name first.

What is A Web Hosting Account?
A web hosting account is a place where you choose to manage your website with a hosting service provider. A lot like pizza, the different types of web hosting accounts can best be described as using the same ingredients in different combinations.

The web hosting account you choose should be based on how much computing power you really need. The three most common types of web hosting accounts are listed below but if you’re just starting out we suggest launching with a shared hosting account.

  • Shared Hosting — Shared hosting (which is a type of hosting account you can get through GoDaddy for example) is a very common type of web hosting account.

    With shared hosting, the service provider (i.e. GoDaddy) hosts many websites on one physical web server. Since most websites don’t use a lot of server resources, shared hosting lets providers offer good services at a low cost.

    Click here for a  helpful video to help you determine if shared hosting is right for you.
  • Virtual Private Server Hosting — Virtual Private Server Hosting (VPS Hosting) mimics a dedicated server within a shared hosting environment. Essentially, it’s both shared hosting and dedicated hosting (see below).

    VPS hosting offers more server power than basic shared hosting, but it still costs less than dedicated hosting (which is super powerful). It’s a good option if you need more power than entry-level shared hosting but you don’t need all the power or cost of a dedicated server/hosting yet.

    Just like shared hosting, VPS hosting puts your website on a server that has other websites running on it. There’s just a lot less of them. If you’re more drawn to VPS hosting over shared hosting, you should know it can set you back anywhere from $20 to $100 per month.
  • Dedicated Hosting — Dedicated hosting will set you back $100+ per month. Dedicated hosting is ideal for websites with really heavy traffic–we’re talking a huge number of visitors every day.

    With a Dedicated hosting account, you have a server (or servers) dedicated solely to you. This is why it’s so much more expensive than VPS or Shared hosting. But if you’re looking at Dedicated hosting, that usually means you’ve got a website that’s generating a ton of traffic/money so you’re not too worried about the cost.

How to Pick a Web Host Provider

We listed a couple of examples previously when talking about domain names that could serve as your hosting provider too. But you might choose someone else and that’s fine. You just need to make sure you know how to pick a web host because it’s kind of a big deal.

First, you need to know what your hosting needs are. This means asking yourself (and answering) questions like:

  • What kind of website am I building?
  • How big or small can my website traffic volume be?
  • Will I need support for a specific script (like PHP)?
  • Will I need something common like a WordPress blog?
  • Do I need any special software?
  • What upgrade options are available with the hosts I’m considering?

The no-brainer rule is to always start small with a good shared hosting account because they’re affordable, easy to maintain, and more than sufficient for new websites. It also allows you to focus on building your website without worrying about stuff like security and database maintenance.

You can always upgrade to VPS or Dedicated hosting when you get bigger–just make sure the web hosting provider you choose offers the options you want.

Next, you need to compare server uptime and reliability between your top candidates for a web hosting provider.

People can come to your website from all over the world from any time zone, any day of the week, so you need a web host provider who’s stable and that you can trust. Hosting providers with a 99.95% average uptime is considered normal and acceptable. Anything less and you need to move on down your list.

We suggest reading reviews from customers of the web host providers you’re considering to get a gauge of how satisfied customers are with uptime and how good the provider’s support is when things go awry.

What do their prices look like?

Unless you’re willing to hop between web hosts every year (not recommended) there’s no way to avoid renewal costs — which are often much more than your signup cost. This is just part of owning/hosting a website.

However, you really shouldn’t sign-up with a web host who jacks up renewal costs more than 100%. Example: if you’re considering a web host provider whose sign-up price is $60 per year, but their renewal cost is anything over $120 a year, screw ‘em.

How easy-to-use is the hosting control panel?

A user-friendly control panel with extensive functionality is super important. It doesn’t matter if it’s cPanel or Plesk (we prefer cPanel though) as long as it’s easy for you to use.

Double check the email features.

If you’re planning to host email accounts with your website then double check the email features of your potential web host provider before signing up.

Most companies have the ability for you to host your own email but it’s always good to make sure. There’s also the option to own an email account at your domain through G Suite, which is a service by Google that allows you to own your own emails, hosted on Google Servers starting at $5 per month.

Can you back, back, back it up?

Technology fails. It’s a fact of life as certain as death and taxes.

If your web host does site backups on the regular, then you’ve got nothing to sweat about. If something ever goes wrong, the web host provider you’ve chosen should be able to restore your website in no time flat.

When picking a host, ask them stuff like:

  • How regularly does your web host provide full backups?
  • Can site backups be done manually via the control panel?
  • How easy is it to restore backup files if I don’t want to wait for support staff to do it?

Speaking of support, make sure your web hosting provider offers a live chat option (usually goes much quicker than over the phone) and has good reviews. You need a support team ready to toss you a life jacket as soon as you start hollering help.

Where to Start With a Website Budget

Let’s look at what you know you’ll need to spend just to get a domain name and somewhere to host your website before we start building out your budget for the website itself:

  • Domain name — On average, your domain name is going to cost you between $10 to $15 a year if you purchase through GoDaddy, Namecheap, or 1 and 1.
  • Hosting — Pricing will vary from host to host but on average you’ll be looking at spending $2-$10 per month for your basic shared hosting plan

Keep in mind domain and hosting are recurring expenses that are just part of owning a website. Once you launch your website, you should be aware that you’ll be spending roughly $240-$300 annually to keep your site up on the internet.

How Much Does It Cost to Build a Website?

We can’t tell you how many times we’ve been asked this question. The truth of the matter is, it all depends on what you need and want. The advice that we like to give is to first figure out what you need/want and this will help you budget an accurate amount of money for your website.

  • What can you realistically afford? Be honest with yourself here. Remember, the cost of building a website includes more than the initial setup and design. You have to consider ongoing maintenance too.
  • How are you going to manage your website? Do you want to be in total control or would you prefer to hand things off to a designer / developer?
  • What does your site need to have right now and what can wait until later? Think of all the potential customers who will visit your website. What needs to be in place from the get-go and what are some “nice to have” features you can wait on. This is important to think about as it can help you more accurately budget for the launch of your site and budget for additional work in the future.
  • Are you going to deal with the hosting, security and other technical stuff that comes with owning a website yourself? Operating a website takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of technical work. Are you the person for that job or should you budget to have someone help you maintain the site?

How you answer those questions will determine the ballpark your estimates appear in but we can pull back the curtain a little further for you. Just remember none of these numbers are set in stone, they’re simply meant to serve as a guide so you don’t choke on your doughnut when web design agencies start emailing you back with quotes.

Budgeting for Your Website

Let’s start with a suggested budget for a basic website. We’ll say you’re looking for a basic website to help brand and market your business but you’re not looking for it to do much more than serve as lead generation. Pretty simple stuff. So we’ll say you need the following for your basic website:

  • 5 web pages — no copy included because you’re going to do that yourself
  • 1 landing page with a form for lead capture — no copy included because you’re going to do that too
  • Email list management setup — so you can do something with the leads you get from your new website

When you get the breakdown of your quote that details all the work these items require, you shouldn’t be surprised if you see something in the $3000 – $5500 range.  

If you require any custom coding beyond your site being responsive (which should just be standard nowadays) that price range will be closer to the $5500 end. Same goes if you would rather have an SEO expert write the copy for your website.

With that in mind, now we’ll pretend you need something more advanced.

Depending on how custom you want your website–the coding and level of design–the content management system you’re operating on, the number of pages and forms on the site, and the amount of copy needed for the website itself, you could be looking at a quote anywhere between $8000 and $40000.

Most people are really surprised by that when they’ve never had a website built before because of drag and drop builders out there like Wix and SquareSpace.

What we often fail to remember is how much those builders restrict the design of your website and maintenance ability after it’s been created.

Not every out of the box solution works straight out of the box. What happens when you need to troubleshoot your theme, or make something responsive but don’t know how? Who do you call?

As web designers, we’ve spent years learning (in addition to years of trial and error) how to manipulate a website into doing exactly what we want. Web design is a profession. The option to DIY is always there but if you want a professional website, you need a professional.

That’s because building a website is about so much more than just making it look pretty. There are a lot of strategies that play into it most people never think about like photo choice, copy placement, menu layout, or how many clicks it takes a user to get from point A to your contact form or shopping cart. The list goes on.

Should you ever feel stuck between “building” a website yourself or looking for a web designer to help you create a website for your business, try to keep in mind all of the other little things that come with it.

Are you up to creating and strategizing everything by yourself? Or would you rather have a professional bring your vision to life?

How to Hire a Website Designer / Web Design Agency

For the sake of this post, we’ll say you’d rather hire a web designer / web design agency because you don’t have time to become a self-taught web designer.

You’ve got a business to run.

And since we’re nice people and you’ve been kind enough to read this far, we’re going to give you a cheat sheet of questions you should always ask when hiring a web designer.

Why? Because even if you don’t choose  Z Coast Media (us) to help out with your business website we still want you to get the best bang for your buck and the website that’s going to accelerate your business to the next level.

11 Questions You Should Ask When Hiring a Web Designer

  • What services do you offer? Many web design agencies offer more than just website design. There’s also web development, hosting, copywriting, and digital marketing services. Ask for examples. You might decide you want to make the web design agency your one-stop shop or you might find you only want them to do the design and go to someone else for marketing help.
  • Do you create a custom website or use templates? Often time the design agency will offer both because the needs of clients differ. Tell the team what your website needs and ask for a price comparison: “Can you quote me for a custom website with these features and quote me for a templated one? Thanks!”
  • Will you review my current site before deciding how to make this project happen? This question is only necessary if you already have a website of course. If you aren’t creating a website for your business for the first time it’s a good thing that the design team you hire be eager to analyze your site for strengths and weaknesses before making any major changes.
  • What strategies do you think will help my website generate revenue? Your design agency should be just as gung-ho about generating revenue for your website as you are. They should be able to give you a list of proven strategies that will be incorporated into the site design that align with your goals.
  • How will you manage my project? Websites are typically created in phases that include strategy/research, design, development, and launch/evaluation. At Z Coast Media, we like to provide a proposed timeline up front when sending out a quote for the work requested by a client.
  • What happens if I hate the design? Most project agreements outline either unlimited changes or a certain number of changes. This is often based on budget and timeline. It’s always best to review the process for revisions with the design agency before signing anything.
  • What do you need from me to get started? Depending on the type of website you’re contracting out, the design agency may need you to provide things like images, copy, and other things you want on the site.
  • What’s the billing procedure? It’s totally normal to want additional services outside the original scope of the project once things are underway. Find out how billing works from the design agency you’re interested in so you’re not surprised when other features and elements are added into the budget.
  • Will my website be responsive? If the answer is no or there’s any hesitation before the word yes, run. Go find another web designer.
  • Do you offer maintenance after my website is live? You should ask up-front if the agency offers maintenance services and how they are provided: ongoing, as-needed, or a retainer arrangement.
  • How do you measure results? Your relationship with the web design agency you hired shouldn’t come to a screeching halt once your site goes live. They should stick around for a little while to track things like page views, visits, bounce rate, conversion rate, and stuff like that.

    It should be included in your quote somewhere that they plan to keep an eye on and update you with these stats for x amount of time-based on the contract you’ve agreed on.

Well if that’s not comprehensive guide with everything you need to know about creating a website for your business I don’t know what is. Did you find this helpful? Do you have questions? Let us know in the comments. Feel free to point it out if you feel like we missed something important.

Creating a website for your business is one of the best things you could possibly do.

If you’d like to discuss creating a website (whether it’s your first or a refresh for something you already have) we’d welcome the opportunity to talk things over with you.

Just shoot an email to contact@zcoastmedia.com and we’ll be in touch.

Thanks for reading!

Xx Paige & Nick Xx

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17 Stats That Prove You Should Be Making Videos

The amount of options we have for posting content on the internet is ridiculous.  Every major platform out there (that you’re probably already on) supports video in some way.

Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat are all stellar for short videos and sneak peek clips. Facebook Live and YouTube are phenomenal options for long-form videos, ads, interviews and anything else you can think of.

One of the best things about having all these options for video and live streaming as a business owner is that this stuff isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Check out our infographic for some insanely compelling stats that are going to make you want to get up and start recording immediately.

Creating videos and video marketing is far beyond an “up-and-coming” tactic at this point. It’s here and it’s getting more powerful by the minute, especially when it comes to:

  • Telling your brand story
  • Building relationships
  • Explaining your value prop
  • Growing awareness for your business/products
  • Staying connected with an ever-evolving mobile audience

Video is now an invaluable tool for helping business owners convert customers and increase engagement no matter what your business does. Find the platform that makes sense for your business — the place where your audience hangs out — and start providing them with the content they’re looking for.

Own an auto shop? Start making how-to / tutorial videos on YouTube for basic at-home car maintenance. Have a salon? Create short before-and-after videos / boomerangs on Instagram featuring your clients. Sell makeup? Ask your customers, friends, and family to send you questions or challenges in regards to the products your selling. Then go and fire up Facebook Live and prove in real-time that your products are capable of everything you say they are.

Creating content isn’t easy. It requires a lot of creativity and a lot of hard work. That’s why so many people don’t make videos. But their lack of effort is yours for the taking. All the audience your competitor is missing out on because they don’t want to take the time to figure out how to do video is yours for the taking. Be yourself. Be real. Just get out there and try.

That’s what we’re doing. If you haven’t seen already, we’ve got a YouTube channel where we publish:

  • A weekly vlog
  • 7-Minute Saturdays (marketing) Videos
  • Tags, Challenges, and Games

We started the weekly vlog, ZCM Vlogs, because we want to document our journey from the bottom up. We know it takes time to make it big so we’re going to make the most of the time by showing other small business owners we’re in the same boat, we don’t always know what we’re doing, but we’re going for it anyway.

7-Minute-Saturdays is a bi-weekly series where Nick and I sit down and film a 7-Minute video covering topics related to marketing, web design and small business ownership. We share our knowledge and are working on developing a rapport with our audience so we are having consistent conversations with people.

We want this to be all about communication. We want to know what we can film that will help you out with your own marketing and business efforts and then we want to give you the answer in video for free.

Our Tags, Challenges, and Games playlist is where we show our less serious side (not that we’re very serious to begin with) and just film the weird, fun, and crazy stuff we do to cut loose and ensure we’re promoting a healthy, creative, team vibe at Z Coast.

Check us out if any of those things appeal to you, we truly appreciate it if you do.

Have a suggestion for us? Drop it in the comments below or shoot us an email: contact@zcoastmedia.com.

Thanks for stopping by the blog this week!

Reminder:

  • New blogs go up bi-weekly on Tuesday
  • New vlogs go up weekly
  • New 7-Minute Saturday episodes go up bi-weekly on Saturday
  • Podcast coming soon!

 

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How to Promote Your Business With a Dirt Cheap Budget

So you’ve just launched your new business and you’ve got something you want people to know about. It’s dope and people are going to love it, but you feel awkward telling them about it and you don’t really know how you’re going to get the word out anyway because you’ve barely got a budget as is — if you’re lucky enough to even have a budget in the first place.

We’ve been there.

No money.

No direction.

No clue what to do next.

Thankfully, though, we live in the digital age with all kinds of tools at our fingertips that marketer’s past could only dream about.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way my friends, and if you believe in your business you’re always going to be on the lookout for new ways to help it grow. Starting out is tough, but promoting your business with a cheap (or no) budget isn’t impossible.

It’s actually far from it and we’re here to share some of the secrets of the trade with ya. Hope you enjoy!

Sometimes it’s Good to be a Cheapskate

If you’re reading this post and you know me or Nick on a personal level, you know we’ve both got a reputation for being cheap. In fact, you’ve probably called us cheap at some point.

And that’s fine.

There’s a time to splurge money and there’s a time to save money. There’s also a time when you don’t have the option of doing either because you have no money.

It usually happens when your fresh baby-face has just been thrust into the real world, far from the safety of your childhood bedroom as you try to forge your own path among the grown-ups. Or when you’re starting your own business.

However, you’ve got some options available to you as you dwell in the land of ramen and regret. You can learn how to make things work as best you can in your current situation, or you can give up before you even give yourself the chance to get started and run home to mom.

Nick and I prefer to learn from where we’re at and build up from there. Hopefully, you do too. You should never let lack of budget hold you back.

Especially when it comes to promoting your business. So yeah, we may be a little frugal at times, cheapskates if you will, but we never let money stop us from going as big as we can with Z Coast Media (ZCM).

Sometimes we cut back on eating out if we know site domain renewal is coming up, or we rethink that extra album purchase in favor of paying for our Google set up, but we do things like that because ZCM is a priority.

It’s not a sacrifice when it’s something you want to do because your business is something you believe in. But you can still promote and build your business with little to no budget at all.

One of our top priorities at the beginning of every year is to set aside money to cover all of the following expenses:

  • LLC License
  • P.O. Box
  • Google Accounts
  • Domain
  • Hosting

These things have to be paid for to keep Z Coast running at its most basic level so we make it a priority to get these things paid for at the start of the year before we make room in the budget for anything else.

Once our top priority items are taken care of we then take the time to budget out the remaining money for any upgrades, new software, or anything else we know we’ll need or want in the coming year.

If there’s not enough leftover in your budget after taking care of the basics to help promote your business with, don’t worry. Cheap/free promotion tactics are what this post is all about.

Facebook is a Cheap At Twice the Price Option You Should Take Advantage of Yesterday

If you’re not familiar with the saying cheap at twice the price it just means extremely inexpensive. And Facebook is an extremely inexpensive way to promote your business.

But what about Facebook Ads?

What about ‘em? Yeah, they’re cool to have and maybe one day you’ll have the budget to run someone day but you’re here because you’re looking for inexpensive ways to promote your business, remember?

Facebook is a tool you just can’t afford to ignore when starting out. Just maintaining a healthy presence alone can help you engage people and grow awareness for your brand and that doesn’t cost a cent.

If you haven’t already, create a Facebook Page for your business. PLEASE. This will act as your home base for promoting your business on the social network.

When you’re setting up, make sure your Business Facebook Page aligns with your brand:

  • Use your business logo as the primary photo for your page (your profile pic)
  • Pick a cover photo that’s attractive and showcases what your business does or stands for
  • Don’t neglect to type up a few sentences in the description about your brand

Now that you actually have a page, invite people to like it. There’s absolutely no shame in inviting friends and family to like the shiznit out of your FB page.

If people you know aren’t being supportive of your new business it might be time to start surrounding yourself with new (supportive people). Just saying.

For example, my mom and Nick’s dad never fail to like a single post that goes up on ZCM’s Facebook page and they’re pretty good about sharing posts too (though there’s room for improvement there…); thanks, y’all!

But the point is you need to invite people you know to like your page and encourage them to direct their other friends *gasp* to check out your page so, hopefully, they’ll like it too.

Word of mouth boys and girls. It’s as free as every red-blooded American and it can do wonders for promoting your business.

 

People-like-my-Facebook-Page-Now-What

People like my Facebook Page…Now What?

Congrats, you have friends! Once you’ve got the page up and running do what we do and share, share, share!
Don’t go overboard or anything though. Typing that three times was just for emotional effect.

If you want to keep people coming back and new folks coming in, you’ve got to post interesting content that’s relevant to the people you’re attracting/want to attract.

People who like your page are gonna see your posts show up in their main news feed — although according to Mr. Zuckerberg that might be changing soon.

According to this article in USA Today, “Soon, Facebook says you will see more status updates from family and friends that spark meaningful social exchanges.” Zuckerberg wants people to spend less time passively scrolling and more time engaging in meaningful conversations and posts.

Facebook’s feed is still prime real estate that doesn’t cost you a penny. Make it count by taking the time to post thoughtfully to your page and share content that sparks the interactions Facebook wants to create with their upcoming feed changes.

The most successful Facebook posts today are videos but if you’re not comfortable making videos yet — and don’t say you can’t because you don’t have a camera ‘cause I bet you’ve got a smartphone that’s perfectly capable of taking video — get into the habit of sharing videos from other sources you enjoy.

You can mix it up with short, visual posts that drive people to comment, share, and like and Boom! you’re in the promoting business baby.

Post things like photos from inside your store, a behind the scenes look at your workspace or your latest blog post. Then head over to your Insights Tool.

Yep, Facebook even gives you a free to use insights tool with your super free Facebook Business Page. Dope, ain’t it?

Keep an eye on your Insights tool (you can access it via your Admin Menu) because it can tell you what time people look at your content, how many people see your content on average, and other cool stuff like that.

Some other Facebook business promotion tools you might consider

If you’re operating just above free and have a little budget to help promote your business on Facebook you might check out:

  • Promoted Posts — Promoted Posts enable you to boost the visibility of a specific post on your Facebook Business Page. How much does a promoted Facebook post cost? It varies, but it’s rare that you’ll see the option for less than $5.00.
  • Facebook Offers — Facebook Offers is a tool that allows you to create coupons that people can redeem online or in your store. You pay to have Facebook push your offer onto news feeds and your budget determines the number of people who will see your offer.

Of course, there’s always Facebook Ads but we’re here doing things on the cheap so we’re bypassing ads today and heading straight on to Instagram!

Instagram is Here to Help You Promote Your Business on the Cheap

According to Statista, as of September 2017, Instagram has 600 million monthly users.

600 million.

Are you kidding me?! That’s insane! But it’s fantastic news for you (especially if you’re selling something.) Why?

I’ll tell you why. Shoppers turn to social media for references. In fact, HubSpot uncovered that 79% of all online shoppers spend at least 50% of their shopping time researching products.

And where do they turn for recommendations from their friends and family? Yep, social media. So, you better believe people are looking for products, services, and recommendations on Instagram.

Don’t have a business Instagram account? Don’t sweat it. It’s easy and free to set up. Just remember it must be separate from your personal Insta.

 

Professional-Instagram-Account

How to Optimize Your Professional Instagram Account

First things first, take care of that bio.

Your bio is the one and the only opportunity you have to direct somebody from Instagram account to your website in a single click. So always, always, always have a link under your name/description.

It can be a link to your website, a landing page on your website, your blog, or your YouTube channel depending on what you do. Just do yourself a favor and take advantage of the opportunity to place a link in your bio.

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Now that you’ve got a link in your bio you can safely move on to creating a recognizable image. All the Instagramming in the world ain’t gonna mean sh*t if it’s not consistent with your brand.

The key to success on Instagram–and we’re defining success as brand awareness–is to make yourself instantly recognizable. This means you should have a checklist of things that consistently match your other social profiles across the board, including but not limited to your name and profile image.

Create Posts People Want to Follow & Double Tap

We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words but very few of us ever actually harness that power. But man is it powerful for your brand if you do.

The reason Instagram is so popular and keeps growing is that it’s an image-based platform. We’ve known for years that images get twice as many comments as text posts so it really shouldn’t be a surprise.

However, as a business account, you’ve got to be careful with your posts because it’s a lot easier to turn followers off from following (and engaging) with you as a brand than as a personal account.

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One way you can do yourself a favor is to avoid hard selling. Instagram is a social culture above all else but people go to great lengths to avoid the used-car salesman, right?

Friends hold the top slot when it comes to influencing people on Instagram, but 38% of people on social media say they’re buying decisions are influenced by a brand’s social media.

In other words, your posts have a lot of sway so let the images you post do the talking for you without the added pressure of a sales pitch as the caption. Get creative and remember you’re here to participate in the culture of the platform.

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How are you supposed to get yourself heard if you’re supposed to avoid the sales pitch? Post attention-grabbing photos that are unique to your brand and full of personality. Easier said than done, we know, but it’s clearly not impossible.

You want to improve your brand awareness. You want to do it for cheap. You need to get creative. Use your photos to establish relationships instead of flaunting your goods and you’re going to get some attention.

It should also be a priority of yours not to post any photos that are cropped funky, blurry, or stray from these suggestions for posting quality photos.

Note: Instagram also provides a lot of awesome editing tools that help you enhance the colors and moods of your photos. Use them. Play with them. Learn them. They’re free. They’ll make your photos look better.

Don’t forget to post lifestyle photos that capture your brand culture! People want to see the actual people behind your brand. The ones that make your brand, your brand. Lifestyle photos are also a great way to strengthen the feelings people associate with your brand.

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So far we’ve covered how to use the photos you post to Instagram to promote your brand itself and the services/goods you provide but you can do more with Instagram.

You can:

  • Offer promotions and exclusive announcements to your followers
  • Widen your discoverability with the use of hashtags
  • Promote events
  • Run contests

The list goes on. The point though is this: You have a lot of options to promote your brand and other things associated with your brand on Instagram. Which means you have a lot of opportunities to increase your brand awareness.

The best part? They’re all free. Yes, you can do ads and post boosts on Instagram just like you can with FB and maybe one day you’ll want to try those features out.

But for now, if you’re operating within a limited budget, Instagram is a phenomenal option for promoting your brand for free.

Promote Your Business Cheap as Chips with LinkedIn

Did you know LinkedIn is more than just a stuffy social site for business for professionals? It’s also a great place to promote your brand cheap as chips (we threw that one in there for you, over the pond readers).

And it’s really not that stuffy once you get to know it.

Anyway, there are something like 65 million people on LinkedIn and we don’t know about you but we wouldn’t waste the potential of all those connections if we were you.

LinkedIn is much different from social platforms like Facebook and Instagram but it’s an excellent place for networking, mentorship, and getting referrals.

You can’t get referrals or network if nobody knows about your brand, right? Off to LinkedIn with you! It’s free to set up a profile.

Getting Started on LinkedIn

To kick things off on LinkedIn you’ll need to:

  • Learn how LinkedIn works
  • Create a login
  • Set up your company page and avoid being boring; keep it consistent, with your other social profiles

Once you’ve got the basics in place you have everything you need to start spreading the word about your brand and making connections with like-minded people.

Just have a company page on LinkedIn can help you build connections. But there’s no need to be lazy. Update your account regularly (truth: we forget to do this sometimes) to gain the attention of potential clients, customers, and partners.

This alone can help you:

  • Gain exposure to people searching for the products or services you offer
  • Obtain testimonials that provide credibility to your account
  • Meet new potential clients

Pro tip: try to post regularly and focus on how what you’re doing can help others achieve their goals. People love stuff like that.

You can also get involved with groups related to whatever it is you do and build up your reputation as an expert in your industry by contributing to conversations.

Talk is Cheap, and So Are Podcasts

We saved the best platform for promoting your business cheaply for last.

This is something we’re about to get into ourselves, in fact, we may have already posted our first podcast by the time this blog post goes live. If so, check for an update link at the end of this post.

Anyway, podcasting is huge and it’s a content platform that’s still growing. There are opportunities everywhere and people who are interested in what you’re talking about will find you.

Why are podcasts so easy to consume (and therefore such an easy way to get the word out about you and your business)?

Because podcasts are easy to consume. People listen to podcasts at the gym, in the carpool line at school, at the grocery store, in the shower, the list goes on.

Podcasts are also easily accessible. They can be consumed on basically any device your audience owns — smartphone, laptop, tablet and unlike a radio show, they’re available on-demand.

Podcasting allows you to create a one-on-one connection with your audience (a lot like video does, which is another cheap option for promoting your brand). With podcasting, you get to be directly in your listener’s ear for however long you record.

As long as you aren’t boring. Please don’t be boring.

But most importantly, podcasts are free/cheap to create. Sure, you’ll eventually want to invest in some professional microphones and stuff like that but when you’re just getting started and looking for free ways to promote your brand, podcasting is the way to go.

We’ve already given you a ton of ideas to promote your brand for next to nothing, and if you’ve made it this far thank you for reading and bravo.

With that said, if you’re serious about learning how to promote your brand via a podcast, we suggest you check out this comprehensive guide on how to start a successful podcast from Shopify.

No, we’re not getting paid to type that or refer you to Shopify (though we’d totally be open to that Shopify, *winks*); honestly, I’m just tired of typing at this point.

That’s one heck of a guide you just read there, don’t you think?

 

How-Will-You-Promote-Your-Brand

How Will You Promote Your Brand?

If you found anything in this guide useful we’d be seriously interested to hear how you plan to put it to work for promoting your brand on the cheap.

Do us a favor and drop a comment below telling us some of your favorite ways to promote your business for practically nothing. What worked for you when you first started out?

Of course, if you’re shy, you can always just shoot us an email. See you back here in about two weeks! Thanks for reading!

In the meantime, feel free to connect with us on our YouTube channel. Vlogs go up weekly and videos go up bi-weekly.

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How to Build A Digital Marketing Strategy That Works

What is Digital Marketing?

Well, kids, that’s a great question. But to answer you we’re not going to quote some crappy Wikipedia article (no offense Wikipedia) or leave it to the big boys like HubSpot to define it for us.

No, we’re going to tell you how we define digital marketing here at Z Coast Media. Keep in mind, we’ve been doing this for a while now so we’ve had some time to really think about what the term digital marketing means to us. Ready?

Digital marketing is any type of marketing that involves an electronic device.

Click here to get help kicking off your digital marketing strategy and download our free guide to building a digital marketing strategy that works.

Being totally transparent here, digital marketing is just an umbrella term. A buzzword if you will, used to describe all the different forms of marketing and marketing tools that can be categorized underneath it.

From the beginning, the whole point of marketing has been to cater to the goals of your business by keeping and satisfying your customers. So it’s no surprise that digital marketing has become a thing. Especially if you look at these stats from Statista:

  • 65% of people in the US with electronic devices use their devices to browse the internet
  • 45% of people in the US with electronic devices use their devices as primary forms of communication
  • 39% of people in the US with electronic devices use their devices to browse and buy items/services

As a marketer, it’s only natural that you’d want to meet your customers where they’re at — online via an electronic device such as smartphones or tablets. And in order to do that, you’re going to adopt digital marketing tactics.

What are some digital marketing tactics you can use?

  • Content Marketing
  • Blog Posts
  • SEO
  • Web Design
  • Paid Search / SEM
  • Mobile Marketing (SMS, MMS in-app marketing)
  • Social Media Ads

The list goes on. But this list of digital marketing tactics won’t do you a lick of good without a plan. You’ve got to have a digital marketing strategy.

What is a Digital Marketing Strategy?

Knowing which digital marketing tactics you want to use is great but if you don’t have a digital marketing strategy, how will you know that your marketing is in the right place and appealing to the right audience at the perfect moment?

Spoiler: You don’t have a way of knowing any of that without a digital marketing strategy and that’s probably why you asked Google what a digital marketing strategy is in the first place.

Allow us to break it down for you:

  • Strategy asks the who, what, why and where questions.
  • Tactics answers the who, what, why and where questions.

A lot of people like to try and come up with the tactics part first and then develop their digital marketing strategy but we prefer doing things the other way around.

To quote one of my favorite books,  The Art of War by Sun Tzu: “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory.” In other words, your digital marketing strategy will only work if you’ve got the tactics in place to execute your plan.

Putting together a digital marketing strategy can feel intimidating if you’ve never done it before so we put this little guide together to help you out. It’s summarized below but you can download the full version by clicking here so you’ve got an easy reference if you need it.

How to Build Your Digital Marketing Strategy

How to Build Your Digital Marketing Strategy

  1. Get your buyer personas together. Ask the question: Who am I selling to? 

    Your marketing strategy, whether it’s digital or not, all comes down to who you’re marketing to. If you don’t have a clue who you’re targeting you won’t be successful. Sorry, but that’s just the truth.

    Your buyer personas should be a complete representation of your ideal customer(s). You can create buyer personas by researching, surveying social media, and interviewing your business’s target audience. Do your best not to make assumptions and base your notes on real data instead. Assumptions can literally make an ass out of you when building buyer personas because they can quickly take your digital marketing strategy down the wrong path.

    To put together the best buyer persona’s possible include an even mix of current customers, prospects and people outside of your contact lists that align with your target audience.

    While building your buyer personas, you’ll want to look at things like:

    — Location, which you can use Google Analytics to easily identify
    — Age, gather this by identifying trends in your existing prospect/customer database
    — Income, gather this in one-on-one interviews
    — Job Title, look at your existing customer base
    — Goals, ask customers what their goals are and how your product / service has helped or is helping to achieve that goal
    — Challenges, talk to your customers
    — Hobbies and Other Interests, talk to your customers
    — Priorities, talk to your customers and find out what they value 

  2. Identify your own goals and the tools you’ll need to achieve them. Ask the question: What are my goals and what tools do I need to achieve them?We just talked about this: strategy first, tactics second.

    Define the goals of your business, but whatever those goals are, just remember that you need to know how to measure them. Every business will measure the effectiveness of their digital marketing strategy differently.

    What’s vital is your ability to measure the effectiveness of your goals. 
  3. Take inventory of your digital marketing channels and assets. Ask the question: What do I currently have to work with? 

    Once you’ve got your goals down take a look at your available digital marketing channels and assets. You’ve got to figure out what role they’ll play in your digital marketing strategy. The easiest way to categorize your digital marketing channels and assets is to group them into the three groups below:

    Owned Media — Owned media refers to the digital assets that your business owns. This may include but is not limited to your blog, your social media profiles, or imagery.

    Earned Media — Earned media refers to the exposure you’ve earned via word-of-mouth. This may include but isn’t limited to things like guest posts, the customer experience you’re providing, or recognition on social media (shares for example)

    Paid Media — Paid media is pretty self-explanatory (we think) but just in case…paid media refers to any channel that you spend money on to catch attention and capture leads. This may include but is not limited to FB ads, Instagram Ads, or Google AdWords.

    Once you’ve gathered all this info together, categorize it in a spreadsheet so that it paints a clear picture of your existing paid, earned, and owned media.

    Now you can easily see what you might try to incorporate more of into your digital marketing strategy and what you might cut back on based on the results you’re seeing. 

  4. Audit your owned media. Plan your owned media. Understand that owned media is at the heart of digital marketing. Ask the question: What’s working for me? 

    Yeah, we said it. Owned media is the heartbeat of your digital marketing strategy. At least, it should be.

    The thing about owned media though is that it almost always takes the form of content and that’s why you need to audit it and plan it. If you’re serious about building your digital marketing strategy, you have to decide what content is going to help you reach your goals.

    Auditing your existing content is hard work but well worth it in the long run.

    To audit your existing content, make a list of your existing owned content, then rank each item on the list according to what performed best in relation to your current goals.

    The idea behind auditing your content is to figure what’s working, what isn’t, and how to set yourself up for success with your future content plans. After this is done you should discover any gaps in your existing content and be able to formulate a plan on how to fill them.

    For example, if you’re a camera company and you find out that one of your persona’s biggest challenges is figuring out how to set up lighting for videos on a budget, but you don’t have any content that addresses that issue, it might be time to create some.

    Based on the gaps you identify you can put together a content creation plan. The basics of any content creation plan should include:

    — Title
    — Format
    — Goal
    — Promotional Channels
    — Why you’re creating it
    — Priority level

Once you’ve accomplished this just repeat for your paid media and your earned media. After you’ve completed all the steps above you should have:

  • A clear picture of your buyer personas
  • At least one digital marketing-specific goal (more is great)
  • An inventory of all existing owned, earned, and paid media
  • An audit of all existing owned, earned and paid media
  • A content creation plan

Now for the fun part! It’s time to bring it all together.

Your Basic Digital Marketing Strategy

Your Basic Digital Marketing Strategy

You’ve done all the hard stuff! Yay! Now you get to build your digital marketing strategy doc. Your strategy document should map out what actions you plan to take to achieve your goals. It should answer all the questions you asked while researching and auditing.

Again, it’s probably best to use a spreadsheet for this — they’re a necessary evil — and if you want to go extra easy on yourself, map out your strategy according to the media framework you’ve used up to this point.

You should also think long-term when creating your strategy. We suggest a minimum of 12 months depending on how your business operates. For example, you might cook up something that all ties together like this:

  • January — Start blogging. Publish a new blog on a bi-weekly schedule for the whole year.
  • April — Start repurposing content from blog posts in Q1 into videos for your YouTube channel
  • July — Run a summer giveaway that requires audience members to watch a video, share a social media post, or download a piece of content to enter
  • October — Start focusing on FB ads and Instagram Ads

Those are just some snippets from our own digital marketing strategy for 2018 but we hope it’s enough to inspire you to get started.

If you’re interested in learning more or chatting about building an effective digital marketing strategy for your business, leave us a comment below or get in touch with us by clicking here.

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20 Sizzling Email Marketing Stats (2017 Edition)


What’s the best day of the week to send emails?

We get this question a lot. The truth of the matter is, when you get down to the nitty gritty of it, it all depends on your audience.

Plenty of folks have done studies to give you a good starting point to run tests though that can help you determine if certain days of the week really do work better than others for your recipients.

For example, MailChimp, HubSpot, and GetResponse have conducted multiple studies over the years to discover that across all industries on average:

  • Tuesdays are the best days to send emails if you’re shooting for high open rates; Thursday comes in second
  • Tuesdays and Fridays are the best days to send emails if you’re shooting for a high click through rate (CTR)

The same deal applies to send times as well. It depends on who you’re emailing and where they’re located. However, if you don’t know where to start, we suggest you start testing the following times to find your sweet spot:

  • 12NN – 4:00PM if your goal is to achieve the most opens. Inbox traffic slows down in the afternoon so your recipients are more likely to see and open your email if you send it someone between Noon and 4 o’clock in the afternoon.
  • 6:00AM – 8:00AM if your goal is to up your CTR or get a response from your recipients. The best time to send an email that requires action is to send it when your recipient’s inbox isn’t seeing a lot of action. We also recommend testing out some evening times between 8:00PM and Midnight as well.

Again, we can’t stress enough that while these serve as a good general rule of thumb, best practice is to use analytics to determine the best email send days and times for your market.

How important is mobile really when it comes to email marketing?

Extremely. Exceptionally. Tremendously. Remarkably. Pick your adjective. If your emails aren’t mobile friendly, you’re missing out on a big chunk of your market.

In Litmus’ recently released State of Email Report [2017], it was revealed that:

  • More email is read on mobile than on desktop – 54%
  • Mobile unfriendliness is the leading cause of opt outs (5%) while 43% of consumers have marked email as spam due to mobile unfriendliness
  • 1 out of every 3 clicks within an email occurs on a mobile device

So what can you do to ensure that your emails are mobile friendly? Make them responsive!

Responsive email designs expand or contract the layout based on the device being used by the reader.

If a reader opens the email you sent on their laptop, the email will appear at its widest size. However, if a reader opens that same email on an iPhone or Android, the responsive layout will immediately shift to accommodate the smaller screen size without effective legibility of your content or graphics.

If you’d like to learn more about how responsive (and hybrid) email design works, we suggest you check out this article by Jason Rodriguez over at Litmus:

Understanding Responsive and Hybrid Email Design

Why Personalize Emails?

We’re glad you asked! Email personalization goes beyond just calling someone by their first name in your salutation. Surprisingly though, according to Kissmetrics, only 5% of companies take the time to personalize their emails beyond just including a first name.

Why do you think that is when 94% of companies say they know that personalization is critical to success? It seems the answer lies in the fact that 60% of marketers admit they struggle with personalizing content in real-time.

Personalizing emails is important because it makes your emails more relevant to your subscribers. When you personalize an email you’re appealing to the individual interests of your recipients.

Where can you start?

  • From Name – The From Name is one of the most prominently displayed elements of your campaign when it arrives in your subscriber’s inbox. It’s not surprising that 68% of Americans say they base their decision to open an email based on the From Name.
  • Subject Line –  This is the second most prominent element in the inbox. Make the most of it! Depending on the type of email you’re sending this is a great place to include the recipient’s name or location.
  • Email Copy – If you know your subscriber’s first name, t-shirt size, birthday, or any other information you can use to personalize the content of the email they’re receiving, use it!
  • Imagery – Personalizing your emails go well beyond text. Dynamically changing your images in your email marketing campaigns is a great way to better appeal to your subscribers and increase CTR.

If you take the time to invest in good quality email marketing by getting to know your audience and their habits, and provide them with personalized content in a personalized format, it’s going to pay off.

Like we mentioned in the infographic above, email marketing has a 3800% ROI, but 77% of all email ROI comes from well-segmented lists and personalized campaigns.

 

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6 Things You Can Do to Promote Your Business On Facebook

Facebook, as we all know by now, is the #1 place to connect with friends and share things online. But it has quickly become so much more than just a social media platform.

Facebook has exploded into a place where businesses both big and small can market themselves through interaction with customers and self-promotion. And the best part?

You can do a lot of it for free.

That means you don’t have to be Coca-Cola to use Facebook as a powerful marketing tool. If you’ve got a business, do yourself a favor and start using FB to promote it.

Don’t know where to start? No worries. We’ve got some tips about what you can do to break through the noise in your follower’s News Feed’s.

How do you use Facebook to promote your business? Share your top tips with us in the comments.


How to Promote Your Business on Facebook

#1 Use a profile picture people will recognize.

Being easily recognized is super important to being found and liked. How do you expect people to know who you are or how to determine it’s a real company account if they don’t know what to look for? Your profile photo gets prime real estate at the top of your profile page. Make the most of it.

#2 Pay attention to your insights page, bro.

Facebook came in clutch when they introduced Facebook Insights. This is a free and powerful tool you have at your disposal right in your business profile. You can use Facebook Insights to help you determine the best days and times to post and engage with your audience. Posting strategically, which often reveals that less is more when it comes to Facebook, can have a huge impact on your clickthrough and share rates.

#3 Coordinate the most visible parts of your page.

We already covered getting your profile picture in order but coordinating your cover photo, CTA and pinned post are a pretty big deal too when you want to use Facebook to promote your business. The best thing that you can do? Make your messaging match across all of these features (and your other social profiles while you’re at it).

#4 Tailor your posts to your audience.

Give the people what they want! Facebook gives you everything you need to successfully promote your business. We’re talking tools that help you segment your organic posts by age, gender, education, all kinds of stuff. This my friends is important to getting the right posts in front of the right people at the right time. Easier said than done but important nonetheless.

#5 Mix it up!

Speaking of getting the right content in front of the right people at the right time, you can’t be afraid to mix up what you post to your business page. Keep people engaged with visual elements, graphics, and video which can generate up to 94% more views. Just remember not to go overboard and post so much so often people start hiding you from their feeds.

#6 Try using Facebook Ads.

This is the only thing we’re suggesting you do to help promote your business on Facebook that isn’t free. However, if you start doing everything else on your list ahead of this one, you can get better ROI on your ads by promoting content you already know works. Strategic advertising at its finest.

We know that using Facebook to promote and market your business can seem a little scary, especially if you’re just starting out. But we’re here to encourage you to go for it!

Take a look in the mirror and remind yourself that you’ve got a great product or service that the world needs to know about and you’re going to make sure it gets out there.

If you don’t want to do it alone, you don’t have to.

Tell us how we can help you get the most out of your Facebook business profile and we’ll be happy to help you achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself in 2017.

Talk to Us

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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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