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5 Inexpensive Marketing Ideas for Small Business

You have to spend money to make money.

While doing research for this post, we came across an entrepreneurial Redditor with some excellent insight on the quote, “You have to spend money to make money.”

In case you’re too lazy to click the link, our online pal dished out some solid advice we want to make sure you read:

“The phrase ‘You have to spend money to make money’ is the most accurate phrase I have ever heard. I use to try and do things for the least amount of money and for some people that may be Okay.. but in reality it’s incredibly hard and could ruin your chances at success. Here are a few things I think you should not bootstrap or try and buy for pennies.

 

  • Your web development. Please do not spend low amounts of money on this unless you can develop yourself at an intermediate level. You can shop around for a good bargain but don’t look for dollars on the penny. A website is crucial to your business and in most cases your website is your business in terms of ecommerce stores. A website isn’t just a visual thing there is also background technical aspects that come into play that can ruin your business and is the reason why you should put the money forward for a good developer(s).
  • Hosting. DO NOT! waste money on hosting. You can purchase a baby plan from hostgator or whatever at the beginning but once you see your business gaining traction online (even if it’s only been a month) please reinvest some of your hard earned money into upgrading your plan appropriate to your websites growth. The last thing you want is your website crashing at 1000 users with them all browsing your store, at the checkout or good forbid going through the payment process this can kill a business. Think about it, have you ever been at the checkout and the website is slow and you end up thinking “f*** it” and don’t end up purchasing what you wanted? I sure have.
  • Employees. If you have employees. Hire the right employees for the right amount. We have all seen videos of the UPS people tossing packages out of the trucks, ruining merchandise. This is all due to them not being paid enough for the tiring work they do. Obviously shipping is not your fault, but this example relates to those who have small boutiques or brick and mortar stalls. Don’t hire the lazy, apathetic stoner for 9 bucks an hour, instead hire the ambitious, hardworking college student who won’t accept anything lower than 13 bucks an hour.

 

These aren’t cardinal rules, they are just tips for people who might be doing what I was doing when I started my businesses. Once I had changed these small things, I noticed the growth and I realised that the money I spent ended up being repaid in the long run. There are plenty more but these are the most important ones.

If you click the link and venture on over to Reddit, you’ll see a lot of other entrepreneurs and business owners backing this person up.

Now, for the sake of this post we’ll assume you already have a company website. If you don’t, that’s the first place to start. Web marketing is relatively inexpensive when you compare the ROI of a website to what it cost to build that website.

Need a website or a website refresh? Click here to get in touch.

With that said, while this is a list of 5 inexpensive marketing ideas for small business owners, we’re not telling you to cut corners. We’re giving you some of the most cost efficient ideas you can use to start marketing your business.

If you prefer to skip ahead to a particular section, this is everything we’re going to cover:

Let’s get started.

Inexpensive-Marketing-Idea-1-Word-of-Mouth-Marketing-Ask-for-Referrals

Inexpensive Marketing Idea #1 — Word of Mouth Marketing (Ask for Referrals)

Word of Mouth Marketing (WOM) is probably the most cost-efficient idea on this list because it’s truly free. It’s also incredibly powerful and incredibly crucial to the success of your business.

About 62% of consumers search online for reviews and information before buying a product or service and a massive 90% trust their friends brand recommendations.

Another cool thing about Word of Mouth marketing (besides the fact that it’s free) is that there are multiple ways (strategies) to implement WOM into your overall marketing strategy.

For starters, you can encourage user-generated content (UGC) — sorry about all the acronyms.

UGC is content that’s created and shared by consumers about brands, products, and services. It’s honest, builds trust, and it gives you extra collateral to work with. In fact, a recent UGC Report from SoicalMediaToday unveiled:

  • 75% of respondents surveyed claimed that UGC makes content more authentic
  • 48% of marketers believe that UGC helps humanize their marketing efforts
  • Brand engagement rises 28% when consumers are exposed to a mixture of professional marketing and UGC

Another way to boost your small business marketing efforts via WOM marketing is to share customer testimonials/reviews.

Customer testimonials/reviews help reassure the value of what you claim you can do and they make consumers feel more comfortable about doing business with you. There’s a reason they call it social proof.

Once you’ve got a testimonial/review repurpose it into your marketing by utilizing it in:

  • A case study
  • On a dedicated landing page
  • On relevant product/service pages
  • As lead generation content

To get the most out of Word of Mouth Marketing you should also make it possible for people to leave ratings on your Facebook Page or website. Why?

  • 63% of visitors are more likely to buy when a website has reviews/ratings
  • Reviews can produce an 18% increase in sales
  • Reviews are 12x more trusted than brand descriptions

Other WOM marketing tactics you might research when you’re Googling how to market a new business include:

  • Offering incentives — give consumers a discount or free gift in exchange for referrals
  • Creating a referral program — this is usually a more organized, tiered version of offering incentives
  • Reaching out to industry influencers and thought leaders — quote them in your content or let them try your product/service for free

Inexpensive-Marketing-Idea-2-Video-Marketing-Collaborations

Inexpensive Marketing Idea #2 — Video Marketing (Collaborations)

Implementing a video marketing strategy isn’t a brand new idea. What has changed is how important video has become in (y)our overall outreach and campaign efforts.

According to HubSpot Research

  • 54% of consumers want to see videos from brands in comparison to:
  • Email newsletters — 46%
  • Social image based content — 41%

HubSpot also found that video was the most memorable (43%) in comparison to test (18%) and images (36%).

The good news about video marketing is that it can be as inexpensive or expensive as you want to make it. Again, we’re not saying you should cut corners, but if you’ve got:

  • A smartphone — and we bet you do
  • A YouTube channel — it’s free to create
  • A Facebook Page — it’s free to create
  • An Instagram account — it’s free to create
  • An imagination and some creativity — those are free too

You can start making videos for your business. Creating video is a small business marketing idea that’s proven to be successful time and time again because there’s just so much you can do with video it’s ridiculous.

You can make:

  • Demo videos
  • Brand videos
  • Event videos
  • How-to videos
  • Testimonial videos
  • Live videos
  • Personal message videos
  • Vlogs

The list goes on and on. But, if you’re just starting out and you’re looking for a good advertising idea that’s inexpensive and easy to create, we suggest trying your hand at making any of the video types above or a collab video.

A collab video is made when you reach out to another person/brand and offer to feature them and in your video and work with them on a video for their business in return.

The collab needs to be mutually beneficial so reach out to people whom you know you can provide value to. When you do find someone to collab with it can increase your (and their) audience reach, thereby providing you with a new place to market your business.

If you start out with nothing but your smartphone and some Instagram videos, that’s great! It takes guts to make videos and share them on platforms for other people to watch. But if we can be so bold as to give you one small business tip:

Invest in making video(s) as soon as you’re in a position (and have the budget) to do so.

Get yourself a decent camera, some editing software, and an idea board. Video is one of the most powerful marketing tools available today and while it’s inexpensive to get started with, you should plan to budget for it as you grow and make more money to invest back into your business.

Inexpensive-Marketing-Idea-3-Content-Marketing-Publish-Great-Content.jpg

Inexpensive Marketing Idea #3 — Content Marketing (Publish Great Content)

Another not so new, but oh-so-powerful inexpensive small business marketing idea is to, get this, publish great content. But gone are the days when catchy headlines and crystal-clear copy are the main measures of quality.

A great content marketing strategy is fundamental to success as a business owner. But in order to have a great content marketing strategy you have to ensure that any and all content you put out — copy, video, graphics, podcasts — are optimized for SEO, optimized for human beings, optimized for social media, optimized for locality, and that’s just to name a few.

Don’t let that scare you off implementing content marketing though. The benefits are just too good to pass up. For example:

  • 82% of customers have a more positive outlook on a company after reading custom content
  • Companies that blog have 434% more indexed pages than a business without blogs (making it easier for customers to find you)
  • 74% of companies find that lead quality and quantity goes up as they introduce a content marketing strategy

What we need to do here though is get down into the nitty-gritty of what makes great content so you can start bagging some of these benefits of content marketing for yourself.

In our opinion, great content connects with people and fosters relationships. This is what generates leads for your business. It’s also one of the most effective ways of building relevance and credibility.

To start, content marketing is an inexpensive marketing idea because all you need is a topic, the willingness to do a little research, a basic understanding of SEO, and a place to publish what you’re writing about. There are plenty of free options to publish written content including:

If you want to publish video content, like we mentioned in the previous section, there are plenty of free options for publishing video content too, including:

  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

All of these places are totally free (and paid) options for publishing content relevant to your business and your audience.

Once you’ve established where you want to publish great content, take a step back and look at how you want to market your small business and evaluate your goals. This will determine what kind of content you want to incorporate into your marketing and publish:

  • Blog Posts
    • In-depth articles
    • How-to posts
    • Listicles
  • Videos
    • Tutorial videos
    • How-to videos
    • Vlogs
  • Ebooks
  • White Papers
  • Case Studies
  • Visual Content
    • Infographics
    • Photos
  • Social Media Content

Pro Tip: If you want to keep your content marketing relatively inexpensive, you need to have a plan in place that will help keep you organized and on budget.

We can help you with this if you don’t know where to start.

Speaking of social media content…

Inexpensive-Marketing-Idea-4-Social-Media-Marketing

Inexpensive Marketing Idea #4 — Social Media Marketing (Engage on Instagram/Twitter)

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Or something like that.

Platforms like Instagram and Twitter are great places to do some inexpensive marketing as they’re both free to use with the option to also run some incredibly well-priced ads.

These platforms also make it insanely easy to engage with other people. They’re hot places to network, collaborate, and lend a helping hand to others. But if you’re serious about doing some social media marketing, you’ve got to be committed to consistency.

Consistency is crucial for successful social media marketing.

Sending out one tweet every other day and posting to Instagram maybe once per month is not going to help you grow, nor will it help you connect with others on the platforms. Every platform moves at its own pace, but once you’ve figured out what that means for your business (look at how often your competitors are posting and what they’re posting) you need to tie that into your own social media marketing strategy.

Here are some tips that will help you out:

  • Write down how often you plan to publish on each social media platform that’s relevant to your audience/business
  • Make a list of the type of content you want to publish on each social media platform
  • Pick a tool to help you stay organized and keep your social media queues full — there are plenty of options out there but we use Buffer

When you’re building up your brand and marketing what you do on social media you have to publish consistently so your voice doesn’t get lost in the sea of the hundreds and possibly thousands of other brands and influencers your audience follows on these platforms.

That’s not us saying to go tweet 30 times a day or anything crazy like. We’re just saying that once you know what’s right for you and your audience, stick with it.

Be a picky poster, too.

In addition to being consistent with your social media posts, you should also be picky. Build your brand and marketing your products/services by posting quality content.

  • Post content that’s relevant to your audience
  • Post content that’s helpful to your audience
  • Post content that’s entertaining for your audience

A/B test posts until you find out what type of content your audience prefers to see from you on Instagram, Twitter, etc. and then give the people what they want. If you’re giving your audience what they’re looking for on social media, they’ll give you what you want–their business.

Don’t be a bystander.

Perhaps most importantly, though, you can’t be a bystander on social media if you want your social media marketing to be successful. You have to get out there and interact with other people and brands. Engaging interactions are a game changer in social media marketing.

Things you can do as a business to engage with others on social media include:

  • Liking tweets on Twitter
  • Retweeting tweets on Twitter
  • Liking posts on Instagram
  • Replying to other people’s posts even if they haven’t @mention you on both Twitter/Instagram
  • Commenting on other people’s posts on Twitter/Instagram
  • @mentions on both Twitter/Instagram
  • Use/search hashtags that your audience is familiar with

Posts work just like conversations. They should always be a two-way street, open to both sides (poster/viewer) to participate in.

The only thing the items on the list above cost are some of your time. If you’re serious about it, you can do a lot of successful marketing for your business. In case you’re not convinced, here are few fun stats about social media marketing:

In other words, social media marketing is a great inexpensive marketing idea for small businesses because there’s a lot of benefits to reap for not a lot of money-focused investment. Truthfully, it really just comes down to the amount of time you’re willing to invest.

Inexpensive-Marketing-Idea-5-Content-Marketing-Recycle-Content

Inexpensive Marketing Idea #5 — Content Marketing (Recycle Content)

We already talked about content marketing once before in this post. But we’re going to talk about it again because content is your greatest ally and best option for inexpensive marketing.

Once you’ve created some content you shouldn’t just post it once and wash your hands of it. Content can and should be recycled. Especially if you think about the amount of time it takes to produce a piece of content. Take this blog post for example. If you factor in:

  • Research hours = 2
  • Writing Hours = 2 (at the time of this sentence)
  • Proofing/editing = 1 hour
  • Image production = 1-1.5 hours (estimated)

That’s about 6.5 hours invested in this one blog post. Roughly one work day if you were to subtract a lunch break and coffee break from a regular 8 hour work day.

Looking at it broken down like that, doesn’t it seem silly to just publish this blog post and then move on to the next? Especially if it performs well upon being published? Of course, it does!

That’s where content recycling comes into play. You look at your best performing content, and we’ll hypothesize this blog post is a piece of our best performing content, and make:

  • 1 Instagram post
  • 1 LinkedIn post
  • 2-4 Facebook posts
  • 3-6 Tweets

And later on down the road we could also take something as comprehensive as this post and turn it into:

  • An eBook
  • A SlideShare
  • An infographic
  • An email course
  • A podcast episode series
  • A video series

The point of recycling content as an inexpensive marketing idea is to help you squeeze every last possible drop of juice out of your post. We want as many eyeballs as we can possibly get for every piece of content we produce because we strive to produce relevant, helpful content for our audience.

You should too.

We didn’t just slap this blog post together randomly one afternoon.

We did a lot of research to ensure this was a topic people were interested in. Then we took the time to create images we believe fit the post and would resonate with our audience.

And the benefit in doing that is that we will be able to repurpose this one piece of content into a minimum of 10 more pieces of content. This saves us both time and money and provides you with multiple resources and places to find information about inexpensive marketing ideas.

A good content marketer will strive to create less and promote more. You need to be efficient to stay relevant to the game, especially when you’re a small business that’s just starting out.

If you were to stop us on the street today and ask how to market a small business, this is what we’d tell you:

  • Create content
  • Recycle the content you create

If you do those two things, you’re going to get off to a great start. However, we do want to make a few disclaimers:

  • You can repurpose every piece of content you create whether it starts out as a blog post, a video, or an Instagram story; doesn’t matter, any type of content can be transformed into multiple types of content
  • You shouldn’t repurpose every single piece of content you create
  • You need to repurpose the content that’s high-performing, evergreen, and provides a lot of value

Keep these three things in mind when recycling your content and you’ll be just fine. Not only is recycling content an inexpensive marketing idea but it’s also rewarding in that:

  • It helps you expand your reach and reach new audience members
  • It helps you diversify the types of content you’re putting out in the world
  • It provides you with more backlink opportunities
  • It strengthens your messaging

Put out good content. Maximize the number of eyeballs you get on that content. Enjoy the fruits of your labor. It takes patience, but you will see success if you utilize content marketing in your small business.

Recap: 5 Inexpensive Marketing Ideas for Small Business

Here’s everything we just covered:

  • Word of Mouth Marketing — getting referrals
  • Video Marketing — making collab videos
  • Content Marketing — publishing great content
  • Social Media Marketing — engaging on Instagram and Twitter
  • Content Marketing — recycling content

This post was a long one but we felt like it was important to go really in depth with this topic. There are plenty of other people out there who will tell you they have the secret to all kinds of inexpensive marketing ideas and then just give you a dumpy list with no actionable advice to follow.

We’re not into that. Hopefully, if you made it this far, or even if you just decided to skim the end of the post here, you’ll be able to pull a marketing idea or two you’d like to use in your own small business.

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How to Set Up Instagram Shopping

Instagram’s shopping feature picked up a lot of hype towards the end of March as the shopping tool was made available for online stores based in:

  • United States
  • United Kingdom
  • Spain
  • Italy
  • Germany
  • France
  • Canada
  • Brazil
  • Australia

According to Instagram:

Shopping on Instagram gives your business an immersive storefront for people to explore your best products with a single tap.

In other words, life just got a whole lot better for online retailers.

We’re not retailers, but while we’re talking about Instagram, let’s connect on our favorite platform 😊 Click here, give us a follow, let us know you came from the blog and we’ll give you a follow back.

At the moment, shopping on Instagram is only available for businesses selling physical goods in select product categories that fit Instagram’s Privacy Policy.

If that’s you, or if that’s going to be you soon, let’s talk about how to set up Instagram Shopping.

Why Can’t I Tag Products On Instagram?

A lot of people are concerned about their current inability to tag products so let’s go ahead and address that right now.

First things first, it just may be that the shopping feature hasn’t hit you yet. To find out if this is the case or not, determine if you can enable the ability to tag your products on Instagram.

To do this, your Instagram business profile must first be associated with a shop on Facebook or a catalog in Business Manager. To do this properly, run through this checklist:

  • Is your Instagram app up-to-date?
  • Is your Instagram account a business profile?
  • Are you an admin on a page or business manager account?
  • Do you have a shop on Facebook or a product catalog with Business Manager?

Once you’ve confirmed your accounts are linked properly, this is how to enable the ability to tag your products on Instagram if the feature is available to you:

  • Go to your Instagram business profile
  • Tap Get Started at the top of your profile
  • If you don’t see Get Started tap the settings icon
  • Tap products
  • Tap continue
  • Select a product catalog to connect to your Instagram business profile
  • Tap done

Boom. You’re all set up to tag products on your Instagram posts!

Don’t panic if you don’t see these options yet though. Your account may still be under review and it just hasn’t been approved yet. Give it some time.

Once you’ve got the green-light, Instagram has some tips for using the shopping feature we highly suggest paying attention to / doing. They include:

  • Create at least 9 shopping posts to activate the Shop tab for your audience
  • Tag multiple products to help your audience explore and browse your inventory
  • Use stories to show your audience they can now shop right from your Instagram page
  • Mix it up — tag a single image or a carousel
  • Make sure each tag touches the correct product so nobody gets confused about which product a tag is referring to

Tagging Instagram Product Posts the Right Way

Tagging Instagram Product Posts the Right Way

Instagram has made it super easy to provide a user friendly shopping experience via your business profile. As long as you follow the rules and pay attention to the tips Instagram offers, you’re going to see some positive results.

Review the tips above, most importantly:

Make sure each tag touches the correct product so nobody gets confused about which product a tag is referring to.

With that tip in mind, here’s how to tag products on Instagram:

  • Select a photo, add a caption/effects/filters
  • Tap the product(s) in the photo that you want to tag
  • Enter the names of the products you want to tag and select them when they appear in the search box
  • Tap Done
  • Tap share

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Instagram allows users to tag products in posts both new and old from your business profile. It’s exceptional to say the least because if you’ve been promoting your products on Instagram for a while now, you already got a ton of posts you can get tagged up before rolling out even more awesome stuff.

Note: single image posts have a 5 product tag limit and multi-image posts have a 20 product tag limit.

Also keep in mind that product info from your tags and product details on your page will display in the language and currency of your catalog to a global audience. It’s recommended you pay a visit to your Insights to get a feel for your audience, and use the catalog containing the most relevant language/currency for your audience.

Why Instagram Shopping is Generating So Much Buzz

Instagram has been the go-to platform for visual storytelling since it debuted back in 2010.

But why?

We think it comes down to four things:

  • Mobile Friendliness — Instagram is easy to use no matter where you are or what you’re doing. In fact, that’s the whole point. The ability to edit and post images “in-the-moment” is what attracts people to the app. Plus, it’s just so easy to use.
  • Functionality — Instagram is a unique app that caters to a wide audience. That ain’t easy to do but Instagram does it well. They haven’t limited themselves to just one social function, which makes them more approachable and more appealing to a wider group of people than say Twitter or LinkedIn.
  • Visibility — Human beings are visual creatures. A good chunk of us know and understand this by now. Instagram caters to our visual nature. Of course it’s going to be popular.
  • Novelty — What sets Instagram apart the most is its simplicity. It does a great job of attracting younger audiences and is only gaining momentum (unlike other social media brands who have gained and plateaued).

Mix all of those things into a pot with the ability to shop sprinkled in and you’ve got a winning recipe. Think about this:

As of September 2017, Instagram boasts 800 million monthly active users and it’s projected that number will reach 111.9 million by the time 2020 roll around. Instagram is especially popular in the United States with 48.4% of the US social networking population on the app.

And think about what we know regarding the online shopping landscape:

  • 54% of millenials make purchases online and 49% of non-millenials make purchases online [Pulse of the Online Shopper]
  • 40% of US males and 33% of US females age 18-34 would “ideally buy everything online” [Forbes]
  • 85% of consumers say that they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations [BrightLocal]
  • 34% of online shoppers said that social media influences their purchases [Pulse of the Online Shopper]
  • 23% of online shoppers purchased products on a social media network [Pulse of the Online Shopper]
  • Referrals from Instagram spend the longest time on eCommerce sites, with an average session duration of 3.12 minutes — almost double Facebook [Smart Insights]

It will be fun to see how those last three stats change over the next 12-18 months with the introduction of Instagram shopping. Why? Because with shoppable posts, consumers have an amazing opportunity to connect with brands they love at a whole new level.

Instagram is simplifying online shopping by helping you meet consumers where they’re browsing for products and reviews. They’re also empowering you with the ability to provide relevant information with the tap of a finger without anyone ever needing to leave the app.

It’s convenient for you as an online retailer, it’s convenient for your customers, and it’s a great way for Instagram to stay on top as the engagement leader of social media platforms. Win-win-win

Honestly, if you think about it, the only risk you have here has nothing to do with using the shopping feature and everything to do with not using it. For example, if somebody sees an item they like in their feed, but they can’t buy the item or find a link to your site, you risk losing that money.

How many times do you reckon this happened before Instagram rolled out the shopping feature? It’s scary to think about.

Track Your Instagram Shopping Success

Once you start tagging posts and promoting your products on Instagram with the shopping feature, be vigilant about tracking your stats.

To be successful you need to know how your shopping tags are performing. Lucky for you, Instagram provides insights on the click-thru on Instagram Shopping to your site. Use those insights to continuously build and grow your shopping strategy.

With Instagram Insights, you can track the following stats for your business profile:

  • Weekly Impressions
  • Weekly Reach
  • Profile Visits

And you can track the following stats for individual posts:

  • Views
  • Likes
  • Reach
  • Comments
  • Profile visits

You can even view insights for stories you’ve posted by doing the following:

  • Click the stats symbol (the bar graph looking image) in the top right of your business profile
  • Scroll down to stories

You can view insights on your current story or tap “older stories” to view insights on Instagram stories that you’ve posted in the last 14 days. You can’t watch a story again once it’s expired (after 24 hours) but the stats are good for 2-weeks post story share.

Do us a favor though and don’t forget that shopping on Instagram isn’t an advertising thing. It’s about building an engaged audience and providing them with a better shopping experience. Don’t let any increase you see go to your head.

Keep your posts genuine and don’t make it all about selling. Instagram users need a personal reason to connect and engage with your business. The moment you turn into a money-hungry salesman on your Instagram account is exactly when you’re going to see a dip in your stats.

Build Your Instagram Powerhouse

Build Your Powerhouse

Instagram is a powerhouse for you to tell a story that showcases an experience. Instagram Shopping isn’t about marketing your product; it’s about marketing the experience that comes with owning your product.

If you’re an online retailer (or any brand honestly) Instagram is the place you could build your powerhouse of a brand. Don’t be afraid to give this a shot. It’s a free tool that can potentially help your business explode.

And don’t forget, we’re more than willing to help you put together a strategy that builds the experience you want your customers to have when shopping with your brand.

You can always reach us via contact [at] zcoastmedia [dot] com.

Or, if you’re more comfortable reaching out on social media you can connect with us

Hit us up on any of those platforms/give us a follow, let us know you came from the blog and we’ll follow back and tell you something nice because we believe kindness goes a long way too when it comes to building an engaging social media community.

Xx Paige & Nick xX

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12 Phenomenal Email Marketing Examples You Have to See

Name a day of the week and just about anybody can guarantee their email inbox is overflowing with messages.

We are all constantly bombarded with emails upon emails that do little for us besides giving us some boxes to tick as trash when mid-afternoon rolls around and the office is quiet. But…

Every now and then we get an email that’s so good not only do we read it, we share it with friends and tell them why they should subscribe, too. They’re top-notch and often breathe new life into our inboxes. For that, we are thankful.

What separates a top-notch marketing email from the rest of the pack?

Top notch email marketing campaigns are often

  • Cleverly written
  • Filled with interesting graphics
  • Personalized & responsive

They also tend to feature a meaningful and highly actionable call-to-action (CTA). If marketers are going to fill our inboxes with messages there better be a  point. Right?

Schedule some time with a specialist to learn how to build a successful email marketing strategy.

12 Examples of Excellent Email Marketing

We know you already get enough emails and it’s not easy deciding if you should subscribe to another list. However, if you’re feeling froggy, we’d love to show you some of our favorite email marketing examples just so you know they’re out there and can get in on the good stuff too.

  1. Blue Bottle Coffee

    Blue Bottle Coffee is the bomb. They’re all about delivering the most delicious and sustainable coffees they can find right to your doorstep. And their emails never fail to deliver a delicious experience in your inbox.

    It’s a win-win.

  2. Charity Water

    Charity Water is a non-profit organization near and dear to Paige’s heart. For those of you unfamiliar with Charity Water, they’re  a non-profit whose mission is to bring clean and safe drinking water to people in need around the world.

    Their newsletters keep you in the loop regarding current projects and where your money is going if you’ve donated. They also have a knack for delighting subscribers with the occasional “profile feature” email as seen in the example below.

  3. Paperless Post

    “Paperless post helps you create online and paper stationery that reflects your individual aesthetic.” Their dedication the helping customers create distinct and custom designs that make it easy to communicate on any occasion consistently comes through in their emails.

    Any Paperless Post email we’ve ever received has been so easy to skim and so pretty to look at it’s ridiculous. Enjoy!

  4. Litmus

    “Litmus makes your email better.” Truth.

    Of course their own email marketing messages are going to be fantastic. The example below features a solid content hierarchy that looks great on desktop and mobile. As it should.


  5. Moo

    We wouldn’t be surprised at all if you say you’ve heard us say it before but we’re total fangirls and fanguys of Moo and their newsletter (or any other email they send).

    Who can say that getting something called The Moosletter on a regular basis isn’t dope? No one. If you’re not subscribed you’re missing out.

  6. REI

    Every time an REI email hits our inbox we’re ready to lace up our hiking boots and head out into the wild. So in short, they know exactly what they’re doing with their marketing. Respect, REI, respect.

    Everything about this email example is great. Icons, images, typography. Name any element of the email and it’s just great. We’re taking notes too.

  7. Huckberry

    Huckberry delivers some seriously cool gear and some seriously good deals. It’s one of those sites that you have to sign up for before entering but it’s totally worth it. Promise.

    We’ve been members for 2+ years now. We’d never recommend something without trying it ourselves first. The Huckberry newsletter (featured below) is amazing and often inspires us to lead more adventurous (and stylish) lives.

     
  8. The Hustle

    We only discovered The Hustle recently and my word how did we not know about this before? The copywriting is phenomenal and it’s a treat every day when the email hits our inboxes with all the tech and business news we need for the day.

    The Hustle is the best we’ve ever seen at writing personal, in your face copy that resonates with their audience. Plus, everything they write is just plain fun to read.

    Hat’s off to the copywriters here.

     
  9. Spartan Race

    If you’re never really sure what to do once you get to the gym or you’re just looking for a little motivation in your life, we highly recommend subscribing to the Spartan Race Workout of the Day email.

    If you’re looking to go to school in the art of writing copy and crafting CTAs that inspire people to get off their butts and change their lives, we highly recommend subscribing to the Spartan Race Workout of the Day Email.

  10. Modcloth

    Modcloth does a phenomenal job with their CTAs. They’re easy to spot and easy to click whether you’re at your desk or on your phone. Their copy is always light and airy which is perfectly on brand. Love.

     
  11. Chipotle

    One: Chipotle’s emails are packed with just as much flavor as their burritos.

    Two: Chipotle’s subject lines never disappoint. The sub for the featured email below was: “The Best Tasting Email You’ll Receive.”

    Three: Sorry for making you hungry.

  12. Fitbit

    How to showcase a featured product via email?

    *enter Fitbit*

    This email is a prime example of how to do a product feature email. It’s also an excellent example of CTA basics:

    – compelling copy under 5 words
    – contrasting colors
    – clear message

These are just a few of our favorite emails. We could go on all day but nobody’s got time for that.

We will stick around long enough to say that these examples all have a resounding message though: Don’t just follow best practice when it comes to your emails. Throw in some personality too.

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in sticking to best practices that we forget how email best practices get to be best practices in the first place. In order for best practices to be established in email marketing, there must be email specialists out there who aren’t afraid to push boundaries and try new things.

Take notes from the examples above and try experimenting with your emails. Toss in a GIF every now and then like Moo or get a little saucy with your copy like The Hustle if it’s on brand and you think it’d work with your audience.

Have a question or just want to share some of your own favorite email marketing examples with us? Drop it in the comments. We’ll be like besties sharing secrets. But on the internet.

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How to Find On-Trend Content Marketing Ideas

If you’ve ever asked yourself how the heck you’re supposed to find content marketing ideas and hot topics that are on-trend and relevant to your business, this post is for you.

Using nothing but free tools, we’re going to show you how you can find ideas, produce relevant content for your audience, and attract engagement. Buckle up boys and girls because we’re about to blow your mind with some easy content marketing hacks.

What’s Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a fascinating subject but a lot of people find it more intimidating than they should. It’s okay if you’re one of them, you won’t be by the end of this post.

Everybody, no matter what type of business you’re running, has to participate in content marketing. What is content marketing? According to CMI:

“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience—and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

Instead of just throwing your products and services in people’s faces all the time (which is a real turn-off), content marketing shows that you really care about your prospects and customers. You’re going the extra mile and providing useful information to people because you want to help them solve a problem.

The hard part is finding out what information your prospects and customers are looking for.

Or is it?

5 Free Tools for Finding Hot Topics to Produce Content About

Because we’re cool people, we’re going to give you a sneak peek into how we hunt down on-trend content ideas for Z Coast using nothing but freebies.

We’re going to use the actual topic of content marketing because, ya know, we do that here: Proof. But these tools and tactics are for everybody, no matter what kind of business you’re running.

  1. Quora

    Quora defines itself as, “A place to share knowledge and better understand the world.” It totally lives up to that definition. If we’re ever at a loss for topic ideas, one of the first places we go troll is Quora.

    You can use Quora just like a search engine by taking advantage of the search bar. So, as an example, we logged into Quora and searched “content marketing” to see what we could find.

    With Quora, you have the option to just search for the term or search by topic, we like searching by topic.

    Anyway, we searched the topic “content marketing” and it took us to a feed where we have the choice to view by:

    — Read
    — Answer
    — Topic FAQ
    — Most Viewed Writers

    They’re all cool to search through but we’re partial to browsing through Most Viewed Writers So that’s what we did.

    Why the preference? We like the top ten list this view returns. We tend to gravitate towards the middle of the list but you should always pick whatever piques your interest the most.

    When you pick a writer and click through on an article you think looks interesting we recommend that you also look at the number of follows and number of answers in the article.

    Follows tend to vary wildly but the more answers an article on Quora has, the better indicator it is that it’s a hot topic at the moment (just check the date to make sure).

    However, the most important thing is the number of views and upvotes an article has. You don’t have to look for anything outrageous but you’re in good shape if anything’s got over 300 views and/or 50 upvotes.

    So, continuing on with our example we’ll say you found an article on the topic of content marketing about startup content marketing that had 511 views and 64 upvotes. Next stop…

  2. Reddit

    Otherwise known as the front page of the internet. When we got to Reddit, we searched “startup content marketing” and Reddit gave us some subreddit ideas but what we’re looking for is actual topics.

    Remember, we’re looking for recency and engagement so we found a post about investing in content marketing that was published about 7 months ago that has 269 points. Good number.

    Of course, you should always read the post. But once you’ve got an idea about the context of the topic what you really want to look at are the comments and replies at the bottom of the page.

    That’s where the good stuff is and where you’re going to find some more ideas.

    Pay attention to the types of questions people are asking about your topic and look for ones you know you and your business can address.  That’s what we did.

    Follow the breadcrumbs!

    Quora led us to the idea of startup content marketing which is one on-trend content marketing idea we could use by itself. But then we searched that term in Reddit and it led us to a post about investing in content marketing, another topic we could pursue.

    The questions and answers section of that article is full of discussion about content management systems and which ones are right for different business sizes.

    Boom! It only took a couple of minutes and now we have 3 new ideas for Z Coast blog posts and other types of content we could produce all about content marketing.

    But we’re not done yet!

  3. YouTube

    We also like to use YouTube when we’re looking for content marketing ideas. And you guessed it, we went to YouTube and searched startup content marketing there too.

    Note: YouTube makes it super easy to find recent content. Just use the little Filters tab at the top and filter by whatever timeframe you want for your search.

    After searching startup content marketing we filtered by “This Month” and found a nice little video from Miles Beckler: DIY Sales Funnel Part 2 – Start Content Marketing & Learn How To Customize Your Theme On WordPress.

    It was published 1 week ago, has 1,152 views at the time of writing this post, 50 likes, and 53 comments. Not bad.

    The video is definitely worth a watch but after watching we headed to the comments section ‘cause we’re on a mission here. In the comments, we found more questions and comments about:

    — Content management systems (especially WordPress)
    — Hiding sidebars with CSS and other tricks
    — Image uploading issues in WordPress
    — SEO tactics

    Great stuff! Now we have a whole Google doc full of hot content marketing ideas (literally) based on the types of questions people are asking all over the web.

    And finally…

  4. Answer The Public

    AnswerThePublic.com is the bomb for three reasons:
    1) The old guy on the homepage who doesn’t give a crap that you’re there.
    2) It’s visual keyword research.
    3) You can search specifically by country. You’ve got to try it.

    We’re in Atlanta, GA so we searched in the US setting. ‘Murica.

    Since using the Answer The Public, we’ve found that broad terms work best when you’re looking for ideas so instead of searching startup content marketing here like we did on Reddit and YouTube, we just searched content marketing.

    By doing so, Answer The Public presented us with an infographic of 85 popular questions around the topic of content marketing such as:

    — What are content marketing methods?
    — Companies who use content marketing?
    — When to use content marketing?
    — How does content marketing make money?

    Now the really cool the thing about Answer The Public is that you can click on any of the questions it gave you and it will literally search in Google for you. Then, you can see who ranks and for what in relation to the question you searched.

    Pretty dope, right?

  5. Google

    You didn’t think we’d get through this post without mentioning Google, did you? Of course not. From Answer The Public we clicked on the question, “How does content marketing make money?” When we got to Google we checked out some of the top posts but the real reason we’re here is to look at searches related to how does content marketing make money at the bottom of the search page. We found eight. All of which we’ll save in our Google doc of literal on-trend content marketing ideas.

You Can Be A Content Marketer Too

All 5 places we visited looking for topic ideas can be used for anything. You can take the same methods we use and apply them to your restaurant, your art studio, or your pet grooming business. We just used the actual topic of content marketing here because we literally specialize in content marketing at Z Coast Media.

Over the course of a few minutes, we showed you how we generate ideas to blog about, write emails about, and do other cool content marketing things with. We started with nothing and ended up with 10+ new ideas that’ll keep us busy for weeks. We know you can do the same!

Questions about content marketing? See an idea we disclosed in this post you’d like us to write about? We’re not mindreaders! Share ‘em in the comments.

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15 YouTube Channels You Need To Watch If You Have A Startup


Opening Credits: 15 Of The Best YouTube Channels For Startups

One of the realities of going into business for yourself is that you always have to be open to learning something new. And where are we most likely to turn when we want to learn something new? That’s right, Youtube.

The internet is an endless source of information and sometimes it’s just a heck of alot easier to watch a video and learn about pop-ups and modals and how they interact with SEO than sift through articles (though written content is important to, don’t forget that).

YouTube provides us with the easily digestible bite-size information so many of us crave. Subscribing to the right channels can keep you in the loop and help you grow your startup without wasting hours and hours of precious time and money.

We’ve compiled a list of the best (our favorite) YouTube channels for startups that will educate and inspire you.

Never stop working hard to grow and expand your skillset. Your business depends on it.

 

The Main Show

Gary Vaynerchuk

If you don’t know who Gary Vaynerchuk is, buckle up ‘cause you’re in for one heck of a ride. Vaynerchuk is a kick*ss serial entrepreneur and the undisputed master of generating engagement. His ability to use video in different ways and slice and dice content to maximize view on both YouTube and any other social media platform you can think of is uncanny.

The guy just loves what he does and it shows. Anytime we sit down to watch one of his video clips we always come away with a fire in our bellies to get out there and succeed at everything we do. No excuses. No options. You will too.

Watch: Creative Is The Variable of Success. It’s fire. Disclaimer: Gary V is known for his use of expletives so there’s no shortage of colorful language in his videos.

Ted Talks

Did you really think we’d make a list of the best YouTube channels for startups and not include Ted Talks? C’mon. It’s free access to some of the most inspiring and thought provoking lectures in the world.  

Watch: Know Your Worth And Ask For It. This video is sooooo important. Especially for entrepreneurs, startups; anyone who’s ever played with the idea of going into business for themselves.

You’ve got to know how to communicate your value. You have skills that set you apart and allow you to provide your clients with unique products and solutions that meet their needs.

Act like it.

Moz

We linked to a Whiteboard Friday Moz video at the beginning of this post. Why? Because even though video is insanely popular right now, it’s hard to have a successful website without knowing about Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

And it’s hard to have a business today without having a website. See how that all ties in? SEO might not seem all that important to you right now but it’s vital to your business.

Moz’s YouTube channel is one of the best places to learn about the latest strategies and trends—they’re always changing—for optimizing your website and ranking blog posts. In fact, it’s so good we’re going to suggest another video for you.

Watch: The 10 Types of Content That Work Best for SEO. Presented by The Wizard of Moz himself, Rand Fishkin.

Google Small Business

The entire purpose of the Google Small Business YouTube channel is to help startups and small businesses succeed on the web. This channel is packed full of valuable content about how to use Google’s services to propel your small business to the top.

Because duh, it’s Google. Of course that’s what all the videos are going to revolve around. So take advantage of it!

Google honestly lays out everything you need to get your startup going. You just have to be willing to put in the work to learn how to use everything they’re giving you to your advantage.

It’s worth it. We promise.

Watch: Turning Your Company Into A Legitimate Business

This Week In Startups

You were waiting on this one to show up, weren’t you? We knew it.

If you’ve got a startup and you’re not watching This Week In Startups, ditch the cat videos and dive into this channel. There are 2400+ videos on this channel just waiting to be watched.

The content and guests on this channel are some of the best out there for calibrating the mindset of a successful founder. These videos never fail to deliver an insightful, compelling, timely and timeless look at the startup ecosystem.

What are you waiting for? Watch: Hunter Walk, Homebrew Investment Strategy

Behind The Brand

Bryan Elliot is the bomb. Mostly because he manages to get us a backstage pass into the minds of people and brands like Ariana Huffington, Warby Parker,  Seth Godin, and Lori Greiner.

Behind The Brand is all about unmasking the challenges entrepreneurs we look up to faced along the way and allowing them to share important advice to other people trying to build their own brand.

See the appeal? Watch: Lori Greiner — Advice To My Teenage Self

Marie TV

Marie Forleo of Marie TV was named by Oprah as a “thought leader for the next generation.” She was also one of Inc. 500’s fastest growing companies in 2014. Of course we watch her YouTube channel.

Marie’s channel is full of wit and actionable tips to help you start a business you’ll love forever. But more than that, her videos are just full of wisdom that can be applied to everyday life beyond your business.

The life of a small business / startup owner can be crazy busy and overwhelming at times. It’s important to have daily reminders that although work is important, there’s so much more to life than working all the time.

Watch: Find The Courage To Keep Going Even When You Feel Like Giving Up

Y Combinator

Get out your notebook (or favorite note taking app) because you’re about to go to startup school. Y Combinator is the world’s most powerful startup incubator so they kinda know what they’re talking about over on their YouTube channel.

Twice a year, Y Combinator invests a small amount of money in a large number of startups. Basically, they help startups actually get started and make something of their ideas.

In between investing in other companies, Y Combinator keeps up a pretty popular YouTube Channel we highly recommend you check out.

Don’t know where to start? Watch: How To Manage with Ben Horowitz. This video serves as an excellent reminder that you aren’t the only person your decisions impact as the founder and leader of your company.

Derek Halpern

Every business needs marketing, right? It doesn’t get much better than Derek Halpern when you’re looking to expand your knowledge on that subject.

Halpern is an excellent resource for pointers about pricing products, building email lists, dealing with aggravating clients, split testing, and a lot of other stuff.

His videos aren’t boring either. They’re entertaining and make learning fun. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Watch: How to Write Better Sales Copy

Shopify

If you’re not familiar with Shopify we’re willing to bet you’ve at least heard of them before. Shopify is a powerful commerce platform that makes it possible for anybody to sell online.

Even you. Seriously.

Their YouTube channel is full of helpful tutorials for starting an online business, insightful interviews, and the occasional “behind the scenes” video. This channel is full of personality and does a fantastic job of encouraging entrepreneurs to just go for it and pursue your passion.

Watch: The Struggles of Entrepreneurship

The Good Life Project

The Good Life Project summed up: Live your life with purpose.

Like we said before, there’s more to life than work. The Good Life project is all about finding joy in everything you do both inside and outside of work, and living a life full of deep meaning and connection.

This is arguably the most inspiring YouTube channel on this list.

Go out there and live your life. Live it confidently. Live it successfully. Have a little faith in yourself and your dreams. Surround yourself with encouraging people and be an encouraging person.

We’re genuinely rooting for you. We’re dreamers too.

Watch: Tiffany Dufu. Author of “Drop the Ball,” Tiffany Dufu is a force of nature. Don’t put off listening to this interview.

Casey Neistat

We’re just going to let Casey Neistat’s YouTube Channel speak for itself.

Watch: Do What You Can’t

Project Management

Part of running an awesome startup and being an impressive entrepreneur is knowing how to manage your projects. Now, we get in the beginning that sometimes it’d be nice just to have one project, but don’t be discouraged.

The day is coming when you’re going to have so much business you won’t know what do with all of it. That’s why you need some project management skills.

You need to have the ability to initiate, plan, execute, and control your projects and the team working it in order to achieve your goals and meet the criteria you determined would spell success.

Get on it by incorporating the Project Management YouTube channel into your daily online video watching ritual.

Watch: How To Improve Your Team’s Efficiency

Creative Mornings Atlanta

Shameless backyard plug! We love Atlanta and all the creative people in it. We also love all the creative, boundary-pushing videos they put out. We wouldn’t put them on the list if we didn’t think you would too.

Watch: All of them!

Spartan Up

Running your own business takes a lot of hard work and dedication. We’re firm believers that in order to truly successful in this life, you have to be in great shape mentally and physically to do it.

Building your startup takes time and energy. You’re not going to make the kind of leaps and bounds progress we all know you’re capable of if you’re not functioning in prime mental and physical condition.

Spartan Up’s YouTube channel inspires us to work hard and play hard. It reminds us that there’s no excuse for not getting the job done. It challenges us to be better people in business and our personal lives.

But above all, it encourages us to be warriors and go make something of ourselves. What about you? Ready to get up off your butt and make something of yourself?

Watch: The Not To Do List

 

The End

Even if you only watch one of the suggested videos on this list we promise it’ll make a difference in how you operate on a day to day basis. Every channel on this list echoes the same message in a unique and inspiring way: get over your fear of trying something new and going after your dreams.

Don’t let lack of knowledge hold you back from launching your startup and going after the goals you’ve set for yourself. As you just saw, there’s a heck of alot of YouTube channels out there serving up free content to help make you a more intelligent and business savvy entrepreneur.

Take advantage of it y’all.

What’s your favorite YouTube Channel for learning something new about entrepreneurship, startups, and running your own business? We like suggestions as much as the next guy!

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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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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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6 Of Our Favorite Marketing And Design Newsletters

Keeping up with the latest marketing and design trends can be a real struggle. On WordPress alone, there are over 56 million blog posts shared every month. But who has the time to check all of their favorite industry websites every single day?

We certainly don’t. But we hate missing posts. Thankfully, a lot of our favorite blogs and industry leaders are great at providing newsletters that keep us informed.  

Here are 6 of our favorite marketing and design newsletters  you should subscribe to. Speaking of subscribing to newsletters, have you signed up for the Z Coast Newsletter?

6 Newsletters You Should Subscribe To Because We Say So

 

  1. MOO. The MOOsLETTER is one of the best things to grace our inboxes in the history of Gmail. What’s great about Moo is they don’t bombard you with “buy our stuff” newsletters all the time. You get quality content, expert tips, product updates, exclusive discounts and all sorts of other goodies. If you’re not already receiving The MOOsLetter, you’re missing out.
  2. Death to the Stock Photo. Death to the Stock Photo defines themselves as, “A photo & inspiration haven for creatives crushing their path.”  But Death to the Stock Photo isn’t just for photographers. Writers can sign up for a special newsletter too, The Writers List, that dishes out fun writing prompts every week to keep you on your creative toes.
  3. Buffer Social. Buffer Social is the bomb. Buffer is a company with a whole lot of personality and it shines through in their newsletter. If you’re looking for a resource that will provide you with expert social media marketing advice, tips, and experiments this is the one you want.
  4. Desk of Tobias van Schneider. Tobias van Schneider is an award-winning designer with some award-worthy facial hair who resides in New York City. You can join his private email list and receive an email every Sunday night overflowing with new and interesting articles, exclusive updates, and special tips and goodies for designers.
  5. General Assembly. The GA website is already an excellent resource for marketers and their newsletter incorporates a number of these resources into their newsletter regularly. Some topics you will often find discussed (in addition to courses offered) include coding, career advice, data, design, and marketing. Subscribe to the General Assembly newsletter. Enjoy!
  6. HubSpot’s Marketing Blog. HubSpot is one of the most respected leaders in the marketing industry. They also churn out a lot of content. The most convenient way to keep up with HubSpot and all the latest marketing tips, trends, and best practices is to subscribe to HubSpot’s Marketing Blog. There’s a reason everybody’s doing it.

 

Don’t see your favorite newsletter on this list? Email us your suggestions!

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Z Coast Advice: Creating Your Buyer Personas

We’re posing an important question to you this week: Do you know who your business’ buyer personas are? How much do you actually know about them? Take a minute and really think about this.

But, before you dive into this post, know that you have 3 options here:

  1. Read this post and take the DIY approach to creating your first set of buyer personas.
  2. Skip to the end (even though there’s some killer info in this post you don’t want to miss) and just send us a message that you’d like a little help with creating your ideal buyer.
  3. Read the whole post, tell us how much you love it in the comments, and send us a message.

Okay, enough chit chat. Let’s do this.

Tell Me, What’s a Buyer Persona?

Buyer personas—sometimes referred to as marketing personas—are fictional representations of the ideal buyers who make up your target market.

HubSpot Academy elaborates on my simple definition by explaining that, “Personas are fictional, generalized characters that encompass the various needs, goals, and observed behavior patterns among your real and potential customers. They help you understand your customers better.”

Understanding your buyer persona(s) is critical to driving pretty much everything in your business from content creation and product development to sales and follow-up practices. At least, it’s critical if you actually want to attract and retain customers. Just saying.

“Okay, they’re important. I get it. Are you gonna tell me how to make one or what?” We are! But we need to discuss something else first. Just hold your horses.

The good news is that creating a buyer persona is pretty easy. The better news is we’re going to give you the basics on how to create your buyer persona(s). But you have to hold your horses because we need to make sure everyone understand why they’re so important.

creating-your-buyer-profile-bomb

Okay, Fine. Why Are Buyer Persona’s Important?

Thanks for asking! I’d love to drop a knowledge bomb on you today. Here we go:

Buyer personas are important because they help you understand your real (and prospective) customers better.

Understanding what makes your target audience click, and the things they’re looking for makes it so much easier on you to create the right kind of content, messaging, product, and services to meet the needs and concerns of the people you’re after.

In other words, you may know that your target buyers are campers, but do you know what their specific needs and interests are? Are they RV campers or tent campers? Do they prefer warmer climates or colder ones?  Do they just need something that can withstand the elements of their own backyard or a 7-day trip in the Pahsimeroi Valley?

The strongest buyer personas are assembled via market research and the insights you gather from talking to your real-life customer base. Depending on the business you’re running you could have as few as 2 personas or as many as 20.

Pro tip: If you’re new to creating buyer personas, start small.

Wait, What About Negative Personas?

Negative personas are a thing. Think about your ideal buyer for a second; the people you want as customers. Now think of a persona that reflects the type of buyer you don’t want as a customer. Boom. That’s a negative persona.

Moving on…
creating-your-buyer-profile-creating-1

How To Create A Buyer Persona

It’s time for the fun part! First things first:

Buyer personas can be created through things like:

  • Surveys
  • Market research
  • Interviewing current customers
  • Interviewing potential customers

Easy stuff, right? Right. Now, because we’re here to help, we’re going to dish out some of our favorite tips for gathering the information you need to create a buyer persona:

  • When you create forms to use on your website, use form fields that capture useful information for building your buyer persona(s). For example, if all of your personas vary based on the number of employees a company has, ask each lead for information about how many employees they have.
  • Talk to your sales team. Nobody knows your customer base better than your sales team. The feedback they can provide about the leads they’re interacting with and the different types of customers you’re already serving is invaluable. Don’t let it go to waste.
  • Get on the phone, send out a survey, or start inviting people out to lunch for a little interview. Let your customers tell you what they like most about the products or services you offer and how it’s solved a specific problem for them.

“Hold up, how do I find people to interview?” Try and challenge me next time, would ya?

You have so many options for gathering info for your buyer personas right under your nose that it’s ridiculous. You can contact people in your current customer base, reach out to current prospects, and use your current network to ask for referrals for other people to talk to. Don’t make it hard on yourself and start by dropping your line into those pools.

How Many People Should I Interview to Create a Buyer Persona?

There’s no right or wrong number here but a lot of people around the blogosphere and in the marketing community typically suggest 3-5 interviews for each persona you’re creating. You just have to go with your gut.

After you’ve conducted a few interviews you’ll start anticipating and predicting what the person you’re interviewing is going to say. When you’ve reached this point it’s usually safe to stop.

If you’re not sure what questions you should be asking your interviewees or you’re still a little fuzzy on how to get started building your personas, we recommend reading Buffer’s recently updated blog post: The Complete, Actionable Guide to Marketing Personas.

The guide is pretty comprehensive and will provide you with a lot of actionable tips and templates for building your marketing personas/buyer personas, in addition to providing question examples for interviewing people while doing research.

Talk to Z Coast Media

Told ya we were going to drop some heavy marketing knowledge on you this week. This was a lot of information to digest but if you made it all the way down here without freaking out congrats!

Diving into buyer persona creation for the first time can be an overwhelming experience. If you’d feel more comfortable getting a little help than taking the DIY approach, or you just want to talk about this topic with us, shoot us a message.

 

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