Category: News
Granville Island Works Magazine
7th August
We have been working hard this spring and summer with the Granville Island Business and Community Association (GIBCA) to create another edition of the popular Granville Island Works newspaper, only this time, we did it in a newly designed magazine format. We have included more businesses in the surrounding neighbourhoods and had fantastic participation. The ZenHouse team did the full production, design, copy-editing, much of the photography and fundraising for this great community initiative. The magazine is now available on Granville Island and in surrounding neighbourhoods at select locations, coffee shops, etc.
Having worked night and day for weeks to meet our print deadline, we did a little field trip out to Surrey with Peter Braune from New Leaf Editions to visit the printers for the first proof. Their newly renovated facilities were funky and state-of-the-art, and we were greeted by …
About Alyssa Burtt
Alyssa Burtt is Creative Director and Co-Founder of ZenHouse Media. She loves designing for web and usability and helping small business owners find practical strategies for success. An avid iPhone photographer, snowboarder and visual artist, she loves supporting local community and the arts.
The View From the Mountain
27th April
The sun shines, the rain falls. I’m in the mountains, breathing fresh air. With views of trees and snow, a raven flies by. Sometimes, high on the mountain is the right place to get your best work done.
Every prompt to the creative process comes from clearly defining what it is you want to produce, then letting it go, allowing the artistic side of brain room to maneuver. By taking a break from the purely linear approach to creativity, intuitive intelligence can often bring new insight, a Eureka moment, or just a simple solution borne of a fresh point of view.
Technology is the great enabler of this process. Armed with a laptop and a 3G wireless connection, Skype, cloud software, e-mail and Google Docs, entrepreneurs and creative types can flex their spatial hemispheres by getting “the heck out of dodge”, all …
About Alyssa Burtt
Alyssa Burtt is Creative Director and Co-Founder of ZenHouse Media. She loves designing for web and usability and helping small business owners find practical strategies for success. An avid iPhone photographer, snowboarder and visual artist, she loves supporting local community and the arts.
8 Steps for Creating an Effective Content Marketing Strategy
13th April
As a small business owner, freelancer, artist or entrepreneur, you can now (more than ever!) reach and influence your audience directly through content, just by updating a simple blog, uploading some photos or shooting some video (even just with a smart phone). The opportunity to connect and spread your message directly to your audience is huge and can help you drive traffic and sales (even on a small business budget), often much more effectively than an expensive newspaper advert or direct mail campaign. Thinking about getting started, but not sure where to begin? Go as in-depth as you like, or keep it simple. Follow these 8 steps for best results:
1) Define your Goals
Is your overall marketing goal to…
• Increase sales? (online vs. physical location?)
• Increase brand awareness?
• Educate prospects on what you do?
• Attract new customers?
2) Define your Audience
…and get …
About Alyssa Burtt
Alyssa Burtt is Creative Director and Co-Founder of ZenHouse Media. She loves designing for web and usability and helping small business owners find practical strategies for success. An avid iPhone photographer, snowboarder and visual artist, she loves supporting local community and the arts.
10 Things You Should Know About Pinterest
6th April
1. What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is s social photo sharing, or social bookmarking website. Users create pinboards to plan weddings, decorate homes, collect visual inspirations and organize favorite recipes, amongst others. Users can also browse pinboards created by other people.
2. Who is using it?
82% — 97% women aged 25-34, depending on the source you read. Did you know that women are actually the top 85% consumers of EVERYTHING?
3. How many people are using Pinterest?
Pinterest grew from 40,000 users to 3.2 million users in one year from Oct. 2010 to Oct. 2011. This rate of growth is faster than Facebook and Twitter experienced in their formative years. For some major brands, Pinterest is now driving more traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and MySpace COMBINED!
4. How much time are users spending?
American users of Pinterest spend an average of 1 hour and 17 minutes on …
About Shireen Nabatian
As Operations Manager at ZenHouse Media since 2008, Shireen handles project management, copy writing, account management and public relations for ZenHouse Media. Shireen’s work experience also includes tour guiding in the Rockies, property management and market research. Shireen is trilingual in English, French and Spanish and speaks a smattering of Farsi.
Lessons in the Power of Social Media from Two Nations Under Threat of War
30th March
NOWRUZ MOBARAK (Happy Persian New Year)!! Nowruz, literally translated means ‘new day’ so in the spirit of a new day, the harbinger of spring, today we’re offering a fun and inspiring read on the power of social media.
With the controversial KONY 2012 campaign receiving millions of views within a matter of days, Arab Spring revolutions organized via Facebook and Twitter, and the Occupy Wall Street movement gathering traction through major cities around the World, the world is waking up to the power of social media to inspire social change, spread ideas and connect people and cultures. Just this month, a new campaign has attracted international attention for bridging the communication gap between the people of two nations under threat of war: Israel and Iran.
Just before Nowruz (Persian New Year), an Israeli graphic designer named Ronny Edry launched a colourful poster …
About Shireen Nabatian
As Operations Manager at ZenHouse Media since 2008, Shireen handles project management, copy writing, account management and public relations for ZenHouse Media. Shireen’s work experience also includes tour guiding in the Rockies, property management and market research. Shireen is trilingual in English, French and Spanish and speaks a smattering of Farsi.
5 Basic Questions to Consider for Success in Any Marketing Campaign
23rd March
First things first. Before you shell out the big bucks or spend hours writing a catchy ad or tweeting any new marketing campaign, ask yourself these fundamental questions to make sure your efforts are exerted in the right direction. Fine tune your current marketing efforts by taking the time to revisit the fundamentals. You might surprise yourself with the assumptions you have made, or the opportunities you did not consider.
1) What is the purpose of your current or new marketing campaign?
Is it to sell a particular product or service? Raise brand awareness? Fill seats at your next event?
2) Who are you targeting?
Soccer moms? Latino-Canadian couples in Vancouver? Describe the characteristics and culture of your best customer, their income level, the kind of car they drive, their interests and hobbies. Talk to them, ask them questions. What are their greatest challenges …
About Alyssa Burtt
Alyssa Burtt is Creative Director and Co-Founder of ZenHouse Media. She loves designing for web and usability and helping small business owners find practical strategies for success. An avid iPhone photographer, snowboarder and visual artist, she loves supporting local community and the arts.
Help Google Help You: Effective Content Marketing Strategies for SEO
16th March
Search engines have no innate ability to discover and single out quality, relevant content on the web; they have no inherent means to judge the beauty of an artwork, or the degree of humour in a YouTube video, or how well-informed an opinion is expressed in a blog article. They rely on humans for this ability, and so it goes that the content people discover, view, share, link to and comment on the most will win Google’s vote and support, and Google will then boost that content’s exposure further with a good ranking.
Many people make the mistake of writing, optimizing and tailoring their content for search engine robots instead of for the human audience meant to enjoy that content. Sure, it’s important to do your keyword research and include the top keywords in your content, but keep in mind that the …
About Alyssa Burtt
Alyssa Burtt is Creative Director and Co-Founder of ZenHouse Media. She loves designing for web and usability and helping small business owners find practical strategies for success. An avid iPhone photographer, snowboarder and visual artist, she loves supporting local community and the arts.
Increase Productivity through a state of Non-Attachment
9th March
There are times when all the best productivity tips in the world don’t seem to help. When undertaking a task that seems daunting, intimidating or that simply requires a bigger investment in energy, how much of your life force goes into worrying about the outcome? Submitting that big proposal, making that difficult phone call, planning that public speaking engagement, asking for a raise…
For entrepreneurs, these sorts of challenges come up all the time as we are constantly faced with the paradigm of risk and reward.
We begin most of our actions by weighing out the likelihood of a positive result; this is how we make smart choices in life, avoid undue pain and embarrassment and even how we set out to achieve our goals. However, there is a vital step in this process required if you want to find true success …
About Alyssa Burtt
Alyssa Burtt is Creative Director and Co-Founder of ZenHouse Media. She loves designing for web and usability and helping small business owners find practical strategies for success. An avid iPhone photographer, snowboarder and visual artist, she loves supporting local community and the arts.
Add this to your Reading List in 2012: The New Rules of Marketing & PR
25th January
This January, one of the books I’ve been reading is the third edition of “The New Rules of Marketing & PR”, a must-read by David Meerman Scott.
A Review
In his book, he points out some of the biggest marketing mistakes many organizations make… Marketing tactics that may be repelling customers rather than attracting them. Many businesses are still trying to “push” their message onto potential customers, interrupting them with ads, radio and TV spots and other unsolicited, one-way broadcast-style advertising. These traditional methods can still be effective, but businesses need to make sure they are carefully targeting their messages and measuring their results to ensure they aren’t wasting their efforts.
The “new rules” of marketing and PR are based on studies of changing consumer behaviour, showing us that in an online world, your business needs to understand and implement online marketing strategies …
About Alyssa Burtt
Alyssa Burtt is Creative Director and Co-Founder of ZenHouse Media. She loves designing for web and usability and helping small business owners find practical strategies for success. An avid iPhone photographer, snowboarder and visual artist, she loves supporting local community and the arts.
2012: What’s your Game Plan?
6th January
Deep down, we all nurture a desire to truly thrive.
As a business owner, what does that mean for you?
In pursuit of our entrepreneurial dreams, we have poured our money, time and resources into our businesses, not always with the results we would hope for. Traditional methods of advertising are increasingly becoming less efficient and we often feel like we are shouting over the clamor, barely being heard.
2012 is the year to stop shouting and start engaging; stop surviving and start thriving. Changing consumer behavior indicates that inbound marketing efforts such as Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Blogging and E-mail Marketing make it easier to attract the right customers, measure your results and achieve your business goals.
Start by creating a marketing plan that serves your greater vision as well as the health of your bank account. It’s easier than ever. Inbound …
About Alyssa Burtt
Alyssa Burtt is Creative Director and Co-Founder of ZenHouse Media. She loves designing for web and usability and helping small business owners find practical strategies for success. An avid iPhone photographer, snowboarder and visual artist, she loves supporting local community and the arts.
