New from ZestNet

Creating awareness is the first and most helpful thing you can do to increase traffic to your website. If no one knows you exist, no one will come. Seems pretty obvious, but creating awareness in your target market can be more difficult than it seems. You need to stand out in a crowd, being entrenched in the daily lives of your customers, and Facebook can help you achieve exactly that.

Facebook is no longer simply about people trying to connect with their friends. Businesses have begun leveraging the incredibly expansive reach to potential customers that Facebook has to offer. Facebook pages provide a platform for companies to create, not only a second home, but a voice. This “voice” allows them to promote themselves in an open and social manner, helping to foster relationships with their customers. New companies might build a Facebook page to promote their business, while more established companies might build one to create awareness about a new product or service being offered.

No matter where you go, or which business circle you belong to, people are always talking about the importance of SEO to the success of a website. Facebook pages are fully search engine optimized. If someone is searching for you, not only will they unearth your business website, but your business Facebook page will be found as well. The more links there are to your website, the higher in SEO ranking you land.

Facebook pages for businesses are a good way to encourage a call-to-action by your fans. Pages provide a place for you to promote ongoing specials or promotions, and can link directly back to your site. You can encourage your fans to post their own stories about your products or services, and send recommendations to their friends.

Facebook also gives you the opportunity to have other Facebook users promote your business while on your site. Once your customers have made a purchase and reach the thank-you page, you have the option of having a “share your purchase” box appear. This prompts your customers to post onto their own Facebook pages, a testimonial about which of your products they just bought, along with a link back to your website. This gives your business more exposure, and in effect, increases traffic back to your website.

ZestNet has been honored for outstanding creative by the American Advertising Federation. The ADDY Awards, the advertising industry’s largest competition, recognizes advertising excellence and creativity.  On March 15, ZestNet received 1 Gold award, 1 Silver award and 2 Bronze awards from the Coastal California AAF. Gold was awarded for the Citydog! Club stationery package, Silver for the Citydog! Club logo.  Bronze was awarded for Sunland’s Squeeze Pack packaging and Community Memorial Health System’s groundbreaking invitation.

Community Memorial Health System’s website was showing a few signs of age. That happens to websites after 6 or so years. CMHS asked ZestNet for a redesign, but it was important to stay within a budget. With over 1000 pages on their site, it was a daunting task.  ZestNet had designed the original site and knew that this day would come. However, the original site was built with extensive use of style sheets and templates, making the transition a fairly painless journey.  Community Memorial Health System wanted a site that was easy to navigate and user friendly. Being the largest private healthcare system in Ventura County, there is always a lot going on. The ability to highlight important news and events quickly was essential.

CMHS is an expansive healthcare system comprised of two hospitals and eleven family-pracitce health centers. It touches the lives of thousands of individuals throughout Ventura County. Providing a resource for the community to easily find information about healthcare, physicians and treatment options falls perfectly within their misson: “To heal, comfort and promote health for the communities we serve.”

There may be only a handful of times in a person’s life when an extraordinary community event happens that will positively affect their lives, and the lives of their family, friends and neighbors for decades to come.

For our local Ventura community, that event was forever etched in time on September 14 when Community Memorial Health System gathered with nearly 500 attendees to celebrate a milestone – the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura.

Whether you’re just establishing roots in the community or you’re a lifelong resident, CMH somehow touches all of our lives. Perhaps local writer Woody Woodburn put it best: “It’s hard to imagine anyone who lives here who has more than one degree of separation from CMH.” In this issue of Caring, local writer Woody shares his thoughts abut this momentous occasion. His personal narrative on what the hospital means to him is reflective of the Ventura community as a whole.

ZestNet has designed identity for Citydog! Club. Citydog! Club is not your typical doggie day care and boarding facility. It is a place where dogs love to play and stay!

Citydog! Club’s founding partners represents over 100 years experience in the five-star, luxury brand, hospitality industry. They’ve gone to the dogs to create a top-of-category brand delivering a modern dog experience composed of play, affection, and socialization – all in a safe, friendly, and sparkling clean environment. This irresistible approach is perfect for dogs of all shapes and sizes who play nicely and want to hang with the gang at value prices. Citydog! Club will be a state-of-the-art Club with a dazzling array of features and amenities in a sleek, modern, fresh environment staffed by trained and professional Team Members making it a safe, healthy, and happy experience where fun is unleashed!

ZestNet was asked to design an identity that would reflect the Citydog! Club experience. The design brief was brief: fresh and clean; add bit of whimsy; modern; clean lines; fun. Oh – and the colors had to be green and orange. Citydog! Club will open its first location in West Los Angeles in early 2012.

ZestNet designed a series of three direct mail postcards for Community Memorial Hospital’s Maternal Child Health Department. CMH is Ventura County’s leading birth facility.  The direct mail campaign focused on the unique benefits of the Maternal Child Health department that has made them a leader including their Kangaroo Care program, New Parent Resource Center and their Level IIIb Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Sunland Inc., based in Portales, New Mexico, engaged ZestNet to design new packaging for Kirkland’s private label peanut butters. Sunland was formed in 1988 by a group of dedicated peanut farmers in Eastern New Mexico. Its mission has not changed since inception: to grow and market the naturally sweet and dense Valencia peanut unique to the area. ZestNet worked closely with Sunland and the packaging design team at Costco to develop a design that harkens back to the taste of old fashioned peanut butter.