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Archives : traditional marketing

Choosing the Right Business Name – from an Internet Marketing Perspective

November 4th, 2009

What’s in a name? Frankly, a LOT. Any marketing and branding agency can go through the important details of naming a new business or one that is renaming from a brand perspective. It’s fascinating how business naming research is performed, tested and consumer analysis is created – in fact I totally respect it. However (and this is important), it is essential that this research is embodied from an Internet Marketing perspective.

Here’s how to protect yourself from online blindness when naming your business:

#1 – Make sure the domain name is available or easy to acquire ahead of time. Domain names, i.e. www.yourbusiness.com are the life force of branding online. Your domain availability should include these principles:

You can “see it, spell it.” In other words, it’s simple enough to resonate without a lot of possibility for misspellings.
Determine that most or all extensions are available. Everyone thinks of the ‘.com’ but it’s important to grab the important extensions (.net, .org, .us, etc.). If you’re a larger organization – grab as many as you can. Brand hijacking – by your competition buying those domains is not a pleasant situation to find yourself in.
Misspellings are available. If there is a possibility of misspelling your domain name, grab all the necessary misspellings too. A random example would be: www.smithswarehouse.com – be sure to grab www.smithwarehouse.com and www.smithswearhouse.com
Moderate length. We get the question, “Is my domain too long?” quite a bit actually. With domain names at a premium these days, it’s more important to “see it, spell it” than it is to keep it short. Moderate length of the domain is okay as long as it’s not overwhelming.
Domain names (i.e. business names) with search specific keywords have a double advantage. Although sometimes this is not practical, it is helpful.

#2 – Evaluate the competitive landscape of your business name online. If it’s competitive, be prepared to have the resources necessary (time and money) to effectively launch an SEO campaign early. Here are some basic things to check when evaluating the competitiveness of your keyword phrases:

Review the total number of Google results for your prospective business name. (As a very general rule of thumb – If it’s less than a total 250,000 results, and incorporate SEO from the beginning, you’ll be golden). Any words results over 1 Million – plan ahead for potentially robust ongoing SEO resources.
Review PPC bids for your phrase, amount of PPC ads. You can use Google’s AdWords tool to evaluate the average bid amount for your business name. Anywhere over $1.00 per click mark may get expensive and is an indicator for the need of a moderately or severely competitive SEO marketplace.
Evaluate the number of links/number of pages indexed of top results for your keyword phrases using tools such as the: Bruce Clay Toolbar, SEO Book , Yahoo Site Explorer. Plan on acquiring the same amount of links and pages of content indexed as the other top 10 listings. If this will take significant effort, that may be an indicator for a competitive marketplace.
Evaluate whether you business name of choice has associations outside of your category. For example, a recent organization named their business the same name as a popular TV show – their rankings were buried at onset outside of local specific searches.

#3 – Check to see if your Social Media profiles are available. Social media is essential for business marketing in most all cases, so double check to see if your profiles/usernames are available. The big three would be Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – but that’s just a start. Social media profiles, such as: www.facebook.com/smartsolutions or www.twitter.com/smartsolutions are just as powerful, and just as limited, as domain names. Check profiles using www.knowem.com.

As you can see, there are many factors to determining a valid, compelling business name at the onset. Along with your branding, marketing research efforts – don’t shoot yourself in the foot before you get out of the gate by not reviewing the online marketplace of your potential business name F-I-R-S-T.

We welcome comments on example stories – please post!

By: Wendy Roe

E-Newsletter Marketing Proves Worthy Over Traditional Marketing

January 30th, 2009

By Wendy Epner Roe

Our recent SmartGroup, covering everything ‘newsletter,’ became a helpful reminder that marketing online through this method can prove a worthy tactic. Compared to traditional media, 79% of adults visit a website because of newsletters, versus 65% from radio, 83% from TV and 89% from print (Source: ThirdAge.com Baby Boomer Survey, 2007). Given that the newsletter follows some simple instructions and has a backbone of support, it could very well be an inexpensive format for getting your unique message out.

Instructions:

1)Decide who’s responsible.
If newsletters fail, they most often fail due to lack of commitment. The commitment may be likely less frequent then a blog; however, the information infrastructure is something to consider when you’re first starting. Gather troops, create deadlines and follow through to make sure that when you announce to your audience that you’ll be releasing a monthly newsletter that it’s actually, well…monthly.

2)Keep the signup simple.
Providing a simple call to action and simple signup is the key to inviting subscribers to join your newsletter. We recommend you ask for Name and Email…and that’s it. Some of our clients only have a field for email…that’s okay too. Although qualifying your leads and getting information from your audience is helpful, asking for too much just turns them off. The KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) method applies here.

3)Appropriate Welcome.
You are allowed by ICANN spam policy to have a list where you may send one (I repeat, ONE) welcome newsletter to invite your audience to opt-in and sign up to receive future newsletters. We are not in the business of spamming those that do not sign up or are interested. Keep your subjects relevant, content informative and comply with those who sign up and then later may choose to unsubscribe.

4)Follow the ICANN rules and regulations. (i.e. there’s fines and prison sentences, folks)
Most of this is common sense but due to the outcomes, it’s worth noting. You are not allowed to falsify header information. You must have an unsubscribe link on every email. You are not allowed to use deceptive or misleading subjects. You may NOT harvest or buy emails lists; the subscriber must initiate a request to receive information. For more information, visit: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/spam/business.htm

5)Information vs. Sales Content.
Although it’s fun to receive coupons and promo codes in your e-blasts (or newsletters), the retention and long-term benefit goes down if sales content is the overwhelming point of interest in your newsletter. Informative content, content that benefits your audience—teaches them something valuable—is the best for long-term retention. Promotions are great but be sure to balance informative content and sales pitches through the duration of your newsletter schedule.

6)Frequency and Send Dates.
We often get the question, “How often should I send a newsletter out?” This question is entirely dependent on your industry and audience. For some, it’s appropriate to send out announcements a few times a week, others it’s monthly, and even others it’s quarterly. The key is to let your audience tell you when is too much! Follow your analytics data to best understand what frequency is best.

In terms of the best days to send newsletters, statistics have shown that Tuesdays and Thursdays are best. Mondays and Fridays are worth avoiding if possible. Mondays we’re catching up on emails and could easily miss it; Friday is too close to the weekend where our minds are already wandering….

7)Design Layout.
Here’s another popular way to miss the mark on the newsletter. We’ve had clients be so enthusiastic about publishing that they literally publish a BOOK. Posting full articles and many of them dilutes the purpose of the marketing piece. Here’s the trick: Treat it like an newspaper headline and abstract—create a grab-worthy headline, a paragraph or two of informative content and then a CALL TO ACTION! The call to action is the most important step. A link to a full article, a link to a promotional product, a survey form completed…whatever the content, make the link trackable. Chunking information is the best policy. Oh, the other point of links is that driving traffic to your site, where your audience can expand upon their knowledge of your services, is always helpful!

8)Analytics/Reporting
Just like understanding trends in your website visitors, understanding what your audience responds to in your newsletter is imperative. Gauging what links (or topics) are popular is a helpful way of understanding the needs of your audience and likely what’s great to continue writing for. Track your baseline and success by understanding your bounces, your subscriber list growth and boosting traffic due to newsletter popularity.

Happy writing everyone! For a recap and samples, visit the Smartz Forum (http://www.smartz.com/forum)