Choose your business, product or service name wisely!

Talk about pressure: choosing the name for your company, key product, or service, may in fact be the most important marketing decision you make. Don’t take this task lightly!

Many businesses, unfortunately, put little thought into this all-important decision, settling for names that do little to enhance image or reputation. And it’s not simply small start-ups that fail at this responsibility; in fact, many large, sophisticated corporations are equally guilty of settling on generic, nondescript names.

3 Simple Rules for naming your business, product or brand

Here are 3 simple rules that will help you develop an effective name for your business, product or brand. These are guidelines, rather than hard and fast rules. And if you find a name that you really love, by all means, trust your instincts and go with it. There are always successful exceptions to every rule.

Rule 1. Avoid generic sounding names

If it sounds cliché, it is cliché, so don’t use it. Very often, businesses choose names that are generic, non-descript and overused. Avoid using words like the following:

• General
• Consolidated
• International
• Associates
• Universal
• World-Wide

Companies think that using these terms they will position their company as large, long established and stable, but these traits are too common and do little to differentiate itself from the competition. Which company has a stronger brand image: General Tire or Michelin?

Rule 2. Avoid initials or acronyms

Another common error is relying on initials and acronyms. This is epidemic among business today, and I can’t understand why business partners would use their initials to form the company name – other than driven more by personal ego and than sound business tactics. Not a smart move.

If you call your company the SMC Corporation, what are you communicating to your customers? Nothing! When you use initials, you lose the opportunity to quickly communicate key business elements to your customer when they first encounter your company. Don’t make it harder on your customers to know who you are!

Rule 3. Avoid names with too many words

During the 1980s, American Express wanted to expand into the brokerage services business – it purchased Shearson Loeb Rhoades and Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb, calling the new firm Shearson Lehman American Express. Phew! Quite a mouthful, and an example of how large, sophisticated companies make naming errors. The resulting merger so thoroughly confused customers that the brokerage business was ultimately sold to Primerica, and the firm again became known as good old American Express.

If you already have a long name, think about abbreviating or shortening it. International Business Machines, which violates Rule #1 and Rule #3, became simply known as IBM (which happens to violate Rule #2). This goes to show that there are always successful exceptions to these rules when the company is exceptional at its core business and creates a powerful brand.

There are many aspects to consider before launching your business into the social media world of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. If you take the time to establish to really understand your social media goals and develop a strategic plan to achieve these goals, your plunge into the waters of social media will be much more successful.  Marketing strategist Lee Odden first addressed this in a great post on TopRankBlog, and it’s a post worth reading.

Here are the highlights:

Common questions asked by small businesses considering a Social Media Strategy:

“Should we develop a strategy first before engaging?”

“Should we experiment or develop a strategy as we go?”

“Is it okay to ask customers if they’d like to buy directly on social networks?”

To set up the framework for a successful social media marketing program, consider these suggestions prior to jumping in:

• Identify your business goals and how these are to be measured.

• Develop an approach and methodology to use in your Social Media program. This is essential for planning, implementation, accountability and measurement of success.

Setting Social Media Goals, Then Listening in on Conversations

The goals set for your specific business will lead you to the appropriate social media venue for success. For example, if you want to create conversations with your customers, this would require a different network than developing sales leads. Having a clear understanding of your customer needs and business goals will lead to the perfect social media platform (ie: Facebook, LinkedIn, You Tube, or Twitter), or perhaps a combination of these social media tactics.

Listen before leaping.

Once you develop social media goals, research each network and listen to the conversations happening there. You will quickly find out where your business belongs, and where you don’t. This small amount of research will provide valuable insights each social media platform, and where your customers are most engaged.

While I strongly recommend formulating a specific, permanent strategy, doing so shouldn’t deter you from diving into social media, especially if you are employed at a large corporation or organization. Trying to get an overarching social media strategy through layers of bureaucracy, can delay and even kill its implementation.

Social Media by its very nature is a fluid, ephemeral media in which you can experiment with different tactics to see which resonates with your audience. Once colleagues begin to see the fruits of your labor, you’re more apt to gain consensus and supporting data to support your strategy, creating momentum within your organization and getting the naysayers to quickly jump on board.

Chances are, at some point or another, you’ve received an email from a search engine optimization (SEO) firm that promises to submit your website to thousands of search engines or hundreds of directories promising higher rankings, more visitors, more clicks.

If you fall for this ploy, you’ll find yourself out hundreds of dollars with no real value in return.

The truth is that there are only three major search engines: Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Any other site that calls itself a search engine simply returns results from one of the big three, so submitting your company website to any of these other so called “search engines” is a waste of your valuable time.

When to Submit Your Website to Google, Yahoo or Bing

You may want to submit your website to the major search engines if it is brand new, and you want your website to be included in search results as soon as possible. Honestly, this is really not necessary – and many argue that it won’t speed up the process.

The major search engines do a pretty good job of finding new content fairly quickly, and your website will soon be listed in a few days – even if you never officially submit your site to a search engine.

Search engines use programs called robots or spiders to crawl the internet looking for new content. These spiders follow links from one web page to another, and from one website to another, with complex algorithms.  When the spider encounters new content, a new page, new photograph, or a new site, it indexes the information immediately.

In other words, it records the new content and its location so when someone does a search including keywords or phrases that matches the content on that particular web page or site, that specific URL address, title and description will appear in the search results.

And your site will appear on Google, Bing, and Yahoo whether you officially submit it or not, so please – please! – don’t waste valuable time, effort, or dollars succumbing to scrupulous ploys and promises of what you can already get for free.

Deirdre N. McCloskey, author of Bourgeois Dignity

In these tough economic times there has been much discussion of how to get the economy moving again: TARP, QE2, Keynesian Economics versus Supply Side Economics. Historically, however, Government is not what drives economic growth – innovation driven by intrepid entrepreneurship is the real engine.

National Review columnist Rich Lowry recently wrote an excellent article on this subject based on the book Bourgeois Dignity by Deirdre N. McCloskey, in which, she writes,

“In 1800 the average human consumed and expected her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to go on consuming a mere $3 a day. With their $3 a day the average denizen of the earth got a few pounds of potatoes, a little milk, an occasional scrap of meat.” The only people who enjoy more that a $3 a day existences were the few Lords and Earls of nobility, or the Bishops and Cardinals of the church – it had been this way for all of recorded history – in short, “all the world was Bangladesh.”

Literacy and life expectancy are rising – liberty is spreading
and tyranny is retreating

National Review columnist Rich Lowry expands on this excellent observation. “Then something happened that changed everything and even though the world has more than 6.5 billion more people than it did two centuries ago, starvation worldwide is at an all-time low and falling – literacy and life expectancy are at all-time highs, and rising – liberty is spreading and tyranny is retreating.

How did this happen? According to author Deidre McCloskey and expounded by Lowry, it wasn’t foreign trade (too small), it wasn’t imperialism (it didn’t enrich the ruled countries), it wasn’t the establishment of property rights (they had existed before), and it wasn’t the Protestant work ethic (hard work wasn’t new).

It was simply a new attitude toward wealth and its creation. McCloskey calls it the “Bourgeois Revaluation.” Her basic argument is that the world developed a new respect for the bourgeoisie – the creators of wealth. It afforded the shopkeeper the dignity that he had always been denied because he wasn’t a lord, a military officer, or a priest.

It began roughly 200 years ago in Holland and Britain. Combining this new dignity with liberty led to the amazing run-up in the world’s wealth over the last two centuries in contrast to what had been relative stasis throughout the rest of human history.
Innovation is the driver of wealth – the ceaseless search for
the new, the better, the cheaper.

In McCloskey’s view, many attribute this success to “capitalism,” but she argues the word is insufficient, because the mere accumulation of capital is not enough to bring about prosperity. Many kings and queens accumulated tremendous wealth, but there was no rising prosperity for their subjects, and no economic miracle ensued.

It’s innovation that’s the driver of wealth, entrepreneurial “alertness,” the ceaseless search for the new, the better, the cheaper.

While our nation struggles with 9.8 percent unemployment and the Congress and President posture to special interests that pursue anti-innovation trade and regulatory policies to protect the status-quo, Lowry and McCloskey reason that the basic recipe for economic recovery is simple, if not necessarily easy:

Celebrate, reward, and create the conditions
for entrepreneurial innovation.

The vast number of emails I get from SEO companies promising to get my website on page 1 of Google is quite amazing. These firms must not be doing their homework because my website is already on page 1.

Most often, SEO experts who spam your inbox are snake-oil salesmen reincarnated, using unethical techniques to drive search ranking up. If you’re a novice to search engine optimization, you may be tempted to contact one of these firms – especially those who offer an enticing ploy of not charging until they achieve vague result. The problem is that in search engine optimization there is the right way (“White Hat” methods) to achieve good results, and the wrong way (“Black Hat” methods).

Black Hat Methods Can Get You Blacklisted

SEO firms that employ “black hat” methods such as keyword stuffing, hidden text, cloaked and doorway pages, link farming, and blog spamming, can indeed improve your search rankings short-term, but these techniques violate search engine terms of service, putting your website at risk of being banned. Search algorithms identify SEO trickery and will eventually blacklist your site from future searches, keeping potential customers from being able to find you. It happens every day, and quite often business don’t even realize it until much later.

Costly fees necessary to reinstate your site’s SEO status and integrity

One day your website appears on page 1 of Google and you happily pay the charlatan’s SEO fee; the next day, your website has been “blacklisted” and doesn’t appear on any search engine. Now that great deal is going to cost you more money, time and resources to correct the damage done.

The first clue a SEO firm may be unscrupulous is the fact they promote themselves via unsolicited emails; if they market their own company by using unethical spam techniques, how ethical will they be in their SEO practices to promote your company? Not very, so remain diligent and discerning when choosing a firm to do search engine optimization for your business website.

BP Provides A Classic Case Study Of How To Screw-Up Your Brand

As many of you know, I’m a bit obsessive about branding. In my book, Branding Insights for Small Business, I cover the essential components of an effective branding strategy every successful company achieves: creating a powerful brand image, being authentic to the core values of your business and building goodwill with your customers.

It’s never easy to transcend the signal-to-noise ratio that pervades the marketplace and launch your business or product into public consciousness, and there’s that old adage, “any news is good news.”

But what if your company is responsible for the biggest natural disaster in history? That’s a life-or-death question right now at BP. As a horrified public watches images of oil-covered wildlife, ruined coastal areas and destroyed businesses, the petroleum company that once touted itself as a progressive force in environmentalism is now trying to save the tattered remnants of its corporate reputation.

When the President accuses you of “nickel and diming,” you’ve got a image nightmare on your hands

Even BP’s damage-control efforts have backfired — the company poured $50 million into an apologetic public relations campaign, then saw its efforts backfire when reports surfaced that the company was being stingy with cash compensation for people whose homes and businesses were ruined by the oil spill. Even President Obama even got involved, accusing BP of “nickel and diming the folks down here.”

Of course, few of us are multinational executives, who run  corporations operations with such far-reaching consequences. But BP’s missteps provide lessons we can all learn from:

BP spent millions advertising itself as an eco-friendly company, but had three of the largest and deadliest oil-related accidents in the past five years.

- Don’t just say you stand for something — actually STAND something. In the words of a brand strategist who wrote an op-ed for Fast Company: “Pretty logos mean nothing if your actions don’t back up what you say.” Before the oil spill, BP did a great job of positioning itself as an eco-friendly company, but as Fast Company notes, “BP has had three of the largest and deadliest oil-related accidents of the past five years.” That fact has been hammered home as repeated efforts to stop the spill have failed.

- Don’t say anything stupid. This sounds like common sense, but with an army of handlers and highly-paid public relations experts, BP’s chief executive still managed to put his foot in his mouth several times since the disaster. While BP’s share prices dropped by 30 percent and investors lost millions, CEO Tony Hayward complained, “I’d like my life back.” Earlier, he asked a New York Times reporter, “What the hell did we do to deserve this?” Sorry Tony, but when wildlife is dying and people are losing their livelihood by the thousands, people are not going to take pity on a guy who banks $8 million a year — they’re just going to get angry.

- Don’t understate things — be honest. Again, courtesy of Hayward: “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount and volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.” That’s a bit like saying Katrina “only” flattened one city. And it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in oil containment efforts when the guy in charge apparently slept through his geography class.

Those are three “don’ts,” but what about the things BP should do?

That’s pretty simple — walk the talk. As I mention in my book, it’s important that your brand is built on authentic core values of the business. And these values need to permeate down to every department and employee so they know exactly what the business stands for and the promise it makes to its customers.

When BP spent millions rebranding itself as a “green” corporation a decade ago, environmental groups pointed out the company had spent more money on its image than it did on renewable energy resources. And as the story unfolds before us, it’s become obvious BP never took its responsibilities seriously beyond appearance. This is a mistake many companies make with their brand efforts: they superficially believe a marketing slogan and ad campaign will define what their company stands for. And they believe employees, shareholders and customers will simply buy into that myth. But if rumors that BP circumvented safety protocols in its deep water drilling are true, then the public backlash could be passionate and intense.

A great PR team is an essential component to any brand emergency, but it’s just as important to remember public relations is only half the battle — if a company’s actions don’t support its brand image, sooner or later that fact will be exposed, and the results could be catastrophic. Just ask Arthur Andersen.

Many have heard the marketing term U.S.P. or Unique Selling Proposition, but I would wager most don’t have a clue to its inherent value when marketing your business.

The term Unique Selling Proposition was originally developed in the 1940s by marketing guru Rosser Reeves, which he defined as the ability to communicate a distinct and unique benefit a product offers a consumer which only that specific product or service or brand can provide.

Business owners, often just assume their customers will understand what makes their business different or better than the competitors, and overlook the USP. When carefully nurtured, however, an U.S.P. will provide your company a significant competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Rosser Reeves maintained an effective U.S.P. needed to accomplish the following four objectives:

1. It must make a specific proposition to the customer: “buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit.”
2. The proposition must be unique or “perceived unique” by your customers – something your competitors don’t have or offer and would not be able to imitate easily.
3. It should be so compelling and relevant to your ideal customers that it entices them to try your product or service because it addresses their needs, fears, frustrations, or desires.
4. It must be simple and easy to articulate and communicate so your customers quickly understand that your product or service offers them unique benefits.

An excellent example of an effective USP is the famous “Got Milk.” The campaign repositioned milk, a universal staple in practically all households which had been maligned as an unhealthy, antibiotics-filled food to avoid, to the opposite: comforting scenarios of milk and cookies, as well as a nutritional drink appropriate at anytime.

The campaign stuck in the customer’s minds and was carried into the grocery store aisles while milk consumption rose dramatically. Genius!

The fact that the campaign fostered numerous copycats with Got Fish? Got Fleas? and Got Freud? only added to effectiveness of the original USP. Even President Obama’s campaign slogan of “Got Hope” mimics the original.

A strong USP (or lack thereof) for your business can be the driving force behind the success and failure. Is that really something you want to leave up to assumption? To occur haphazardly? Or instead, will you take a proactive, deliberate approach ensuring correct positioning of your product or service exactly where it needs to be for future success.

Some marketing professionals are saying the traditional role of Public Relations has lost some of luster, overtaken by a more contemporary form of PR – social media. Marketing forums and group discussions from Inc.com to LinkedIn have all been debating this issue But as far as I am concerned, traditional public relations, i.e. press releases, articles, events, etc. will never play a secondary marketing role for most businesses, especially ones that have a brand image that needs to be nurtured and protected.

Social media plays an important role in marketing, but most times it is one that is supporting more traditional marketing and public relations activities.

For example, if a neighborhood restaurant donates a percentage of sales to the local high school marching band, who benefits? Pretty much everyone. The students, the band, the school and the parents, who have to shell out less for the activity. But the hero is the neighborhood restaurant. If they can leverage their generosity with an effective public relations program, it can generate loads of press exposure and tons of goodwill with consumers. Goodwill that can generate ten-fold payback of the actual donation cost.

Could social media pulled this event off as effectively alone? Probably not. Outreach to mass media outlets traditional PR is the marketing tool that does the heavy lifting in generating the kind of media buzz – one that I’ve only seen achievable through PR. Social media can certainly play a role in building awareness to those who are already fans of your business. But most editors and reporters are much too busy to activity monitoring more that a few Social Media channels. They are still looking to their normal PR channels for news worthy items to feature.

In the era of Google, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, there is still irrefutable value in the good old fashioned card. Business cards, arguably one of the oldest and most important marketing tools, have been in the marketing news as of late and deserve our attention, as well they should. The business card is an essential part of your marketing strategy and should never be overlooked.

MSNBC has recently been quoted to say business cards are becoming obsolete, being replaced with complete profiles on LinkedIn and digital cards with mobile applications. Some believe this is necessary new technology, but I’m not quite convinced. Don’t overlook your business card as part of your overall marketing strategy as it plays a key role in your business image.

I am confident technology will never replace the business card as the first brand representation of yourself, other than your physical being. In many situations, business cards are the first presentation of your brand image other than your physical being. Inc.com did a story on creative, innovative, business cards, but there is no need to be that extravagant. Your card needs to carry the necessary information so a prospective client can easily contact you.

Don’t chintz on developing a quality business card—use a quality, heavyweight cardstock. Consider hiring a graphic designer. Are the business card elements consistent with your company brand image? Is your  logo and slogan included along with all your phone numbers, address, email and other pertinent information? Don’t underestimate your business card, this marketing tool has power: the power to sell your brand — how you want others to perceive you.

As antiquated as it may seem, sharing a quality business card is also a remembrance of a more civil time, pre-DUB era. (DUB is the abbreviation of DubMeNow, an electronic business card application said to be replacing physical business cards.)

A personable time when face-to-face contact concluded with, “Do you have a card?” And how nice it is that this has endured.

The end of 2009 brought the end of the commuter New York Water Taxi that ferried commuters down the Hudson from Yonkers City Pier to Manhattan, docking at the World Financial Center and Wall Street, and last summer, mid-town too.

Hailed as both a tourist draw and a comfortable and believe-it-or-not, “cozy” alternative to being stuck bumper-to-bumper on the Hutch, Sawmill, 95 or pavement or rail of choice, this little-known service had been hailed by commuters, one going so far to say, “It cradles you in the morning and comforts you in the evening.”

Wait just one marketing-minute. With the cost comparable ($10 more per 10-trip vs. MetroNorth), and the trip calm, pleasant and conversational – even for New Yorkers – then what’s up? What went wrong?

Simple. Nobody knew. And you can’t sell a good thing if no-one knows about it.

Operational since May 2007 with initially four morning runs from Yonkers to World Financial District, but this year down to two, the service averaged about 75 riders daily during the summer, and 90 in the fall.  In April 2008, the one-day fare was lowered to $10, and ridership increased 40 percent – that day. According to company spokesman, ridership peaked at 3,650 in July 2008.

Last summer, NYC and parent company New York Water Taxi added a midtown Manhattan stop, with free connector shuttle bus service.  At the time, officials said they planned a geared up, major marketing campaign, going so far to claim: “some unconventional ways, guerilla marketing,” according to David Simpson, spokesman for Yonkers Mayor Philip Amicone.

Excuse me? What was the plan: ESP?

The campaign was to include television and internet marketing, drive-time radio spots, direct mail and direct outreach to big time Manhattan corporations with high percentage of Westchester-ites trekking into NYC daily. What happened?

Seeing that I live here, work here and there and everywhere, and am, it’s been said, “in-the-know” marketing wise, I hadn’t heard or seen sight or sound of the ferry. Nada. Nothing. Not a banner ad. Not a tweet. Not a billboard. Nothing shoved under my windshield wiper at the commuter lot. NOTHING.

If you market the pants off the service and it flops, well, then you’ve got nothing to sell. But this was (and remains) a viable, marketable, cost-efficient, environmentally and tourist-friendly unique service. How about sharing that information with the market anxiously awaiting it?