Category: Branding

Article Contributed by Holly Hurd

Naming your venture is one of the most exciting aspects of getting started, but it can be one of the most difficult to do. It’s an important step to spend time on. A bad name can actually stall your venture and a great name can move it forward. So how do you come up with a great name? Hurd offers 6 steps to creatively naming your business venture.

1. Time to brainstorm.

Start by writing down what you are offering and then write down as many related ideas, synonyms, puns, that you can think of. For example if you are starting a dessert business you might list: sugar, cupcakes, pies, cookies, brownies…anything related. When you can’t think of any more, search an online thesaurus to add to your list. Then add adjectives. In this example you might add yummy, delicious, tasty, sweet, delectable, and on and on. While brainstorming, also jot down keywords that describe your venture. Think like a potential customer; what keywords would they type into a search engine to find a product or service like yours? Keywords is just another list for you to mold your name from.

2. Get personal.

Make a list of names or things that mean something to you. It could be your name, your kids’ names, pet’s name, school’s name, home state, nickname, etc. Look at what the state flower, your astrological sign or your hometown team’s mascot is. The ideas are endless. What else is related? For example, if you are from the Carolinas and starting a line of girls clothing, your venture name could be “Carolina Girls” or “Sweet Caroline” or “Tarheel Togs” – you get the idea. Sticking with the dessert example, the name could be “Tarheel Treats” or “Carolina Sweet Treats.”

3. What’s your venture’s purpose?

Now write what the purpose of the venture is. In our example, you want to provide yummy desserts for parties and special occasions. So here is another list: party, celebration, fete, gala. Go to the synonym finder again. You should now have several long lists that will give you lots of ideas to choose from. How about “Southern Gala Girls” or “Southern Sweets”?

4. Catchy Combinations – think Clichés. 

You want a name that people will remember; something that describes who you are and what you do. Now you are ready to start combining words from your list. Think about common sayings or clichés. Look at words that start with the same letter for alliteration like in our above examples. Rhyming words are great too. Your name should clearly tell what you do. If your name doesn’t tell exactly what you do, add a tagline below. For example, “Fabulous Fetes”, Party planning for you or “Susie’s Sweets”, Delicious Desserts for Every Occasion. It should be a statement telling what you do in just a few words.

Quick Tips:

• Your name should clearly tell what you do and represent all you do
• Your name should be easy to pronounce and spell
• Use keywords in your name to help with online search

5. Check Domain Availability 

From the time you start to put your venture out there to potential clients, your name will be linked to everything you do. Spend some time to get this right. Check the internet for similar names and see if the domain is available (www.instantdomainsearch.com). If so, once you decide on a name, claim the domain. You can do this through a hosting package for about $10 a year. You don’t want to spend time and money creating a brand and then go to start a webpage to find out it’s already taken. If “yourcompanyname.com” is taken, you may want to go back to square one. Additionally, you can take it one step further and protect your brand and name for $375 (current fee as of 2013) through the US government trademark office (http://www.uspto.gov) if you have plans to go beyond the local area with your venture.

6. Gather Feedback – what name ideas stick?

Once you come up with something you like, get feedback from your family and friends. What does your husband think? Do your kids like it? How about your friends? Use it in sentences or practice telling a client the name. For example, imagine you are talking with an old friend and you say, “I’ve started a new venture (fill in what you do)_____________, it’s called (fill in your name) __________.” Does it roll off your tongue, make sense, is it easy to remember?

Great VentureMom Names

• One VentureMom I’ve talked with named Patty makes cakes for gatherings. So the name of her venture is “PattyCakes.” It combines her name with what she does and it’s a play on a term we all know and recognize. You can imagine what her business card and logo will look like.
• Sam is here to help organize and save photos. She can be a lifesaver for those of us who have those boxes of photos in closets. She and her husband were joking about what to name her venture and thinking about the Dr. Seuss children’s book, Sam thought “Sam I Am.” So the name of her venture is “Sam-I-Am Media.”

Other great VentureMom names:

• “Vintage Vogue” — vintage jewelry
• “Birdy and Grace” — golf wear for women, Grace is the founder’s daughter’s name
• “Greening our Children” — a charity to educate parents on how to be green
• “The Common Courtesy” — a manners class for kids

By now your creative juices should be flowing with ideas for naming your venture. Your venture’s name is an important decision and you should dedicate the time this week to the six step process outlined above. Having a meaningful, relevant and catchy name will resonate with your potential customers and will help you brand your company effectively.

About the Author

Holly Hurd is a Serial Entrepreneur and founder of an online community called VentureMom.com to help mom business owners, comes across so many great names from the moms she features.

Article Contributed by Lori

Small businesses don’t have the kind of budgets that enterprise businesses have with respect to their marketing activities. But that doesn’t mean they can ignore increasing the brand awareness of their business. In fact, it is doubly important for them to do so, as it’s only if more people are aware about their business, that they will be able to beat their competition especially the bigger players in the niche.

So, let’s take a look at 5 tips that will help them increase their brand awareness by a long way:

1.       Use SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the single most important marketing activity that has given small businesses and startups a level playing field against the big boys in their niche. The increasing reach of the internet and the fact that more and more people using the World Wide Web to look for all kinds of information means, online marketing is crucial for the branding efforts for every small business. SEO makes sure that a small business’s website comes up tops on search engine rankings, which increases its website traffic and improves its sales. The fact that this activity is not very expensive to implement means most small businesses now have an online presence, whose potential they are extensively tapping by optimizing it for search engines.

2.       Leveraging Social Media

Today, you have the chance of taking your business viral with the use of social media. There is no doubt that the popularity of social networks like Facebook and Twitter has grown enormously over the years and a lot of person-to-person interaction is happening online, through these networks. Small businesses can leverage the potential of social media to market their business amongst their target audience. By creating a business profile on these networks you can pick and choose your followers who you want to network with and who you believe have the best chances of converting into your customers. You can create personalized marketing messages for different groups of your target audience and take steps to build brand authority amongst them.

Social media is also used by people to get reviews of products and services. Therefore it not only helps you build brand awareness but brand credibility as well.

3.       ID Cards

There are plenty of small businesses who believe having an ID card for a limited number of employees just doesn’t make any kind of sense. Well, there might be some grain of truth in that, but ID cards also serve a marketing purpose and are not just a means of improving security of a workplace. Think about it for a second. Your employees are asked to compulsorily bring their ID cards to work; they usually hang these ID cards around their necks. Some put them on, when they reach their work, some put them on when the leave their homes. Every ID card that is worn while your employee is commuting to the workplace is like a company advertisement. More people will become aware of the existence of your company, because of your ID card and the logo of your company on it. What’s more, many of the people who see this card might be looking for the products and/or services sold by your company. This is branding at its best.

4.       Cold Calling

This might or might not work, but must be tried nevertheless. First build up a list of prospects who you believe will be interested in trying out your products and services. Then go through the difficult process of creating a script that ensures people don’t hang up on you and actually listen to what you have to say. Cold calling is an art that needs to be perfected over time. But this is as good a branding exercise as any.  This activity is again something helps you directly get in touch with the business’s target customers.

5.       Keep Innovating

Small businesses have smaller footprints which makes them more agile as far as decision making is concerned. What this means is that they can get creative with their marketing strategies. They don’t have to wait for an endless amount of time till the strategy is discussed by various departments, before it’s given the green signal. So, you can develop and implement a marketing strategy in quick time, which can give you the competitive edge against the bigger players in the niche.

Decision making with respect to marketing needs to be at the speed of light. You can’t identify marketing opportunities, yet wait around endlessly to take the decision to implement them.

About the Author

Lori Wagoner is an independent content strategist who gives online marketing advice to small businesses. Lori has blogged at Tweak Your Biz, The Social Media Hat and many other business and tech blogs. You can reach her @LoriDWagoner on Twitter.

 

Entrepreneurship is running in your blood and you’ve also managed to get great individuals on your team. You’re riding high after opening an office in a posh business location and dreaming you’re ready to take over the industry.

All this sounds quite fascinating, but you may be missing out on something that’s quite important for your startup to take off on the right foot from day one. You may be missing out on custom branding.

Custom branding is what creates an image of your startup in the mind of consumers. It’s what creates the reputation of your business, and defines the industry you operate in. A custom brand isn’t created overnight. It requires repeated hard work, dedication and engagement with clients, customers and anyone in particular related to the startup.

Here are some custom branding tips for your startup business:

1.  Differentiate from others

This has been mentioned a million times, but still many startup business owners fall into their ego bubble and tell others what a great office they’ve build, how awesome their employees are and how their technology is the number one in the industry.

This is not how you differentiate as a startup business. Customers want to find out themselves why your products and services are better than others. Custom branding helps startups to differentiate themselves.

Apple is a fantastic example of a company that uses custom branding to differentiate itself. As a startup business owner, you should put effort in establishing a brand for yourself by having promotional products. Some of the options available to you at the start include custom printed shipping boxes, letterheads, custom invoices, business cards etc.

2.  Invest in free of cost branding personnel

You don’t need to carry out every task yourself. Delegate tasks to your employees and trust them with it because their expertise is the reason why you hired them in the first place. You should also focus on your startup as a whole. Concentrate on things like sharing of business processes, project management and culture at the company.

You may be wondering what all this has to do with custom branding. The thing is that at the start, your employees are the only thing your startup has. There’s no product or service at the start except for expectations of the future.

Your employees will be the custom brand at the start. How they deal with customers, clients etc. will be the source of custom brand image that gets created. Some companies are successful today just because of their customer service. A good example is the popular web hosting company Hostgator that relies on its staff to create the custom brand. ‘Friendly and knowledgeable staff’ is what attracts people to this company.

3.  Leverage the power of mobile

The mobile industry continues to grow and startup businesses have a great opportunity to use mobile to create and promote their custom brands.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Lenovo’s ThinkPad are two good examples of how both companies utilized the industry to create custom branded products that managed to capture hearts of many.

You may not have enough resources to make such big investments, but your startup business can thrive on custom branded apps and custom mobile advertisements. For example, you can get a custom app made that empowers your customers to shop for discounted products and services through mobile.

Don’t make the mistake of ignoring your brand at the start because custom branding has the potential to be your most competitive business asset after a few years.

Article contributed by Jenna Smith

Article Contributed by Mike Zammuto

2013 may well be remembered as the Year of the Online Review. Sites like Yelp.com, Foursquare, and even Facebook and Google are competing for dominance over the user-generated review landscape. Meanwhile, more specialized review sites, like Urban Spoon, are more plentiful every day. It’s not just that these sites are increasingly common; they are also increasingly influential over consumer behavior.

What this means is that positive reviews can prove a boon to any business, but a single bad review is all it takes for a company’s online reputation to sink. As such, entrepreneurs and aspiring business owners are smart to think through some ways to avert negative reviews, and to ensure that customers max out their online star ratings.

Control What You Can

First and foremost, companies need to remember that they cannot actually control the online review process. Consumers are going to say whatever they are going to say, and there is no way for a business to actively prevent outspoken customers from venting. With that said, there are some things that companies can control — and it is in their best interest to take advantage of this.

Specifically companies should make every effort to control their online review profiles. Simply by visiting sites like Yelp.com and “claiming” their accounts, business owners can involve themselves in the process. It is also important for business owners to completely fill out all of the information that Yelp requests, including accurate and up-to-date company contact information.

Integrate Reputation Management and Customer Service

Another tip is to integrate reputation management with customer service. As negative reviews or words of criticism come in, companies should make sure that their customer service teams know about it, and make every effort to correct any problems that have arisen. This can go a long way toward ensuring that the same old criticisms are not leveled against your company, time and time again.

Provide a Private Place

Many consumers will be just as happily expressing their frustrations privately, as opposed to airing their dirty laundry on a site like Yelp or Urban Spoon. Business owners should take advantage of this by providing safe, secure, private places for customers to leave feedback. A customer service contact form, on your website, will funnel some potential criticisms out of the public eye.

Ask for Positive Feedback

Business owners ought to feel no shame in asking for feedback — especially from their most loyal clients. Ask your “regulars” if they wouldn’t mind giving you some kind words on Yelp, and you may be surprised by how many are willing to do so. This is a great way to pad the ballot box and stack the deck in your favor.

Know When Not to Respond

Finally companies are advised to know when to respond to online reviews — and when not to. Responding to positive feedback and genuinely constructive criticism is commendable; responding to unreasonable and defamatory reviews, usually not a great idea. Simply put, it draws more attention to the nasty reviews in question, which is the last thing the business owner needs! Reviews like that call for companies to double down on their efforts at soliciting good, favorable reviews from their best clients

About the Author.

Mike Zammuto believes in working with great people and building great companies. Both need to safeguard their online reputations. www.reputationchanger.com offers a variety of reputation management services.

Long before you launch an ad campaign or develop your marketing strategy, you must first have a solid brand identity. To keep it simple, your brand identity is your personality. This will be the way in which consumers identify your business. This is important in separating you from your competitors. Although it’s a popular word, it is still a hard concept for many to grasp what it really means.

Branding is creating an identity that will make your company more appealing than your competition. It will aid in convincing your consumers that your business is the only one out there that can satisfy their needs and desires. Many people identify a brand with their logo and name, but it goes beyond the surface. Branding is an overall experience.

If you have ever watched the Apprentice, or Celebrity Apprentice, branding is a big part of most of the projects and can be the sole reason for a team’s loss.

When developing your brand, you must assess what it is you promise to deliver. This includes the overall style of your business. Are you catering to type A personalities or to people who are more laid back and edgy?

It is important to define your own brand; if you don’t, then the reality is that someone else will define you. This causes a loss of control that many companies never return from. If you aren’t interested in fading behind the shadows of your competitors, it is important to take your branding strategy seriously. By raising your value from commodity to brand you are likely to get customers who are willing to pay more for your services.

The most important aspect of branding is what it does to the memory of your consumers. A brand that is fully developed will push your company to the front of your consumers’ minds and make you infinitely more identifiable. If they remember you, it is more likely that they become return customers. A loyal customer is a good customer and these are the customers that are going to be responsible for the bulk of your revenue over the long term. These customers not only come back for more, they take on the evangelist role and begin to attempt to convert their friends.

There are brands that we recognize instantly as household names. Pepsi and Coca Cola are major players in the soft drink industry, and we recognize them due to brilliant ad campaigns and recognizable logos and branding materials. These are two companies that have been around forever, and aren’t going anywhere in the foreseeable future because of the solid marketing strategies and brand building techniques they’ve employed over the years.

Apple is another big player when it comes to the branding world. They are currently one of the most popular and profitable companies in the world because they did what nobody else could; they made computing “cool” through their brilliant use of design and minimalism. Even their former CEO Steve Jobs was branded as a bit of a brilliant eccentric who wore the same outfit to work everyday – his trademark jeans and black turtleneck.

When you hear the words “Eat Fresh,” I am sure that Subway comes to mind. That is because they have successfully been the number one brand in the U.S. amongst sandwich chains. When you think sub, your mind instantly imagines Subway. That’s not to say that it’s the best sub in the world, but they’re certainly in the position they are because of their branding efforts.

When it comes to branding it starts and ends with your strategy. A cool logo or a catchy tagline gets you nowhere without the proper strategy to put it in front of the masses. Clever companies put their logo or tagline on anything and everything but utilizing companies like US Imprints to deliver their message on anything from beach balls to t-shirts.

Before you go crazy printing thousands of pieces of corporate schwag, just make sure that your logo and branding identity are closely related to the core values of your company and that they preach the message that you want heard. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go “Think Outside the Bun.”

Article contributed by Jenna Smith