Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

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As a marketing speaker and marketing coach, clients often ask me for branding and naming advice to help create a great company name.

Where do awesome business names come from?

Names like...

• The Cookie Machine
• The Video Advisor
• CareerNavigator
• SalesGPS
• The Coffee Hangout
• Guitars After Dark
• The Fitness Foundry

I've seen solopreneurs and companies go through the branding/naming (or re-branding/re-naming) process smoothly and efficiently in less than a week - and I've also seen train wrecks that needlessly dragged on for months. 

How to get started

First, take a look at two blog posts to help you set the stage for an easy, effortless, enjoyable naming and branding process: 

Instant Branding Toolkit

Building Your Brand Sandwich

How not to screw it up

Here are some ideas to dig into for the "how" or "do's and don'ts" of the naming process...

1. At first, sit down with your leadership team. No spouses. No customers. No low-level employees. 5 people maximum.
2. Generate ideas for your raw branding/naming "building blocks" (as outlined in my "Instant Branding Toolkit" blog post)
3. Work over the list until you have 10 strong candidates.
4. Whittle the list down by eliminating 5 of them - the process is "1 vote to eliminate." If there are no objections from the rest of the group, it's gone. If there are objections, then it is up to those individuals to argue the case for "saving" that name until the vote is unanimous either way. This voting/defending process makes things go MUCH faster. And it gets you to focus on much stronger names faster. 
5. With your top 5 candidates, do a customer survey. Not your spouse, your brother-in-law, your Uncle Marvin who used to be an ad agency exec, not your sister who is a brand manager for Tide. Actual, real, live customers. 
6. Take the top 2 scoring names from the customer survey and do an in-house survey with your own team. Use ONLY customer-facing executives. Sales reps are great. Customer service people are great. Field service people are great. Ask them two simple questions: 1. "Given what you know of our customers and prospects, which one of these two names will resonate with them the most?" 2. "Why?" 
7. Compile your results, make your decision, announce your winner, and start your transition to your new name. 

Boom - done!

What do YOU think? Agree? Disagree? Comment? Rant? Rave? Awesome... go ahead and use the COMMENTS area below and let's discuss...

Tags: marketing for speakers, thought leadership marketing, marketing agency, marketing professional services, trusted advisor marketing, marketing coaching, branding, marketing coach, motivational speaker marketing, speaker marketing, marketing consultant, marketing for authors, marketing for consultants, marketing tips, brand strategy, naming

Does your dog blog? 

Yes? No? Not sure? 

Well, don't worry because mine does.

You're about to get 10 blogging lessons from my black Labrador retriever, Woofie, who turns 10 soon. (FYI her birthday is April 29 and she loves getting birthday notes by email. And she replies to every one!)

What makes Woofie such an authority on blogging? Well, it's simple really - she gets a TON of traffic. Every month, I get emails from GoDaddy, where her website is hosted, to the effect that her website bandwidth (5GB/month) has been exceeded. Sometimes by a factor of two or three!

Put simply: there's a chance that this dog's blog is more popular than yours. 

So to help you fix that, here are Woofie's guidelines for blogging.

1. Post  regularly. Woofie posts updates once a year - usually on or before her birthday. It's regularly scheduled. You should post more often than that - but the point is the word REGULARLY.
2. Don't ask for much. Woofie doesn't sell on her blog. She doesn't beg. She doesn't collect email addresses. She offers value (if doggy cuteness has value to you) and she invites engagement (by email or social media). That's it. And it works. 
3. Be cute and relax. Be the real you on your blog. People ask me the secret to success in presenting yourself online. My answer: it's two things. 1. Authenticity and 2. Enthusiasm. Woofie freely shares both of these traits on her blog - and so should you.
4. Let people come up to you first. Pretend you're a dog... you have no opposable thumbs... you can't do much. So you better be the online equivalent of an adorable little puppy who people want to stop, pet, interact with, and give treats to. Do that, and you win.
5. Use more photos - visuals sell. Much of Woofie's website is made up of photos of her adventures from the previous year. Photos and videos are where it's at. In the wise words of my digital marketing pal, Jay Baer of Convince and Convert, "Text is going away online. Everything is moving to pictures and video."
6. Be easy to reach. Woofie has a whole host of digital communications tools in her arsenal (Here's how to connect with her on Twitter, LinkedIn, email, blog, Dogbook.) The short story is she is reachable in ways that YOU want to reach her, not in ways SHE prefers to be reached (which all happen to involve bacon and/or cheese.)
7. Depend on other people to sell for you. In addition to having no opposable thumbs, Woofie has never made a sales call and has never sent a marketing email. She has people do it for her. Third-party endorsements, referrals, recommendations, and word of mouth from her human friends do the trick. How about you?
8. Make people feel better about themselves after engaging with you. Let's face it - this dog is cute. But what's beyond that to make interacting with her worthwhile? Well, if you came over to our house, you could answer that for yourself. But we're talking about online. So each interaction needs to be fun, special, and rewarding in and of itself. Want to try one? Click here to send Woofie an email and see what you get back in a reply. 
9. It's OK to be silly. Sometimes it's even more than OK - it's required. Self-deprecating humor is the best kind. It puts people at ease and makes them feel better about themselves, too. Plus it's an indicator of expertise if you can portray yourself "as you are" - mistakes, warts, and all. The fearful, the incompetent, and the weak don't have the guts to do that. Woofie does. And you do, too. 
10. 10 kisses, one bark - keep it positive. Nobody likes to read the blog posts of a perpetual whiner, negative nelly, or always-ranting loon. Woofie has never posted anything negative. And even I, her humble human, try to keep my blog posts 90% positive, aspirational, and fun -- and only 10% critical or "calling out the crazy." It's like the old bumper sticker of doggie wisdom - "Bark Less, Wag More."

Grab your FREE copy of the Social Media Traffic Boost Cheat Sheet!

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

Tags: marketing speaker, thought leadership marketing, word of mouth marketing, web marketing, marketing professional services, blog, trusted advisor marketing, blogging for business, marketing coach, marketing strategist, blogging 101, doit marketing, do it marketing, doitmarketing, content marketing, marketing tips

Late to the party but still ready to have fun... share smart marketing ideas... and put money in YOUR pocket...  

Please give a warm welcome to...

The Do It! Marketing podcast!!!

In this episode, my guest is author and professional speaker Jim Matthis. 

Jim is an international Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), business strategist and best-selling author. He helps business leaders who want to reinvent their businesses in changing economic climates.

Jim is also the author of the best-selling book: “Reinvention Made Easy: Change Your Strategy, Change Your Results,” and “Reinvention 101: Bold Ideas for Reinvention.”

Jim talks with me about the business of speaking AND how executives and entrepreneurs can punch through the noise and sell more effectively - even to prospects who are lazy, busy, and befuddled!

Listen in and then share YOUR advice, insights and recommendations in the COMMENTS area below... 

Tags: marketing for speakers, marketing speaker, marketing strategy, marketing success, marketing professional services, marketing expert, sales prospecting, marketing coaching, marketing coach, marketing strategist, marketing consultant, marketing for authors, doit marketing, do it marketing, doitmarketing, sales and marketing, marketing podcast

1. "The main ingredient of a star is the rest of the team." John Wooden
2. "Life is growth. If we stop growing, technically and spiritually, we are as good as dead." Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969) Founder of Aikido
3. "The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender." Vince Lombardi
4. "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition." Steve Jobs
5. “To be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting.” E. E. Cummings
6. "It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like 'What about lunch?'" Winnie the Pooh
7. "You cannot be afraid to be who you are. Live your values. Live your life. A woman confided to me about 'sneaking out of the office' to go to her child's play and I said, ' Stop right there! I have never snuck out of any place. I walk right down the center hall, and if somebody doesn't like it, too bad. Don't worry about me. I will deliver.' Just stand up, do what you need to do, and smile about it. Look them in the eye and say, 'If you don't like it, fire me, and I'll go find another job, because I'm talented enough and I'm committed enough." Shelly Lazarus, chairman, Ogilvy & Mather
   
8. "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust, and sweat, and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while doing greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt
   
9. "No road is too long, no honours too distant, advance slowly and without losing heart, for victory belongs to the most persistent." Winston Churchill
   
10. "Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by his ability to climb a tree, he will spend his entire life believing he is stupid." Albert Einstein
    
11. "It is not my job to make mean people nice, crazy people sane, or stupid people smart. It is my job to find nice, sane, smart people, and do business with them!" Bob Loeffler, Fearless Agent
    

By the way, these quotes were originally posted in a thread of over 50 great quotations shared on the LinkedIn Group, Professionals Who Speak. Smart cookies in that group - please join us here:

 

What is YOUR single favorite inspiring quotation of all time?  

Please take a moment to post yours in the COMMENTS area below - it could be one of your own or from someone famous, past or present. Doesn't matter if it's more personal, more professional, for business or for life.
Let's hear YOURS...

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Tags: marketing for speakers, marketing speaker, marketing strategy, marketing success, thought leadership marketing, marketing book, marketing professional services, trusted advisor marketing, marketing coach, marketing for authors, business book review

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