4 quick rules for creating new brand names

Do you have the responsibility of creating brand names for your company’s product or service? What guidelines do you use? Considerable thought and research should go into selecting the name, as it will hopefully last decades, but often it seems that little thought goes into at all.

Branding experts have defined dozens of categories for the different types of brand names (blending, acronyms, personal names, etc). Those strategic categories notwithstanding, I have four quick and simple rules that I follow. A couple of them are admittedly no-brainers, but I see a lot small businesses disregard them as they plow forward.

The name should:

1. Have a pleasant meaning — Is there an interesting story behind it? Is there a synonym, a word origin, a play-on-words, or a hidden subtlety that supports the brand? Is it descriptive of the product’s offering? Good examples are Intel, Google, Amazon, HBO, MasterCard, and Acura. Not-so-good examples, in my opinion, are CVS, Quiznos, Listerine, Zillow, Kinkos, and eBay.

2. Be easy to read, spell, say, and remember — This is increasingly important in a global economy as more non-native English speakers have access to the brand. Good examples (in addition to those in #1 include Coke, Dell, Apple, Target, and Ford. Not-so-good examples, in my opinion, are Hyundai, Geico, Reuters, and Hammacher Schlemmer.

3. Be currently untrademarked — This should be a no-brainer, but a lot of companies create a name for a new product, service, program, or initiative without checking with the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) at www.uspto.gov to see if it is trademarked. They either don’t know how to research it or they think that no one will catch them or care if the name is owned by someone else. It doesn’t take but a minute.

4. Have an available domain — It isn’t necessarily a death knell if the URL for your new brand is owned by someone else. One can own a domain without having a trademark on the word. But if you can create a new brand name and also get the domain for it, you clearly have a great protection for its future.

Regarding my subjective not-so-good brands listed above, I realize that many of them are iconic brands that have dominated their categories for years. The idea is that, if you had to create a new name for your pre-launched product tomorrow, would you select a name that had their unfavorable characteristics?

For brand reinforcement, consider including specialty advertising into your promotional mix

Advertising specialties (aka promotional items, give-aways, or pejoratively “chotchkies”) are one of the most misunderstood, misused, and ignored components of the promotional mix. Some companies consider them a waste of money and refuse to use them, while others mistakenly see the benefit of the message’s long life as a replacement for other targeted and more descriptive tools like DM or online. The answer is in between.

A customized promo item typically only has enough space for your company’s logo, phone number, URL, and maybe a slogan. If someone has never heard of your product before and they don’t know what you do, it is unlikely they will call you just because they saw your number on a mug, a shirt, or a pen. But if you advertise via other media (TV, online, print, DM, event, etc.) and they see your logo and message reinforced on a promotional product, they will likely remember you (at the least) and possibly contact you to buy (at the most).

Your brand reinforcement can also be achieved at a relatively low CPI (cost per impression). A recent study was conducted on the CPI of specialty advertising and it measures the average number of impressions per month based on various items. For example, custom imprinted tote bags generate an average of 1,083 impressions per month. On average, a recipient keeps an advertising specialty item for about seven months. So a promotional message on an attractive, useful give-away bag would generate 7,581 impressions. If each bag cost you $10, your CPI is $.0013 (about one and a half cents). This is among the lowest CPIs in advertising when compared to magazine/newspaper print ads and TV/radio broadcast ads.

But be careful: Just because specialty advertising has a low CPI, you shouldn’t necessarily invest your entire marketing budget in it. It should be just one component of a balanced marketing mix overall. Promotional products offer a supplementary reinforcement of a message delivered elsewhere (print, broadcast, direct, online).

So while you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket, you should at least remember to include this basket in your campaign. Lots of people will see it.

Take a look at the links below for more info.

http://www.asicentral.com/asp/open/Research/impressionsstudy/Advertising_Specialties_ROI.pdf

http://www.fullpressapparel.com/wp-content/uploads/impressions_study.pdf

The Do-Not-Market movement marches on

Another point is scored for the Anti-Marketing People of America (AMPA). Okay, there is no such organization called the AMPA, but if there were, it seems like a lot of folks would join it. The latest volley in the battle against marketers is the Do Not Mail movement.

The Seattle City Council just passed a resolution calling on the state of Washington to create a Do Not Mail Registry giving its citizens the choice to stop receiving unwanted junk mail. Cities and states across the country have either passed or are considering similar resolutions and laws. Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, New York, and about 20 other states all have proposed legislation to establish a registries of consumers who do not want to receive unsolicited direct mail marketing.

Professional marketers should take notice – and so should unprofessional ones as well.

You see, like so many other aspects of society, a few bad apples can spoil the whole bunch. Professional marketing is not immoral or unethical, but unprofessional marketers make it seem so for the rest of us. Unethical telemarketers annoyed us at home by calling us at the dinner hour. They abused the free and easy access to us and so the Do Not Call law was passed to keep them out. That action decimated the telemarketing industry. It damaged the ability for non-abusive marketers to get relevant and useful information to their audiences. The same situation was repeated with the CAN-SPAM act in order to prevent unethical email marketers from overloading our inboxes with useless and offensive emails. Now legitimate marketers are restricted in their ability to communicate via email to their potential customers.

Now we are considering Do Not Mail legislation because a lot of people are tired of receiving unsolicited offers in their home mailbox. Take a look at this page from the Direct Marketing Association (www.the-dma.org/mailmovesamerica) to learn more about the topic of Do Not Mail.

The responsible use of direct mail is not inherently immoral, unethical, intrusive, wasteful, or socially undesirable. But irresponsible direct mail marketers have again aggravated Americans and the AMPA is out to get the rest of us.

Professional marketers provide a service to a free-market economy by informing consumers of the choices they have to satisfy their needs and desires. And that is a noble cause.

Why marketing will be different in the future

This week, as we welcome the new decade (the ‘teens’), I am spending some of my down time reflecting on the aughts. Yes, they were the aughts (00s), not the 2000s. What a poorly branded decade: no one knows what to call it!

Relative to the field of marketing, it is difficult to identify another decade in which there was more rapid and drastic change in the way companies go to market. In technology, innumerable advancements transformed the way people learn, communicate, and recreate – all of which affect how marketers reach potential buyers. Wireless Internet, commercially affordable VoIP telephony, 3G smart phones, DVRs, iPods, Sat Nav, Kindle, and many other communication tools were not within the realm of our awareness in 2000.

This decade brought marketers and consumers a proliferation of privacy and security concerns. Legislative actions such as DoNotCall, CAN-SPAM, and now the potential threat of DoNotMail are changing the way people can be reached with marketing messages. Caller ID and commercial building security restrictions have also limited the ability of sales representatives to connect with potential buyers. The environmental movement has helped contribute to the perceived image of the printed page as wasteful and socially irresponsible. This, along with the greater attractiveness of immediate and portable digital data, has contributed to declines in newspaper and magazine publishing.

And around the midpoint of the decade, we started to become increasingly aware of social media sites, blogs, online videos, and other emerging Web 2.0 technologies. For the first couple of years, my company’s marketing management team (like many) was largely on the sideline observing and wondering if and how we would get in this game. In 2007, we experimented with YouTube. Early in 2008, we started our blog and began creating accounts with Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Slideshare, Google Adwords, and a couple dozen other sites to slowly build our inbound marketing program.

Over time, my company has become progressively involved in these online communities and we have slowly enhanced the quality and size of our online network of friends, fans, and followers. Through these initiatives, we have increased the frequency of our personal interaction with current and future customers. We have been able to strengthen our brand with those who know us and to introduce it to many who had previously never heard of us. We have been able to conduct speedy, inexpensive, and fairly accurate market research. Viral videos, interactive presentations, and PURLs have generated new leads and conversions for us.

In 2010, my company is entering our fourth year of inbound marketing. It is difficult to know how marketing in general, and permission-based inbound marketing in particular, will be shaped at the end of this next decade. One might expect change to accelerate at a more rapid pace in the teens than it did in the aughts. If it does, we will all be marketing (and marketed to) very differently. Hold on to your hats. This is going to be fun.

Any good reasons not to follow through on sales opportunities?

This is a story of missed opportunities.

Some time ago I attended a trade show. This event was poorly attended and so there was little traffic on the show floor. Perhaps you have had the pleasure (ha) of attending one of these shows that are so dead that the sales reps outnumber the prospects. Trying to kill the boredom, reps sit and stare into their laptops playing solitaire or browsing the web. So while at this particular show, I walked the aisles to see what the vendors were offering and then stopped by one booth that caught my attention. The rep told me about a very cool software program that his company developed. He gave me his fairly compelling elevator speech, asked me some qualifying questions, and we had a nice chat for about ten minutes about my needs and his solution. He gave me ballpark pricing, which, at $5,000 wasn’t cheap but I thought it was worth the price given its capabilities. So I said, “I’m interested,” and we exchanged business cards. He told me he would follow up with me personally as he would be the rep handling my account. We were both pleased: me because I found an exciting software product that would fill a latent need, and him because he just got a hot prospect at a dead trade show and he would soon be $5,000 closer to his quota.

Little did I know that would be the last time I would talk to that rep. One week, two weeks, and four weeks went by and he never called me to pursue the order. What the heck?

I suppose there could be some acceptable reasons why this rep didn’t follow up with me, but I can’t think of them. I can only think of the unacceptable ones: Maybe he lost my card. Maybe he changed position or sales territories. Maybe he figured I didn’t want to be bothered by another sales rep and that I would call him when I was really interested. Maybe he didn’t think I was serious when I said I was interested. Maybe he didn’t take notes about our conversation and can’t remember the details so he is embarrassed to call me and ask me the same questions again. Maybe he is just nervous about selling and is subconsciously delaying his call to me.

No, none of these would be acceptable reasons for this rep to fail to follow up. Some of them are more likely and believable than others and if any of them are real, this sales representative may be damaging his company without knowing it (or without his manager knowing). His company probably spent a lot of money on that trade show exhibit and if the rep failed to follow up with a hot prospect like me, how could he have possibly closed any other sales from that show? Thousands of dollars were invested and not a single dollar in profit was likely generated from it – largely because this rep did not follow through properly. In addition to the hard costs of the show and the soft costs of time and labor, there is the hidden soft cost of the company’s diminished credibility and reputation with prospects like me.

If any of those listed above are the real reason this rep failed to follow up with me, then there a problem and someone needs to fix it. That someone is the rep and his manager. The potential “reasons” above can be considered as disorganization, poor management, or sales call reluctance. Losing a prospect’s card before recording into his contact information system is symptom of a disorganized rep. A territory or position change after a trade show and before following up prospects from the show is a symptom of poor management. Most of those other reasons are a symptom of sales call reluctance and should be addressed through sales training and sales management.

Sales opportunities don’t present themselves to reps often enough. When they do come around, don’t let them slip away before you’ve even had the chance to start selling. Do your job and follow through on a prospect’s interest in your offering – there’s no good reason not to.

How inbound marketing can help or hurt a sales rep

Inbound marketing has the capacity to benefit or damage one’s reputation, depending upon the content and usage of these tools. Inbound marketing tools serve as what I call a ‘reputation billboard.’ Imagine a billboard that contained your bio, skills, capabilities, ideas, references, and overall personal value proposition. Imagine that this billboard was updated regularly and it was available for everyone to see – including a rep’s customers and prospects. That billboard exists in the blogosphere and social mediasphere and it can build or kill a reputation.

When a B2B sales organization actively uses inbound marketing tools like blogs, social media, and search engine marketing, it is effectively using a megaphone to shout “take a look at me/us and see what I/we believe, offer, and do.” If what this organization believes, offers, and does is interesting and beneficial to the market, then customers will be drawn in and its sales reps will benefit. If the organization is neither actively nor effectively employing inbound marketing resources, there is still an opportunity for an individual sales rep to develop his/her own online reputation among followers, fans, and friends.

The risk, though, is that the B2B sales rep may rely too heavily on the promise of inbound marketing and may not maintain his/her primary prospecting and networking activities. For most industries and selling environments today, I still don’t think that inbound marketing can be relied upon for all lead generation. Reps can’t tweet or blog enough to obviate the need for traditional prospecting/networking. Maybe this will change someday, but I doubt it. Professional selling skills will always separate the top reps from the pack.

Maximize your sales opportunities with up-selling, cross-selling techniques

Here’s a story of how a “just browsing” shopping session turned into a $200+ purchase in ten minutes.

So my car was being serviced and I had a few minutes to kill in the mall. By a mysterious gravitational pull, I found myself being drawn into an electronics store. No, I didn’t need anything and didn’t really even want anything for that matter, but I like browsing to see what’s new in techie gadgets. I wandered over to the GPS section and the sales associate asked if he could help me. “No thanks,” I smiled politely, “Just browsing.” As I looked at the display models, I saw one that had been marked down from $179 to $99. There are several psychological price points that people have for impulse purchases: $19, $49, $99, etc. Today, mine was $99.

So this particular GPS had some cool features that I didn’t have on my existing GPS and it was priced at a point that I found attractive. Hmm, I thought, maybe I’ll get that – it’s only $99 and it’s discounted $80 off retail. “I’d like to buy this,” I told the associate impulsively. He told me that he didn’t recommend that model, but he did suggest another brand and model with even more cool features. This was not a consultative sales approach. He didn’t ask me any questions about my needs or applications. He just told me with about how useful and valuable the added features were for “just a small incremental investment.” The sale price of the recommended GPS was $179. I thought about it for a moment and agreed: the enhanced features were worth the difference in price. “I’ll take it,” I told him.

Then he went on to propose the extended service agreement for an additional $35 that would cover anything that might go wrong with the device. “No, thanks,” I decided, intent on not agreeing to everything he proposed. Next, he offered me another $7 accessory, explaining its benefits. I repeated this process twice more with $10 accessories and I twice agreed. Finally, I fought off the momentum that was I told him I was all set and he rang up the order.

I’m not a total pushover, but if you have something to sell me then tell me why I would benefit from it and make me an offer. When I am in the market for a product or service, have a use for its features, and appreciate its benefits, I will consider buying it. I will tell you if I don’t want or need it. So even though I was initially just browsing, my total bill came to over $200. I left the store satisfied that I now owned a valuable product with a beneficial set of accessories. I say “nice job” to the associate. It was a classic application of up-selling/cross-selling/suggestive selling techniques. I am sure that the company’s training program encouraged him to use this sales approach, which it should. These techniques, of course, are not limited to retail sales interactions. When combined with a professional consultative approach, in which questioning, listening, and problem solving skills are applied, up-selling is highly effective. Sales associates and their companies get more profit and customers get more cool stuff!

If you’re in sales, sell.

Today I called a vendor that for some time has been selling software to our company. The purpose of my call was to buy additional licenses so that more of our employees could use the software. I wanted to triple or quadruple the number of licenses we currently have and I had the expectation that it would cost me about $10,000 more per year to do so.

So I called the toll-free number on the company’s website and gave my company name and account number to the person who answered the phone. He told me he would transfer me to Lisa, my “account manager.” Lisa answers, introduces herself (pleasantly enough), and asks me how she can help. I tell her about my pain points of not being able to have all my staff be able to access her company’s software and how I needed to buy some more licenses (some would call this a buying signal.) I imagined her smiling gleefully on the other end of the phone: nervous, but thrilled about how fortunate she was to receive this call and get this order! I was prepared for her to swoop in for the kill (the way her sales manager trained her) and ask me for my credit card number or a PO number so she could get my team happily involved in her fine product as quickly as possible. Here it comes, I thought.

“Okay, give me your email address and I will send you over a quote,” she said.

What? Is Lisa in sales? Is she “managing” my account? Is she developing her accounts to bring in incremental and optimal revenue? Does she even care if I buy or not? Does her manager know how she is handling an opportunity for perhaps a $50,000 revenue stream for the next five years?

The answer to all these questions, I’m afraid, is No.

Lisa and I said our goodbyes and there was no mention of any potential follow-up conversation we might have once I reviewed the quote. I did receive her email in my inbox in few minutes later, plopped next to a couple hundred other to-do items that I would eventually get to (or not). Later, I reviewed the quote and it was in line with the $10,000 investment I had estimated. But I didn’t pursue it. The desire was lost, although perhaps just temporarily, as my mind was now focused on other tasks.

The ball is in my court. If I am going to get the extra software licenses, I am going to have to do some extra work to BUY it, because Lisa is apparently not going to SELL it to me. I don’t know if I will call her back. It might be too much trouble, I might get too busy, or some other software sales rep might call me and sell me on his product.

I don’t care for high-pressure sales tactics any more than the next prospect, but pressure wasn’t needed here. Lisa just needed to ask me for the order. If I had resisted or stalled her on her closing attempt, she could have tried to understand my concerns and perhaps resolve them. I would have appreciated that – and my software would be installed now.

I don’t want to be hard on Lisa or any sales rep who is afraid to ask the customer for the order. Sales isn’t for everyone. But it is for some and these missed opportunities happen everywhere every day. If a product or service has value and the customer has a legitimate need and desire for it, there should be a transaction. Sales reps should feel confident in knowing that they are providing some service or benefit to their customers and, all things being equal, there should be no good reason not to ask for the order. If the prospect or customer doesn’t want or need your offering, he or she will tell you so and you shouldn’t pressure them further. But you have to ask.

So if you have the words “sales representative, account manager, or account executive” in your title, then sell, represent your products with pride, and manage your accounts. Your company and your customers expect it of you.

Pay more attention to details of online and offline branding strategies

Online branding refers to an organization’s marketing presence on the Internet, including its website, social media, blogs, paid search, podcosts, webinars, videos, mobile, and email communications. Offline branding is facilitated through non-Internet channels, such as TV, radio, print, direct mail, outdoor, events, packaging, and the interpersonal in-store experience.

The online branding goal is for the web viewer to see a similar logo, color scheme, font selection, tag line, and expressed value proposition for the organization no matter which site he or she visits. Obviously, this relates mostly to the content published by the organization, not which is posted by other contributors on social sites and blogs. Even still, an organization’s employee who monitors these sites could make efforts to reinforce the brand image when responding to others’ posts.

The goal of online and off branding is the same: create and reinforce a consistent and positive experience for the viewer/customer, reinforce your message and image, and build equity/loyalty. Online and offline messages are becoming increasingly integrated. Offline marketing will never go away and online marketing is increasing, so marketers need to pay closer attention to how the organization’s message is being delivered through more channels than ever before.

Can you trademark your personal name for your product or company?

Suppose you want to name your business or a product after yourself. Can you legally do it? Yes, you can and here’s how:

A personal name can be trademarked if you can demonstrate that the name has a “secondary meaning.” Personal names are considered to be weak marks. For the purposes of trademark registration, secondary meaning may be assumed after five years of continued and exclusive use of a mark.You need to form an association in the mind of the consumer that links the product with its your name. So if your name is Bill Miller and you want to market your own ski supplies under the name of “Bill Miller Ski Outfitters,” just start using the name. Then you should register the trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) after some time has passed and provide proof (ads, marketing collateral) that the name Bill Miller has a unique perceived connection to ski supplies.

That’s it!