When it comes to marketing your business in the modern world, we all know that this means “going digital”. Now, chances are, you already have an established digital presence and with the thousands of blog posts all about digital marketing this post takes a slightly different approach and looks at the fundamentals around marketing and branding in the modern world.
We seem to overlook the most vital factors, such as choosing a brand name, yet you can have the best social marketing skills in the world – but without a “sticky” and relevant brand name it’s an uphill struggle to achieve the brand recall required to build a long term relationship.
Therefore, in this article we’re going to take a look at some basic principles of marketing your business in the modern world, but first, we’re going to look at the power of choosing a name for your business.
CHOOSING A NAME
When it comes to branding there are many components to be considered, yet one of the most important is your name. Now, when it comes to choosing a name there are several aspects you’ll want to think about some of which are featured below:
- DOMAIN AVAILABILITY
The first thing you’ll want to do is to check that the domain for your brand name is available, as almost all successful companies use the .com domain for their business – meaning, if yours is already taken, it is easier to rework your brand name than it is to purchase the domain of someone that already has it.
That said, if it is a premium domain that is being sold by a premium domain reseller for a large fee – these domains are available, but are essentially being held hostage for a huge ransom. You can negotiate, to a point, but few decent domains will be sold for under $1,000 if they are with a premium reseller.
- TRANSLATIONS
The name you come up with might sound great in Australia, or to other English speaking countries but you’ll want to ensure it doesn’t translate into something offensive or damaging to your brand in other languages. Indeed, it’s a good idea to find a translation service for important documents so that you can be sure you are communicating what you think you are communicating, and what you want to be communicating.
- SPELLING
Is the word easy to spell, and in a similar vein, is the name easy to say? Does it spell in the same way that it sounds? This is pretty important, as most people will be typing in this word to a search engine – meaning if it’s a complex or peculiar word that isn’t spelled the same way it sounds, it can be confusing and result in you not being found online.
- LEGAL ISSUES
Be sure you don’t infringe on other companies intellectual property rights by copying their brand or creating the inference or representation that you are somehow linked or aligned with an established brand. In this sense, you’ll want to come up with something novel.
- RELEVANCE
You’ll want to ensure your name is relevant to your product or service, but that doesn’t mean it needs to spell out what you do. Whilst there are well known brands such as TripAdvisor which are descriptive in their nature, there are other brands such as Apple that does not prescribe what they do.
The best brand names tend to offer some idea of what the company does; for instance SkyScanner is a good example; as it straight away captures what they do (compare air fares across all airlines and routes) without being so literal that it is boring.
Now that we’ve covered the importance of picking out a good brand name, we now need to look at the process of marketing your business in the modern world in three simple steps.
The first step is to capture the attention of your audience, which is particularly challenging given the information overload we are all subjected to on a daily basis – meaning advertising messages are becoming more and more prolific (thus, we are switching off to them) meaning there is a lot more competition to “get into your head” by breaking your thought pattern with a distracting captivating message that hooks your attention.
The second step is go engage your audience – as just because you have their attention for a split second does not mean that you are able to build a relationship with them enough that they can absorb your marketing message with an open mind.
The final step is to convert your audience’s attention and engagement into action; meaning they will do something as a result of seeing your advert and eventually become a customer. This step is all about creating value and converting their interest into intent to buy.
STEP ONE: CAPTURE
The first thing you need to do is capture your audience’s attention. This means you need to disrupt their current thought process to hook them into your world; and the best way to do this is to ask them a question.
The brain can’t help but answer a question, for instance, even if you don’t want to be distracted by the question that’s about to be asked – your brain simply cannot resist answering a question.
For instance, how hot or cold is your right hand, right now?
Whether you want to or not, your attention for a split second will go to your right hand to assess how the temperature of your right hand. This means, that questions control focus – and this is something expert marketers know a lot about.
In a negotiation, the person that asks the questions controls the conversation as they control where the person’s focus goes. In this sense, you need to ask a question that gets into the head of the person seeing your advert.
The best way to do this is to ask a question relating to a particular pain point, and one that will get attention in the sense that it breaks people out of their inner thought pattern and disrupts their attention.
For instance, if a question of “how are you feeling today” was to be asked in an advert – it’s not going to have much impact. Whereas, if you were to ask the question “struggling to get it up” with an aligned graphic you will instantly get the attention of all men because it’s a pain point where they either fear this happening or feel humiliated by the fact it is an issue they suffer with.
This might sound a little mean, but the most potent way to get people’s attention is to focus on something that grabs their attention because it riles up a pain point – meaning, a problem they wish to resolve.
When you consider almost all TV advertising you can see that the primary purpose of the advert is to capture our attention by focusing on a pain; whether that’s the embarrassment of being at the gym without adequate period protection or the thought of dying without having enough money to pay for your own funeral… it’s all about tapping into pain points, by asking questions that grab attention.
STEP TWO: ENGAGE & CONNECT
The next step is to connect with your audience. Now that you have their attention, it’s what you do with it that matters.
If we go back to this idea of disrupting people by asking them a question to focus their attention on a problem or fear they have in their lives, the next step is to solve that problem and soothe that pain.
This is where, in television adverts you’ll find a turning point, whereby the focus shifts from the pain of the problem to the joy of the solution. You’ve gone from people looking embarrassed and concerned in a yoga class that their sanitary towel might be leaking – to now skipping along in the sunshine feeling confident and alive.
This is somewhat of an archaic approach, however, as today most of us close down to such obvious silliness… today, creating value for your audience is what connects you with them – particularly for smaller businesses. This is where video marketing is so powerful, as it allows you to connect and build a relationship with your audience in a way that words alone cannot achieve.
STEP THREE: CONVERT TO ACTION
The final stage in the process is to convert the prospects interest into an intent to buy, and the best way to do that is to provide so much value in stage two of the process that they now have rapport with you and your company – meaning they start to trust and like your brand, seeing it as an authoritative source of information that cares about people and can solve the particular challenge they face.
This is where you start to position your solution as the best solution to their problem.
You have rattled their cage a little by asking a question that focuses on a pain point, and then provided some free value added advice to build rapport and create a connection — now, from a place of value-added authority you can recommend your product as the “best” solution to overcome their problem and command a “call to action” so that the prospect takes immediate action to solve the problem they face.
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Vinh Van Lam & Stuart Horrex
Your Coaches ArtSHINE industries
