Welcome to Chez Cliff!

Relax. This isn’t about a profile on Match.com.

My online project hit a delay, which needs to be shared.

With the product out of development and the website coming together, the real reason why this idea was launched was somehow missed.

True, the Duct Tape Marketing book did a great job helping me map out a course. But the question, the oldest question in existence was missed.

Why.

Two characteristics of my demographic market: Mostly women, between 25 and 45.

Mentor: So why are these women looking for your product?
Clifford: Because our product is the best product out there. No one does what we do.
Mentor: That’s not what I asked. I asked ‘why’ women are looking for your product.
Clifford: . . .
Mentor: You’ll need to understand that. Once you truly understand the question, you’ll master how to give the answer. Then you’ll be onto something.
Clifford: I guess I missed that when learning about marketing.
Mentor: Learning about marketing? Where?
Clifford: From a book.
Mentor: That was your first mistake.

During the rest of our conversation, the topic of Guru.com came up. His suggestion: hire a marketing person for a few hours to solidify the marketing approach to the business.  Admittedly a part of me is extremely curious as to what this might yield.

What I did was not wrong.  Ideas for lead generation, referrals, the free newsletter . . . all of which are good.  But why is our demographic going to open their wallets?  What basic need or emotion are we responding to?

True: our product will be the best product out there.  No one offers what we offer.  But how many times through-out history has a great product been launched and then quickly forgotten?  How many great ideas or great products languish in obscurity because the marketing wasn’t there to push the product forward?

Our core ideas are still there.  This past week, the Partner and I have been reworking the ideas to fit our new marketing message.  

I’m quite anxious to see where this leads.

Parents have various reasons for the name they finally decide for their newborn child. Names such as “Dick” or “Bob” or “Delores”. Any parent may think of those names as innocent. After serving 12 years in public school, my experience with the constant abuse such names can inflict sends shivers up my spine.

Business owners are much the same. Naming a business can be fun, if not exciting. What about the domain name? Is it easy just to grab the domain which matches the business name? Furthermore does that domain name do your business justice? Or perhaps a large unintentional disservice.

Below is a listing of legitimate businesses and their domain names. My commentary has been added. But of course, feel free to let your imagination wander. Think of what your reaction would be, as a customer, if handed a business card with these domain names.

To repeat: these are legitimate businesses

Please note: this list has been rated PG-13.

Hat Tip to Tim over at MarketMe.com

Progress is being made.

The free newsletter is finished. And the product has sailed past the 50% completion point.

The only thing that really is outstanding: What in the world do I call this beast?

My foray into the world of small business before didn’t seem to matter much with the name. Usually the others in the group worried about it while I was busy working on actually producing something.

The names of the businesses, in retrospect, were pretty stupid. CCC, TFR Incorporated, CPI, Seascape . . .

Now with all this talk about marketing, the realization hit that any name off the the public bathroom wall won’t suffice. Something memorable, something easy, something “brandable” . . . which I still don’t know what that means.

When looking at names, I’m wondering what to make of them.

Acura – sounds of precision, excellence
FourHourWorkWeek – A goal of objective to strive for, taking control of one’s life
Microsoft – something soft to blow my nose with

In my former life as an engineer, I learned companies exist which do nothing but come up with names for businesses and products. Sometimes costing upwards to $100,000. For a name! And this science involves people, infinitely smarter than I, to search for latin definitions of words and stitching something together the general populace can understand. And pronounce.

OK. $100,000 seems to not be in the budget. So, I asked Lord Google. Many articles exist, “How to name your business”. Their advice: don’t make it too generic, not too specific. Don’t make it hard to pronounce or too exotic or too simple.

Thanks for wasting my time. I could have written that article myself. DUH!!

The site shall be a resource for people, I can’t name it after a product. If the soul function were to sell Twinkies online, then possible names could be “TwinkiesOnline.com” or “TwinkieNinja.com”. This is simply not my case.

But this isn’t something which can be put off much longer. And it’s not something I want to launch with until I have it squared away. Launching with some kind of filler name won’t be good. Our marketing depends on people know where to go online. Changing mid-stream will not be an option.

Part 2 of 2

From yesterday, the customer goes through different stages before they finally purchase a product. Today the first step between Suspect and Prospect will be broached.

To explain the theory behind this would not only bore you to tears but require me to become inebriated to the point where this article could not be finished. So I’ll explain through example.

My fictional online business idea: Sell Twinkies. Everything Twinkies. Twinkie shirts, Twinkie underoos, Twinkie Body Bags . . . we sell it all.

Start with Lord Google, the man with all the keys. Since nearly every homosapien uses his services this will be the place where we will focus on getting our message in front of our Suspects.

Millions of Twinkie websites exist. The trick: get the suspect doing the web search to (1) notice our ad (2) click on our ad. How do we do this?

“FREE”

Offer something for “FREE”. People love “FREE” stuff. But the offer must be something worthwhile. If we offered “Free poke in the eye with every purchase” then people will not click on the ad. Different examples of how to write up ads exist with Duct Tape Marketing and 4HWW.

My ad shall be a free educational newsletter. If valuable enough people will give up their email address. If they do, we have permission to start slowly marketing to them. Notice the word “marketing”, not “selling”. If the person’s email box is suddenly filled with “Buy our Twinkie Toothpaste” then your email may get deleted, reported as spam, and boogers flicked in your direction.

My inaugural, free newsletter shall be “Secrets of the Twinkie Diet Revealed! Free Report!” Armed with a great newsletter, the ad-campaign is launched.

Within the first week, nearly two thousand click-thru’s bring suspects onto the website. Two hundred give up their email for that newsletter thereby becoming Prospects.

It is feasible some Prospects will buy some products thereby becoming Clients. But that’s another topic. Those two hundred, we can start our marketing campaign.

For my real online business, the “Free Newsletter” will be used to gather the pool of Prospects.