Archive | August, 2018

A product’s name can often make the difference between best seller, and total dud.

Here’s some tips to help you choose a name for your new product that tilts the odds of success in the marketplace in your favor.

Make it memorable – Can someone recall the name 30 minutes after hearing it? If not, you might be picking a name that’s too generic. Something that paints a visual picture works the best.

Make it meaningful – Can someone look at the name and have a good idea of what the product does? If so, you might have a winner.

Be open – Just because you don’t immediately love a name doesn’t mean it isn’t the right one.

Say it out loud – Is it a name that people like to say out loud? If so, that can only help your viral marketing.

Check the name’s history – You might think you’ve got the perfect product name, but a few years ago a scam company used the same name for their product and then took the money and ran. Do a thorough search to find out who else is using the name and what type of products it’s being used on (or was used on in the past).

Break rules – If competing products tend to have similar names, choose something that totally sets you apart from the crowd.

Make a long list of possibilities – Don’t stop on the 5th name you think of – make a list of a hundred or more and then narrow it down. Sometimes the best name is the one you think of after you’ve made your list of 100 and you’re in the shower, thinking about something else. And the longer the list, the more confident you’ll be when you make your final selection.

Now that you know some guidelines for naming your product, go out there and create a new one so you can bring it to market and experience the power of these tips yourself.

There is a school of thought that says when you are choosing a niche, find something small and highly targeted. And that can be great if you end up being the big fish in a little pond. But if another big fish comes along in that same pond – or worse yet, a whole school of big fish – then you’re in trouble.

So here’s a thought – why not be a little fish in a big pond, but do it in such a way that you stand out like a neon red fish in a school of gray boring fish?
Let’s say you want to write a marketing blog – guess what? There are a million marketing blogs (or more) and the field is darn crowded. That’s the bad news. The good news is there are plenty of people who want to read about marketing every day – you just have to stand out from the crowd so they can find you.
So maybe instead of your niche being, “Great Marketing Ideas!” Or “Super Swell Marketing Tips!” your niche could be, “Marketing for Chiropractors Who Hate Marketing.” Or perhaps, “Marketing For Cookbook Authors.” See what’s happening? You’re in a HUGE niche, but you’ve carved it down to a very specific group within that niche.
Now that’s good, but it’s still not great. After all, they’re likely to visit you, but will they remember you? Will they race to open your email each time you send them something? Maybe. Maybe not. So what we need to do is kick it up another notch.
And this is where you get weird, my friend. Don’t worry – secretly we are ALL weird. Being “weird” simply means being “different” than the crowd. And online, that’s a really, really good thing.
Mind you, this advice goes for websites and products as well as blogs. Take this idea for example…
mentalfloss.com/article/23836/weird-website-week-selleck-waterfall-sandwich
This famed website was exclusively dedicated to 3 things: Tom Selleck, Waterfalls and Sandwiches. You’ll be surprised at all the different ways those 3 things can come together.
HA! Okay, I admit, I was having a little fun with you there. While that is an ACTUAL WEBSITE, it’s best used as an illustration of perhaps taking “weird” just a bit too far.
We simply want to go one step further to make our brand sticky in the minds of our visitors. You can do that with a memorable URL, such as EatMyFrog.com. Seriously, are you likely to forget “Eat My Frog dot com?” Not likely.
Another technique to set you apart and make yourself memorable is by adding some personality to your name.
And it’s easy to do – just give yourself a nickname. Is this weird? I hope so – after all, that is what we’re going for. Remember, “weird” = memorable.
Here are ideas for nicknames – take something about yourself, be it a past profession, a hobby, a physical feature, a personality quirk or whatever, and give yourself a name centered around that. Some examples:
Farming could be “Farm Girl” Truck driving – “The Mad Truck Driver” Ex Military – “Soldier Sue” or “Sailor Sam.” Physical features – “The Redhead” Hobbies – “Ski Fanatic” Foods You Love – “Tony Bagels”
Better still, nickname yourself after your Expertise. For example:
Mr. Googlehead for an SEO expert. Now when they get an email from “The Redhead” or “Mr. Googlehead,” they’re going to remember you, which means they are much more likely to open and read your email.
Now not only is your niche properly carved down to make you an important little fish in a big pond – you’re also a more MEMORABLE fish. Think it’s silly? Really, it’s just good marketing sense. You’re branding yourself to make yourself memorable – and memorable is good!

English is a very common language, but Mandarin Chinese is even more common – to the tune of 836 million people (or more, depending on which source you use.)

And you might want to consider other languages, too, such as…

Hindi (333 million)

Spanish (332 million)

English (322 million)

Bengali (189 million)

Arabic (186 million)

Russian (170 million)

Portuguese (170 million)

Japanese (125 million)

German (98 million)

French (72 million)

And it gets even more interesting. What percentage of online shoppers speak English? Probably 80-90%, right?

Actually no. So it must be 50-75% then?

You might think so, but no. The answer is just 27% of online shoppers speak English.

Can you see now why you might want to target other languages?

So how do you translate your website into another language? You might use Google Translate http://translate.google.com/translate_tools or any of the translating plug-ins that are available. Of course, these are only machine translations, and your results may vary. Sometimes wildly.

A better course of action is to hire someone off of the freelancing sites who is fluent in English and your language of choice.

Once you’ve got your website translated, you can then offer products in that language, including your own. Naturally you’ll want to get those translated as well.

Be sure to do research into the country you are targeting, just as if you were moving there. Find out what is important to them, what is offensive, who their celebrities are, what slang is commonly used, etc.

If you are really serious about marketing in this new country, you might want to learn the language. No, you don’t need to speak it fluently, you just need to be able to read and write it (easier than speaking.)

Find people you can trust, such as freelancers and even business partners native to that country or region.

And one more thing to consider: Keywords. Unfortunately, keywords don’t necessarily translate well, and so you may want to get some help with this as well for your multi-languange search engine optimization efforts.