I’m starting a homebased business in making made-to-order handmade chocolate candy and also other desserts using vanilla/cocoa. Therefore I need name/tagline that represents that the main ingredients used are cocoa. Furthermore the name must be easy to remember. Customers pay for the taste that they will remember and make they come back for more.

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Jay’s Answer:

• Nuts For Cocoa
• CocoaNuts
• Cocoa Addiction
• ChocoLots
• CocoaLove

We are a not-for-profit hospital and are kicking off a Prescription Drug Disposal Program for the entire community. We will also have have other health and wellness related information, activities for families/children, but the main draw is the disposal program. We need to use the acronym’s of the group that developed the program, but would like to have something that would draw attention and of course something “catchy”.

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Jay’s Answer: Create a mascot “Rx” (pronounced Rex) with some theme like: “Keep Rx Safe”, “Curb Rx”, or “Pill-ease Keep Rx On Leash”, etc.

You could create some games: a medicine bottle toss, find the expired meds (beat the clock), or even pill (non-med) arts & crafts.

I’m starting a Mobile mechanical and Brake business called “Brake & Mechanical Mobile Repairs”. Could I ask what you think may be Great tagline please?

I’ve come up with

• It’s the extra mile that counts
• You’ll Stop at the right place

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Jay’s Answer: A tagline should focus on a key benefit to your customer.

“It’s the extra mile that counts” hints at your extra service, but isn’t strong enough.

“You’ll Stop at the right place” is backwards: you come to them, instead of them coming to you. The pun about “stopping” is a little obscure

Here are some ideas:

• Reduce Your Exhaust-ion. We Come To You. – The key benefit is reducing car owner’s stress.
• A Day Spa For Your Auto (Car) – The spa/car gives you room to add additional service (for example auto detailing)
• I Improve Your Local-Motion – Another pun, but focuses on what your benefit is.

I am the marketing director for an IT consulting business. What would be the best source of learning material to achieve expert level status on SEM? Not so much the SEO portion but the PPC and CPA and other options. I recently read Perry Marshalls book on adwords twice. Have searched online but came up with nothing except expensive courses in far away places. Is there a book you could recommend? Or an online course?

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Jay’s Answer: After you’ve read a little, invest some money in your learning by doing. Work on a real website (yours or a friend’s) and start learning what works in reality. Really understand: how long it takes, which keywords, which geographic area, the offer/copy, etc.

As you create these various experiments, document them well. They’ll become the basis for your own “bible”. As you have problems, post the questions to SEO forums to get input. Real questions are much more valuable than theoretical ones.

I have a client that I am pitching not only a new logo but a new 10th anniversary “concept” to capitalize on their anniversary year. This business deals province wide in the promotion of business, economic and community development through various partnerships of over 200 communities. I am one of 6 invited to submit a proposal, so it has to be good. They are kicking around the tagline of “growing together” but are open to other options. What can I incorporate “10″ into that would create a buzz? What would it take for other businesses, as well as provincial, municipal and industry partnerships to pay attention to this special year? Any great ideas??? Help!

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Jay’s Answer:

Simple logo: (10 interlocks with growing together)

grow1ng
   t0gether

Since I don’t know the details of your client, it’ll be hard to come up with something specific. But the process I’d use would be to look at the success stories that the company has had, and extrapolate them forward. Have they eliminated homelessness? Have they improved the happiness quotient of residents? Have they taught people how to save money? Focus on the key benefits – that’s what others will care about in the promotion, not that they’ve been around for 10 years.

Perhaps you can get attention by having an essay contest for communities. Have them write a 100-word essay on why your client should help them, and the client would provide a year’s free service to the community. That’ll generate PR, and get the community working together for the goal.

I run an ad agency which collaborate with universities in implementing advertisements into their year book. Basically I run the whole print production, getting advertisers to advertise in the year book, basically everything.

Lastly since I’m running the company alone and doing basically everything, I’m not sure meeting the university management as well as advertisers with the title of C.E.O or President of the company is a good idea. Due to several reason, I’m quite young, my lack of experience my convey any unprofessionalism etc. I hope to be advised on a suitable title for my job scope when meeting university management as well as advertisers. Something high ranking but if I screw up a little it doesn’t affect the impression towards the company heavily. Maybe Business development director? Project executive? etc.? My brief job scope will be meeting universities in getting approval of this concept and meeting advertisers in presenting our concept and convincing them to advertise with us in the year book.

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Jay’s Answer: A great presentation is short, and focused on your prospect, showing specifically how you can help them. Keep to your time limit, leaving lots of time for Q&A.

Hand out paper after you talk, otherwise they’ll be looking at the paper and not at you. If you can help it, don’t use Powerpoint – tell a compelling story about using your services. Your handout can go over the actual numbers. You want them to want to know more about you.

Don’t read to them what’s written. That’s a waste of everyone’s time. You can refer to it, but don’t use it as your script.

You’re not at a meeting to make small talk. Before the meeting, do your homework about the university. Perhaps start the meeting by relating a recent university event to your business – it’ll show that you’ve done your homework.

Your goal for the meeting is to get them interested to find out more and for them to be open to a formal proposal.

I own a home inspection company ”Inspection Gator” and need a tag line before i start mymarketing campaign. We do a wind range of inspection and have years of experiance in the home construction. My logo is an alligator looking at a house through a magnifying glass.

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Jay’s Answer:

• Do You See What I See?
• We Defend Your Prime Territory
• Hunt Small Problems Before They Become Big
• What’s Lurking Under Your Roof?
• What Problems Are Lurking Under Your Roof?

The requirement is for a new NGO launching in concern with GLOBAL WARMING so need a few names and theme/ tag to go along with it. We had hell of options but either these names already exist or the website is blocked. e.g. We thought of H.E.A.T as in Hotter Earth And Troposhere – this one’s already taken.

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Jay’s Answer: Here are some available domain names:

• HotTimesAhead.org
• MyHotPlanet.org
• FutureHeat.org

As far as a tagline: you need to define who specifically you’re trying to target, and how your NGO will be different from all other organizations to date. These pieces define your unique offering and is the “meat” of your tagline.

I wanted to solicit your opinion on how to promote a site that I recently launched: www.goosca.com. This site is a social networking platform that allows its users to purchase real gifts for themselves or for other users (without knowing the recipients addresses in the latter case). Our company or affiliated vendors will do the delivery. Users who do not object to receiving gifts from others provide their addresses at the account registration time. These addresses will be kept confidential and will be used only for gifts delivery purpose. In your opinion, what would be the best way to promote the site and its ideas?

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Jay’s Answer: As you know, creating a new social networking platform isn’t hard – attracting people to it is. There are a huge number of sites competing for people (for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites)

It appears that the sole purpose of the site is ultimately ecommerce (and the way you generate revenue) – sending/receiving gifts to people whose address you don’t know. Your privacy policy doesn’t adequately describe the safeguards you place for ordering and storage of confidential user information. Also, sizing / color choices will be hard for people. Ideally, you want to say, send my new friend this thing, and have the friend choose the color/size to make sure the gift will be received in the spirit it was sent.

To build an online community, you first need critical mass – enough people online (of your target demographic) to attract more people of the same demographic via word-of-mouth. The first round can be your friends, people you know in a club, etc. You want a new visitor to visit and see lots of “action” online.

I’d strongly suggest teaming up with an existing networking site that already has active membership, and attempt to integrate your Goosca patent into their environment.

For a new business, it’s much easier to improve an existing offering than trying to create a new one from scratch.

Any ideas on how I can find people interested in a non-franchise business opportunity? Is there a website that I can post an ad for free? Any organizations for non-franchise business opportunity? I set up ergonomics clinics for selected qualified applicants; but have a hard time finding enough people. So far just set up a few clinics in Canada and want to increase the rate of opening new clinics in the USA and Europe.

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Jay’s Answer: It depends on the investment amount & terms you’re offering. If it’s a relatively small amount, classified ads (both print, Craigslist, or on investment websites). If it’s larger amounts, talk to your lawyer and banker and ask them “who you should talk to”. Also, create a simple one-page website advertising your opportunity. It’s inexpensive and may help find the person looking for exactly what you’re trying to sell.