All posts by Jay

Tagline For On-line Fashion Boutique

Names + Taglines

I am launching a online fashion website called StyleFast targeting women 16-35yrs old. The site will be updated weekly with a range of the latest fashion (dresses, tops, skirts etc). This is not high end fashion, rather consumable fashion – wear it a few times sort of thing. I am after an appropriate tagline that suits both the brand and has appeal to the target market.

  1. The target market is interested in wearing the latest fashion styles at affordable prices. They want to show off to their peers that they have the latest look before these styles hit traditional stores.
  2. We are selling clothing
  3. Our point of difference is that we have access to certain fashionable labels before the traditional outlets. Our fashion site will have totally new clothing ranges every week.

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Jay’s Answer:

  • Wear The Latest Looks…First!
  • The 1st Stop For Affordable Fashion

2 Billboards Next To Each Other

Publicity

I have just launched a PC e-shop.My company rented some billboards to advertise it, 2 of them are next to each other. My question: is there any tips or hints how to take advantage of this? I mean, is better, if I use them as one field, or make them different…?

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Jay’s Answer: If people will be seeing the billboards in sequence (walking/driving down the street in the same direction), then you can use a repeating theme or a connecting message (such as “Still waiting for your PC to reboot, again?”). If the billboards are for different directions of travel, then simply reinforce your message.

Client Nostalgia Driving Bad Logo Design

Services

Our client is a 50-year-old family company. They are looking to polish their identity. They have used an apple as part of their identity for 50 years. They are highly recognized by their local audience by the apple. The logo solution obviously needs to keep the apple. The problem is, the client has also been using a clip-art crane in the logo for a number of years. The logo evolved to this point because the family realized the obvious, their audience wouldn’t associate them with the crane/construction industry with their script logo and apple. We’ve gone to great lengths trying to explain to them the drawbacks of the crane and how it makes the company look like a mom and pop. They won’t let the crane go. There are so many obvious logo design issues to list here, when you consider the solution must use the apple, and the boom needs to remain inside the apple to meet the families requirements. The family is convinced the logo needs a crane to be recognized it is a supplier of large cranes for heavy lifting.

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Jay’s Answer: Why not have their clients have a say in the logo picking. Let them vote on the design – with a donation to a favorite charity as the contest prize? It’s not what you think, it’s not what the client thinks, it’s what the public thinks/remembers that ultimately counts.

Best Ways Of Promoting Courier Service In Dubai

Publicity

We are into courier service & wants to know the best way of promoting our business & improving our sales. Is newspaper advertising or through pamphlets or through online medium, but preferably which would be the best advertising medium to improve sales.

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Jay’s Answer: Are there a lot of other companies that already perform courier service in Dubai? If so, how do they promote their service? How would you be different/better than they are?

Who specifically would you target? Why would they need your services (instead of using an electronic service)?

Name My Virtual Assistant Business

Names + Taglines

I am starting a virtual assistant business and I need to find a name and tag line. I have been an assistant for several years in a wide-range of industries (finance, legal, consulting management, engineering). I would like to leverage my years of experience to start a virtual business.

My target market would be primarily small business owners and virtual executives in various industries. The focus is to provide assistance with coordinating and managing the administrative aspect of projects, as well as basic administrative/clerical tasks. I will be providing my services on part-time bases.

I am currently considering Elite Administrative Services, Elite Assistance or Administrative Asset for the name, but I would like other options for a name along with a tag line.

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Jay’s Answer: Start with a name, rather than a tagline. And when considering your name, think whether your clients will care (or know what it means) if you’re “virtual”. Start with what specialness you bring to your customer’s lives and business. How does managing administrative projects/tasks truly help them? What can you do that they can’t do themselves, or by hiring others to do it? How do you know what you do is the “obvious choice” for them? How can you prove it?

Not every business owner (large or small) wants to delegate to someone outside of their organization. Add to this the fact that they’re unlikely to meet you face-to-face. This sort of relationship is for a special type of person/manager, someone who trusts the process and knows that 24/7 you’re there to solve their problems better than an “in-house” employee or local consultant.

All the names you’re considering are fine, but none of them truly showcase what you can do. Focus on a narrower niche of expertise – specializing in a type of business, a region, a technology, a certification, etc. People who are looking for virtual assistants have a plethora of choices to find them. Think about how to make YOUR business stand out from all the others.

Seeding Doubt In Your Marketing

Creative Business Ideas

Doubt Your Marketing?

(Photo by Christine)

Doubt is like a psychological cancer. First you have a smidgen of doubt, then you’re starting to focus on the doubt itself, until it can take over all of your attention. But how can you control doubt in your own business marketing?

First, start with your existing business relationships. If a prospect has any doubt about your capabilities, unless you have a plan to address it, the doubt will become self-fulfilling. That means that if you have any doubt about your ability to take care of your customer, either get some colleagues to help bolster your weaknesses or focus on your unique expertise, and leave what you don’t do well to others.

When marketing your business, if you’ve ever heard a client say, “I wish I knew about you sooner” – it’s time to plant the seeds of doubt in your marketing copy. For example, instead of simply saying your printing business has the latest equipment and offers 24 hour turnaround, tell people how much stress they can avoid dealing with you. For example:

  • Doesn’t your dog deserve Alpo?
  • Cooks who know trust Crisco
  • When you absolutely, positively have to have it overnight (FedEx)
  • Invest with confidence (T. Rowe Price)
  • Imagine it. Done. (Unisys)
  • Always low prices. Always. (Walmart)

The key to seeding doubt is to be able to understand the #1 emotional fear of your prospective customers. What keeps them up at night? If you can touch upon the fear (either directly or by hinting at it), then your marketing will resonate inside them and cause an emotional response. To be effective, you need a one-two punch: raise the doubt and show your offering removes the doubt completely.

If you’re in the throws of doubt, here are some tips to get you out of the potentially paralyzing downward spiral:

  • Is there anything I can do about this doubt? If there is, take action.
  • Have any of my assumptions changed?. If you already made a choice based on available information, and those assumptions are still valid, then a rethink isn’t of any use to you.
  • Is my current decision good enough? There may be lots of ways to solve a problem. Has the decision you made resulted in a solution that’s sufficient?
  • Why now? Why has this doubt come to your attention now? Is someone trying to specifically influence you or did you just make a key realization?

Check Your List Twice

Book Reviews, Creative Business Ideas

A marketing checklist

(Photo by Oregon Department of Transportation)

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
– George Santayana

Before I send out my monthly newsletter, I run through a set of steps to ensure that my newsletter makes the right first impression. But last month, I took a shortcut, and goofed (again).

First of all, here’s my simple checklist:

  • Send a copy of my newsletter to a few different email addresses I maintain. My goal is to make sure it looks right, and is deliverable.
  • Read every word of the newsletter. Even though I’ve written all of the articles, it’s easy to think I remember what I said. Sometimes, there’s a typo or there are problems with using special symbols in the newsletter that only show up in email programs.
  • Click every link. Ensure that every link in the newsletter works correctly. While this would seem obvious, I missed checking all the links, and had a bad URL in my newsletter.

While making a marketing mistake isn’t life-threatening, it feels embarrassing. On one hand – having my readers point out my gaffes makes me feel dumb – on the other hand – it also lets me know that people want to read everything I write.

Checklists are a time-honored way to ensure you don’t screw up the big or small things. As a private pilot, I was taught my pre-flight checklist well. Walk around the plane, touch everything, look at every gauge, get all current weather conditions, double-check things now (before it truly matters). As you gain experience, the desire to take shortcuts increases. Of course everything works. Of course I know that certain things aren’t that important. Experts know that a checklist is there to save them from their own blindness. Experts depend upon the monotony of a boring list to ensure that they don’t miss anything. Problems will appear, but there’s no good excuse not to deal with avoidable problems.

The Checklist ManifestoThese points are drilled home in The Checklist Manifesto (by Atul Gawande). Atul was inspired to improve surgical problems by developing a safe surgery checklist. Noticing how many details are impossible to remember, he worked with airplane pilots to understand how and why flight checklists were developed and how these checklists resulted in “happy endings”. He then applied the same practices to surgery, refining the checklists until the results were dramatically better.

If you have a system for doing a task, write it down (and test it). If you develop a system for your clients, test it first, then write it down. The bonus for having a written system is that you can easily delegate it to others, and instead focus on the parts of your business that you want to, rather than have to.

Train Your Customers

Creative Business Ideas

Train Your Customers

(Photo by yvonne n)

The customer is always right.
Do what it takes to make the sale.
Always give 110% effort.

These are the maxims of business – do what is asked of you and you will benefit. But this means that you’re always at the mercy of the customer. When the customer asks you to jump, you ask, “How high?” But this is no way to live, and no way to conduct a business that will let you sleep soundly at night.

Start by figuring out exactly who your ideal customer is. What’s their annual budget? How many times a year do they need your services? When? Why specifically did they choose you? And why have they continued to choose you (especially since the competition has grown smarter)? What keeps them up at night? How have things gone right over your working relationship?

Next, figure out exactly what working relationship works best for you. Do you prefer to check emails twice a day, be on retainer, have client phone calls at 9am? Do you want your client to respond within one business day for any clarifications?

Your goal is to have more ideal customers working in alignment with your needs.

Start by picking your most important need, and clearly articulating that in all initial working agreements with your client as well as during initial meetings. You don’t want to be seen as a prima donna, but you’ll want to explain why this need is a good thing for everyone. If your client doesn’t uphold your need, gently remind them (it may take awhile). If a client cannot uphold your requirements, you may need to fire them (or learn to live with some intrusions).

As your first need is met, then add your second need. Again do so gradually, making clear in all your communication this need. Repeat as necessary.

The bottom line: Keeping clear boundaries will earn you more respect and make your working relationships much more enjoyable.

Tagline For Industrial Company

Names + Taglines

We are a newly merged northern industrial distribution company located throughout 5 provinces. We mostly tailor to the forestry, mining and oil & gas industries selling tools, safety products, janitorial products, etc. For our customers in isolated areas with crucial deadlines and harsh climates, time is of the essence. We want to portray the strength of a large cooperation with a mama and papa store friendliness /know how. Our company attributes are: reliable, knowledgeable, easy to work with. How do we reflect this in a compact tagline?

What makes us different is that we will strive to find the product the customer needs in a timely fashion. We know exactly what the customer wants, how quickly they need it, and who to direct them too if we don’t have it. Hence, we are a reliable source of information. The geographical locations of our branches are a plus since mining, forestry, oil & gas industries are almost all in isolated locations. Transportation to some of these locations are constricted since the area freezes over (ice roads). 98% of our customers are men who need a product (tool piece, etc.) as fast as possible to be able to continue with their job. Our customers do like the friendly ,laid back but savy service our counter salespeople have.

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Jay’s Answer:

  • The Easiest Way To Get What You Need
  • Need It Fast? We Can Help.
  • Personalized Industrial Help

Making My Business More Known

eMarketing

I have set up a small business in South Africa that helps overlander travelers. These are people who travel usually from Europe down either the East or West coasts of Africa to Cape Town. When arriving here they may want to store their vehicle, ship it home or just need a place to crash for a while. There are not a great amount of people doing this but I believe in time this number will increase.

I have opened the business and now I need to get people through the door, I have a website (www.africanoverlanders.com) which I have paid for some SEO services for and I am now very high in the rankings on my keywords. I have a facebook page (Africanoverlanders) which I post things happening, offers and encourage members to post on it, like a difficulty with a border crossing etc. I also ask other owners of facebook pages if I can advertise on their page. I have posters up in other campsites around the continent.

I have now come to the end of my small pot of marketing skills. I don’t have a huge budget but does anybody have any other ideas how I can promote my company further. Any ideas at all would be welcome so that I know I am doing as much as possible.

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Jay’s Answer: Since you have Google Analytics installed, what have you learned – are you getting traffic (especially from the keywords you’ve targeted) and not getting any people contacting you or are you not getting sufficient traffic?

Looking at your home page, it’s not until your last paragraph do you detail what your visitor would care about. Why not link from some of these words (campsite, accommodation, storage, etc.) to your inner pages.

Why not have a link to a map of where you’re located and also list yourself using free services such as: http://www.google.com/places/)?

Finally, make it more obvious how to contact you – put your contact information in your banner and/or footer of your pages.