Your Complete Guide to Domain Name Branding

November 12, 2008 at 11:46 am | In Corporate Branding, Personal Branding, Success Strategies, eBrand, marketing | 8 Comments

I’ve received countless emails and questions during my speaking presentations about selecting the right domain name. I want to address all of these questions in this post and give you a few strategies you can use with domain names to brand yourself, your business, your content or all three. I’ve spoken about the importance of protecting your personal brand in the digital age, but now it’s time to give you real strategies.

Step 1: Choose your strategy

Many people skip this step because they get excited and/or hear one of my talks and immediately want to protect their personal brand by securing this domain name. These individuals might have the right idea, but have forgotten one keyword: marketing.

  • Corporate branding: Your strategy for registering a corporate brand is simple, just use the company name. Before you name your company, you should already have the domain name. If it’s taken, then move on or try to purchase it from someone else immediately. Otherwise, when your brand becomes more successful (your business is worth more) a third party might charge you 10x more for that same domain name. It’s much better to pay the ~$7 upfront.
  • Personal branding: The first thing you want to do is Google your name. Depending on the results, your strategy will be different. If you have a common name, your strategy will be different than having a unique name.
    • Unique: You won’t run into any problems owning your Google results (you will be the master of your domain).
    • Common: You will have to brainstorm different name options.
  • Asset branding: A content-driven website, such as a blog or podcast, that is branded under a single domain name, and possibly sub domain names (subdomain.domain.com). An example is advertising.ducttapemarketing.com. Of course this “asset brand” could become a corporate brand if one of the objectives is to monetize it.
  • Redirect branding: I think one of the most innovative approaches to domain name branding is to redirect a domain to a single source. For instance, purchasing joemaddenvideoresume.com and redirecting that to a video resume on YouTube. This way, it’s short and logical enough to include on a resume or another website for promotional purposes.

Step 2: Purchase the domain names

  • Corporate branding: If you’re looking to brand your business, then register yourbusiness.com, yourbusiness.net and yourbusiness.org. The reason you need all three is because someone else could purchase one or both of the other two and build a business around it. Also, your competition might be tempted to purchase the other two to piss you off or confuse your customers.
  • Personal branding:
    • Unique: Use fullname.com.
    • Common: You can use firstmiddlelastname.com, nickname.com, or showname.com. A nick name could be shwibbs.com (my nickname from college). A show name could be iJustine.com. If all else fails, register a set of keywords that you want associated with your name and in between the <title> </title> HTML tags, put those keywords followed by your full name, such that “Personal Branding Blog – Dan Schawbel.”
  • Asset Branding: If you are branding a blog or podcast series, then purchase either namepodcast.com or nameblog.com, where name equals the name of your show or topic. I see no problem with using just name.com for an asset branding strategy, as long as you find some way to call attention to the media people will be exposed to when viewing your site.
  • Redirect Branding: You should purchase the title of your promotional item, such as yournameresume.com or yournameportfolio.com.

Step 3: Point domain names at hosts

Aside from redirect branding, you will have to purchase hosting space in order to fire up your website, which will be connect with your domain. Services such as GoDaddy, Host Monster, Bluehost and 1&1 provide you with packages, where you can purchase a domain name and a host for a single price (domain names are usually free with hosts).

Here are some strategies for you:

  • Corporate Branding: Connect yourbusiness.com with an associated web host and redirect/forward your other domain names to it (.net and .org).
  • Personal Branding: Take yourname.com and pair it with a host. You should decide if you want your brand’s homepage to be a blog (install WordPress.org) or a static webpage.
  • Asset Branding: This is very similar to the other two options, depending on the type of asset and goals behind it.

Why do branded domain names matter?

One of the mistakes I made early in my personal branding career is that I used wordpress.com to host my blog for free (the blog you are reading). Don’t worry because in 2009, there will be a complete overhaul! Branded domains are important because they are credible, rank high in Google and give you branded email addresses that you can use for business purposes.

If you have any domain name questions please leave them in the comments or email me.

Capture Minds by Actively Marketing Your Personal Brand

November 12, 2008 at 1:42 am | In Book Reviews, Interview, PR, People, Personal Branding, Positioning, Success Strategies | 2 Comments
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Today, I spoke with Tony Rubleski, whose here to help your brand break free from the clutter and mass messages sent daily.  Tony reveals some important marketing strategies that could help broaden the awareness of your brand, attract new clients and start a word-of-mouth buzz campaign.  We also discuss writing great content and how to get some free publicity for your brand.  If you build it, people probably won’t come, but if you build it and market it to the right audience, they will.

What challenges do businesses, as well as people, face in a world of clutter? How do they break free and get noticed?

The challenges are daunting in this age of marketing clutter or what I deem the age of advertising deficit disorder. For starters, information online is doubling every 18-months. We’re buried with choice and drunk on information. In addition, the typical North American is hit with 4-5000 marketing messages per day. It’s no wonder we all have a built in “BS Meter” as it relates to marketing.

Breaking free from the clutter to get what I call ‘Mind Capture’ isn’t easy but it is achievable. Let me offer three quick clues as the new book offers up many more:

1. Target the best prospects possible and customize your message to connect. Too many businesses never stop and analyze who their best clients are and how they sourced to them. Once you know this, find out where other similar prospects associate or can be found and target them with laser like precision.

2. Use strong evidence or marketing proof in your online and offline marketing efforts. The quickest form of credibility is a well written testimonial letter, review or video. What someone else says about you is a thousand times more believable than anything you say. In this age of marketing overload you have to prove your case quickly and establish maximum credibility sooner than later.

3. Focus on referrals within your business. Cold marketing is expensive and time consuming. Your existing customers can take you to more people than you’d ever imagine. The problem is that most people never humble themselves to ask their best customers to ‘introduce’ them to people they know. If it’s not a part of your overall daily marketing strategy to seek out and ask for referrals, it’s often forgotten and the business misses out on a lot of potential opportunities.

What are 5 cost effective marketing strategies people can use starting today?

1. Go to Amazon.com and get my new book for $13 plus free shipping as it’s loaded with a TON of strategies, actual marketing pieces and it’s easy to read and implement. I know it may be self serving, but the book’s valuable and a much lower cost than paying me $500.00 an hour.

2. Ask your top 10 clients to introduce you to two people they know that may be a good fit for what you do.

3. Communicate and make more offers to your existing customers. They already trust you, will look at your offer, and have a higher tendency to make a repeat purchase or refer you to someone they know that may have a need even if they currently don’t.

4. Upgrade your current marketing evidence such as testimonials, pictures, and website. It takes a little bit of time but it will serve you well in the future when you’re in a competitive situation and you win a deal because you’ve outfoxed and given more proof than your competition has or is willing to provide.

5. Create and use a powerful guarantee in your marketing efforts. This is gutsy but a smart strategy to employ. Too many people are afraid to back up their claims. Believe me, you’ll attract more business with a great guarantee than you might lose even if someone takes you up on your guarantee.

How do you generate free publicity to help promote your brand?

Free publicity, in my opinion, is easy to get. The quickest strategy I can give you is to partner with a local cause or charity you believe in. Leverage the good work into a simple media release and get it to the local media, chamber of commerce, your clients and the causes list of donors and volunteers.

This isn’t self-serving by any means but a powerful “win-win” for everyone involved and I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Can you explain the shift from a “sales pitch” to “great content” in the new marketing world?

The shift from pure sales pitch to great content is simply the ability to educate clients and prospects as to why you are the best option. In a world with lots of choice, the Internet and intense competition, your mission is now to educate within your overall marketing strategy. Take people by the hand, educate and prove your case is what progressive firms will do to stand out and again build Mind Capture.

What are your 6 societal forces that top marketers can use to create highly effective and profitable offers?

The six societal forces top marketer’s must be aware of with today’s prospects to create better marketing messages are:

  • They’re cynical
  • They have too many choices
  • They’re bombarded with 4-5000 marketing messages per day
  • They’re excellent at tuning our marketing messages
  • Smarter than ever
  • Time starved

How have you built your personal brand and gotten the attention you’ve deserved?

Building the Mind Capture brand and message is an ongoing process and strategy that evolved over five years ago when I wrote the first book and had a vision of where I wanted the business to go, serve, and grow into. It wasn’t a snap decision but a well thought out plan.

The business keeps evolving, changing and growing. The brand stays consistent and is vital. Don’t be fooled but direct response marketing is my passion, but I also see the value of branding. I’ve studied up close with the best direct marketer’s in the world and sold media for many years to traditional brand driven clients of all shapes and sizes. When you combine both disciplines properly you have a decided marketing advantage and can spot opportunities most people rule out or dismiss.

——
Tony Rubleski is the President of Mind Capture Group. His latest venture is the release of his second book in the Mind Capture book series titled, MIND CAPTURE: How You Can Stand Out In The Age of Advertising Deficit Disorder. The book has received excellent reviews from many of the top marketing minds and thought leaders on the planet and went #1 with Amazon.com on July 29th, 2008 in the marketing, advertising and sales categories. His work has been featured in many outlets including Bottom Line Magazine, The Detroit Free Press, the FOX TV Network and several prestigous marketing newsletters.

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