Archive for Branding
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As everyone knows every corporation needs a logo and stationary and as only some of you know - I can’t draw worth a damn -. So I decided to once again utilize the social networking aspects of the internet and bring designers to me rather than the other way around. I setup a design competition on a very useful website called Sitepoint.com. This is an amazingly useful webpage and as it turns out running a contest on the site is very responsive. I submitted the competition at around midnight last night and within 12 hours I already had 19 submissions. There are already several of the submissions that I like, and I am sure there will be many more to come. The details of the competition can be seen on the contest brief page if you are an artist and want to compete for this prize money. One thing that I forgot to announce is that I will probably be picking about 3-4 winners and utilizing their designs I will let my consumers pick the most successful design. As I did when picking my corporate name, I will use Google Adwords, Google Analytics, and Shopify (as recorded in my previous posts) to guide me to the best and most responsive logo. I’ll let the CTR (Click Through Rate) and CR (Conversion Rate) make the decision for me. I’m giving the power to the consumers.
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In my previous post I forgot to mention one other important factor that help me decide what name I should pick: Conversion Rate! I used two important services for this. The first is Google Analytics which I have to say is an amazing tool. I do have to admit I am still a novice when it come down to utilizing it, but I still found the important information I needed. The second is the Shopify e-commerce shopping cart which allowed me to quickly setup a mock e-commerce site in order to test out my conversion rates. Another one of the reasons I picked Silverback over Airwear was because Silverback converted almost twice a well as Airwear, which I imagine is because of the Nikeish affiliation.
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Silverback Apparel Inc. <- Loves -> 
The Result
After much deliberation I have finally chosen a name . I am currently in the process of incorporating under the name Silverback Apparel Inc. in the State of New York. There are several factor that came into play for why I ended up with this name, but I will mostly attribute it to one of my favorite companies: Google. First off I was not looking for something that everyone liked. Vanilla is not my thing and so I wanted something that people either absolutely loved or hated. Silverback was exactly that. It was either the favorite, or the one that people did not like. It is important to differentiate yourself from your competitors in business and I know that Silverback is very unique in my product category. Especially after reading Seth Godin’s Purple Cow and his blog I really realized now that I made the right decision. He is a branding and marketing genius and has become known in the last 5 years as one of the most innovate and creative people in his industry. His books are a definite must for an budding entrepreneurs. I know that I have chosen well also, because every time I tell someone my corporation’s name they remember it. This will go a long way to saving me money, resources, and time which is going to be important during my future branding and marketing campaigns.
The Process
Referring to my previous posts I basically after polled about 50 people and ended up with this list (in order of polling results):
| Rank |
Name |
What I personally though of these names |
| 1 |
Vérité |
Liked but too boring. |
| 2 |
Airis |
This was my second favorite but it does not stand out enough. |
| 3 |
Airwear |
Something you would expect from Nike or Airwalk. |
| 4 |
Nuair |
Nike thing again. |
| 5 |
J Denis |
Too many designers use this sort of naming scheme. |
| 6 |
Silverback |
Personal favorite because it speaks to me and my target market. |
There was no conclusive winner when it came down to the results, although Vérité was liked by everyone. I intended on using the simply to create a shortlist of names and this is what I got. Once I had this short list it was time to figure out what was the best way to figure out what consumers would respond to the best. The best way that I believe that you can achieve this is by testing the names within the market, and that is what I did. By utilizing Google’s Adwords program I was able to put these 6 names through a campaign that included 27,918 impressions evenly distributed throughout the names. I ran the campaign for several days and low and behold I did have a conclusive answer: Airwear and Silverback. These two both out preformed the other names by such a wide margin that I did not even bother thinking about the other names again. This left me with having to decide between the two, and because of the uniqueness of Silverback and the ease of rememberance, this was a quick and painless decision. An there you have it! Google to the rescue once again. This is a tool that is in my opinion under utilized and I know that I will be using Adwords much more from now on.
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Through my focused effort on finding a corporate name for my business, I have realize that the process is a lot more intense and mentally extenuating than I thought it would be. I have found an excellent resource in the form of a visual thesaurus and article on naming your business from the same site.
I have also subjected the names from the previous post to an online ad campaign through Google Adwords. It too has taken longer than expected to get a result but this is due to my inexperience with Adwords. I am now still about a day from getting a conclusive return on my investment in this advertising. I will post the results of all my polling and Adwords shortly as well as what decision I have taken for the name.
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This is going to be a quick one. After doing extensive polling I have narrowed down the list to 9 names whose popularity was above and beyond that of all the others.
Here is the list:
Vérité
Airis
Airwear
J Denis
Nuair
Silverback
MarloWear
DeCosta
InUnI (In Unison)
I have an idea not long after I narrowed down the list which involved setting up a poll on Facebook and increasing the amount of polling traffic. I have just set it up and I am eagerly awaiting the results. Something else that I am going to setup is Goolge AdSense ad campaign in order to test the online marketability of the various names and see which names are more responsive. I’ll have a much better idea of the results in my next post.
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Due to my starting this blog well into the process of establishing my products and company there are a lot of things that I have not covered and I have jumped many steps with regards to documenting my startup. How ever there is one resounding issue that has held me in perpetual frustration when ever I think about it or I am asked about it. This issue is the ever elusive name that I will commit to and carry while representing myself, my company, and my product. My time budget is getting rather tight now with the manufacture and web designer waiting for my next move and so I need to incorporate ASAP. My lack of a creative spark in the naming department cannot hold me from incorporating anymore.
One of the hardest things for me is original creativity, and in this case I have not proven any differently. I would have to say that in the last 6 month since I have started working on bringing all the pieces together, a name has been the only real issue that I have struggled with. I am continually second guessing ones that I have have picked and those that have come from external sources. I must say that I am very disappointed that there has not been a “eureka” moment for me thus far. Because I am branding all my products with this name there is no turning back once I have committed myself. I have accumulated a list of about 50 names over the last 6 months that have not been complete ‘rubbish’ and now I must put them to the test. I have narrowed the list to one with 21 names and I am going to start polling people to find out which 5 they like in order of preference. I am going to weight the results of the top five assigning 5 point to the top and 1 to the fifth and thus hopefully I’ll get a clear impression of peoples likes and dislikes.
Here is the list:
InunI (In Unison)
Vérité
ID
Airwear
IsAir
Isdry
Nuair
Nudry
DryOath
AirVeil
Airis
iDry
Airricade
Didier
DriVeil
MarloWear
MintWear
Silverback
Varitas
Vedette
DeCosta
I hope to have something a little more conclusive by the end of the day.
Jon.
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