We’ve just added a classic showcase to our Sponge Facebook page. It’s a blast from the past. 2008 to be precise.

Safari, a new energy drink enters the market and the brief was to stand out from the sea of the V green, and the blue/red of Redbull, which was an uphill battle!

With a striking can design (and vehicle design), and punchy energetic brand mark with a distinct tribal feel, this product did just that. Naturally we’d love to answer any questions you may have about this or any other brand, so feel free to ask them here or via message if you prefer to keep it private.

Check it out in all its glory here: https://www.facebook.com/TheSpongeSydney and “like” the page while you are there if you haven’t already!

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We’ve just added a showcase for HealthStreams to our Sponge Facebook page.

The Core Brief was to: Create a brand name & brand mark for a new online health directory that covers all health services from traditional medicine to alternative therapies.

Check it out the results here: https://www.facebook.com/TheSpongeSydney and “like” the page while you are there if you haven’t already!

And you can see the brand live here: www.HeatlhStreams.com.au & www.facebook.com/healthStreams

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Well-branded businesses have great stories. Take Mr. Kipling’s Exceedingly Good Cakes, for example. Old Mr. Kipling’s cakes are lovingly crafted one by one just the way your grandmother’s were. When you break one open it takes you straight back to Sundays on the farm when you were a young boy. They bring you back to a simpler time. A time before email or flooded basements of stinky nappies.  Mr. Kipling brings peace to the hurried mind.

As you may have guessed, there is no Mr. Kipling. That doesn’t stop his made-up wife, Mrs. Kipling, from managing a compelling Facebook page with over a hundred and fifty thousand followers.  People ask her questions and share their recipes.  They’re clamouring to be part of the Kipling story. It’s a community they feel they belong to.

Your business also has a story to share and it’s that story that makes your business worth watching in the virtual world. It’s what gets you those coveted followers, fans and connections.  It’s what keeps people coming back to see what your business is up to.

Many businesses have a stagnant website they had someone build sometime ago, that may or may not have regular updates.  Sites that are purely informational do get a small stream of clients looking for background or contact details but they don’t get much repeat business. And they almost never make it into any personal emails or linked back to in any interesting articles.

Your clients need inspiration. They live to be injected with that passion and it’s your job to provide it for them. They want you to tell them a story, preferably one they can share with their friends at a dinner party. It’s that story that will take you from never-heard-’o-them-before to this-is-a-community-where-I-belong.

‘Why would anyone be interested in my “community?” I sell air conditioners.’  Exactly. Why?  That’s the million dollar question and should be your starting point for everything you do with regard to social networking.

There is an enormous amount of work that needs to be done before you can get that plane off the ground. Intensive strategizing is necessary to taxi it to the start of the runway.  At both The Sponge and ThinkSocial, we start by workshopping with the key people in your business and understanding your brand story. If you don’t have one, we’ll develop that too.

Developing a timeline is crucial to your delivery plan. Many clients come into our offices saying, “I need to do marketing now because I need to generate sales.” Woah, there. Slow down. You have to sell with the seasons. Your clients and customers need to be warmed up before a typical buying time. Otherwise, it’s all for nothing.

You won’t sell anyone on a Hot Yoga studio in the middle of January or February (although with Sydney weather lately who knows!). On the other hand, it’s a great time to start developing a campaign for the winter.  Developing and delivering on a promotion can take an enormous amount of time. If you are in the air conditioning business, you were probably developing a marketing strategy months ago and rolling it out now as the weather gets hot.

Traditional campaigning for air conditioners is a bad use of energy and resources in the autumn. You story has far less draw. No one is listening and even if they are, they’re not interested.  But you might get a jump start on the following spring.  With a long lead time you can come up with something that’s really compelling.  A truly engaging story that people can follow.

That gives you time to properly define the selling process and determine your desired outcome.  How many leads do you need to generate? What kind of engagement do you need to reach those goals?  Along with your time frame you establish specific trackability for each channel to make sure you are able to measure those leads. This is very important. It can not be stressed enough.

In the future, you can evolve your strategy and story based on what is and is not working. Which efforts are leading to conversion? Which are getting lots of attention but not generating any sales? How can you modify so they do? How can you capitalise on your chief brand ambassadors in some other way?

Mr.Kipling’s has got it figured out. Have you?

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Social media is much more than a newfangled marketing trend like skywriting or hot air balloon advertising. It’s here to stay and it’s happening with or without you. At The Sponge, we recommend it almost universally as part of the big-picture brand strategy work we do here.

Not everyone knows that The Sponge holding company owns a Social Media Marketing business called ThinkSocial. That’s how much we believe in the power of social media as a critical means of marketing for any business. It’s extremely rare that businesses should not be doing this.

Many of our clients say the same thing. Yeah…we have a Facebook page but we haven’t seen much action with it. It doesn’t seem to be generating any leads. What’s important to recognize is that social media needs to be part of a larger strategy. You wouldn’t use the Yellow Pages as your sole means of creating leads, would you (especially today)?

Social Media is a potent marketing tool if used effectively. What does it mean to use it effectively? For starters, it means there’s a lot more to it than creating a Facebook page and waiting for clients to flock.

It’s an expert strategy that drives leads through social media. Without one, you’re spinning your wheels. It’s fine to be running your profile, but it can be unproductive and a waste of resources without that critical strategy. Do you even know what resources are really needed?

That’s why I’m so proud of the products ThinkSocial is offering and why I want you to be aware of the work they’re doing. Social Media is filling a space that Yellow Pages and newspaper ads just can’t fill anymore. These channels are simply no longer relevant. It’s time to refocus that energy.

Social media is where the people are. In fact, there is a great webinar over at ThinkSocial that shows you the stats on that. It’s the fastest, most direct and cost-effective way to reach your end users, to communicate your brand story and attract those raving fans.

The amount of weight you should be giving it isn’t the same for everyone. Not every business needs to be one hundred percent focused on social media. That’s something we look at as part of our brand strategy work with The Sponge.

The products ThinkSocial provide aren’t necessarily a match for your business. That’s something we’ll look at together. On the other hand, as a marketing channel social media is appropriate almost one hundred percent of the time. Whereas in the past you might have sent a physical letter or email newsletter, Social Media is now the best way to deliver that same information. Rather than slugging it out one cold call after another, LinkedIn is a far more effective way to reach those same people.

To give you an idea, we recently did an experiment with one of our clients, HealthStreams. On the one hand we had four phone sales staff doing cold calls for several days. On the other hand we had one social media manager at ThinkSocial doing outreach on LinkedIn. One person. Guess which method performed best?

Lead generation wasn’t just better. It was exponentially higher with LinkedIn. So you see what I mean when I say it’s cost-effective.

Yes, it works. It’s been proven again and again. But what I really want to communicate today is that social media should be part of a bigger plan. How does it fit in with your overall strategy? What needs to be in place before you can really capitalise on your social media efforts?

Timing is critical to a holistic marketing plan. Web. Print. Packaging. Brand Message. All that needs to be worked into a well thought out timeline for execution.

A social media campaign has it’s own unique timeline that has to flow with the greater branding scheme. What’s happening in the market? Are you making a special offer? Why? When does the offer start and complete? When does it need to be delivered? What will you do to follow it?

It takes time to develop and deliver on a promotion. You have to warm up the audience, prep them before the typical buying time. Some businesses forget this. “I need to do marketing now because I need to generate sales,” they say. Not good enough.

You need a comfortable lead time to come up with something compelling. That’s why that big picture brand direction is so critical.

It’s not enough to jump on the bandwagon. You want to be the one holding the reins. And in order to do that, you must first plot the course.

Do you want expert help to plot your course?

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One of the best things about branding a business is you never know where it’s going to go. Once the inspiration really starts flowing, ideas come out of the woodwork. New revenue streams appear out of nowhere. Making money in your sleep becomes a real, palpable possibility. When open minds collaborate, a brand strategy can go almost anywhere.

Last month I talked to you about flexing the creative muscle. It’s important to understand that you work with a brand strategist for the strength of their muscles. That’s what we do. Everyday. Work those muscles, make ‘em stronger. Strategize until we’re blue in the face. Our clients come to us to tap into that creative energy.

But what is it an agency like ours really does in terms of strategy? Specifically. Why not go to an el cheapo design site that will sell you a logo for five hundred bucks? They’re creative too, right?

True. But a branding strategist gives you much more than just a logo. While a strategist looks at the competition, the dime-store logo guys don’t understand or even look at your market. A true strategist studies your target market intensively. What are the others doing? What does your business bring to the table that’s unique? A strategist is an amateur futurist. We look at how to make your business timeless. Meanwhile, the discount site gives you a logo. Period. Worse, that logo is based solely on name and colour, sometimes not even that.

It can be tempting for a small business. It looks like savings. But if you truly want your business to go forth and prosper, in the end the discount price will end up costing you much more. You’ll have to redo it. Eventually you’ll find out the competition’s angle is too similar or that the type of logo you’ve chosen doesn’t work well for your market. You’ll have to redo it again. Then you might find the domain name is unavailable or the name means something rude in Chinese. And then come the really big bills.

Inevitably, many businesses will still pick up cheap logos at quickie design sites. There are lots of them. I don’t mind saying that if this was even a consideration for you, the work we do at The Sponge is absolutely not for you. What we offer is high quality services for clients with genuine style; businesses who truly understand that you get what you pay for.

At The Sponge we start by asking those crucial questions, generating that crucial conversation. We make sure you only have to do this once. It starts with your own brief. Using an involved questionnaire, we’ll rewrite that brief after looking at a variety of angles you might not have seen before. Our briefing process is something we’ve developed over the last ten years. And it always works. Always? Yes, always.

You may have an idea of what you think is going to work best for your business. You may be unnecessarily attached to a strict interpretation of what works. A strategist brings new questions to the table, looks at angles you may not have considered. Kind of like a psychologist. Or an editor. If you look at it that way, ask yourself this: would you publish a book that had never been read by a second, objective set of eyes? Neither would I.

It’s during those crucial conversations that we uncover many things that haven’t been said. Things that need to be said. Many businesses get boxed in by what they believe to be true about their own industries. They look at what other industries are doing and say, “Oh, we don’t do that.” Fair enough. That’s the typical response. But is that how you would define your business? Typical? I thought not.

As entrepreneurs, we know what’s working in other industries and understand from experience that there is plenty of room for cross-pollination. As a relative outsider to your industry, we aren’t limited to industry standards. We’re ready to go wide and explore, look at new angles, expand your horizons as far as they can go, and then reign it all in by targeting the best angles for your business.

A brand strategist shows you how to be an innovator. Many businesses walk around with blinkers on. They’re limited to what they know. That’s where we come in. And believe me we get radical. That’s why we only work with open-minded businesses. Our clients come to us ready to jam out new ideas, ready to really get wild. Because they know we’re anything but typical. And you know what? We know you’re not not typical either.

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Why do people go to personal trainers? It’s free to jog in the park. One session with a trainer costs as much as a month at the gym. More even. And yet people see trainers all the time and the reason is obvious.

Trainers know the secret to working their muscles. They work out daily. Their bodies are at peak performance. (We’re talking awesome, fit and muscular trainers here – shout out to the trainers @ tribe). Someone who doesn’t work out daily could never match this level of performance. Their muscles are simply not conditioned that way.

Just as the body has limitations, so does the mind. Lucky for us, we can train our bodies and minds to perform better, faster, and more efficiently. Just as muscles grow stronger through the process of constant tearing and repairing, creativity, or the creative muscle also develops through focused and sustained exercise.

Where does brand strategy fit into all this? If you want to get fit, you see a trainer. The trainer provides you with the high performance strategy that will take you from here to there. The same goes for your brand strategist. Like that trainer, he’s been flexing those creative muscles daily, pulling and tearing, repairing and pulling them again. He knows about peak performance. He knows what a well-branded business can be capable of.

Where some businesses may see limitations (“No way can I lift eighty kilos!”), a brand strategist sees opportunities (“We can leverage some weight over here to make it seem lighter.”). He looks at your strengths and uncovers possibilities where you might not have seen them before. Just as you look to your trainer’s sleek physique for inspiration, your brand strategist gives you a fat injection of creativity.

That’s what we’ve been doing at here The Sponge: funneling our energy into creative strategizing. Every day. After we’ve strategized, we rip it all apart and put it back together again, make it stronger. It’s entrepreneurial weightlifting and hot damn, it feels good. For myself, I feel incredibly grateful for the opportunity to do this kind of creative muscle-flexing.

It’s that energy and sizzle that we long to pass on in a strategy meeting. At the Sponge, we’re selective with our clients because we know it’s essential for achieving maximum effect. A strategy is something we have to develop together. It’s an exchange of ideas and it requires open-minded clients to get excited about new innovation, clients that want to explore and have fun.

Fun, you say? Yes, fun. That’s when the best work gets done. When people get excited – that’s when the creative juices really get flowing. That’s a large part of why seeing a brand strategist is important. Once the creativity comes, you start to examine facets of your business you didn’t even know existed. Revenue streams appear like magic. You start clipping away all those tedious bits that create stress.

Strategy meetings are a place for things to grow, a place where ideas get molded into products you can take to the bank. What exactly goes on in these meetings? I’ll save that for next time.

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A few weeks ago, I talked to you about the naming challenge. At The Sponge, we consider all sorts of factors when naming a brand. It can get heated. A great name is short and snappy; it sounds good, looks good and creates instant, positive imagery. It’s like a finely tailored suit, making you more attractive and giving you room to move. At its most powerful, it is the starting point to a really good story.

There are a few other factors to thicken the plot. Does your name work at a global level, for example? If you expect your brand to grow internationally, you must be sure the name doesn’t have any misleading or crude definitions in foreign tongues. Next, has that name already been trademarked or is someone else selling similar products under a similar name? Pity the rural farmer, James McDonald, who also made delicious burgers.

What I’d like to address this week is the importance of choosing a name with a corresponding domain that is both available and affordable for your business. Easier said than done, right? Early on in the Dot Com boom, many so-called Cybersquatters began buying up simple domain names like Cars.com at a hundred bucks a pop and sitting on them for years until someone with very deep pockets came knocking at the virtual door. Business.com for example, sold for $7.5 million in 1999. Now that domain names can be bought for as little at $5, cybersquatting has become infinitely more popular and even seemingly random domain names are being sold at outrageous prices, for example, JPhealth.com, which is for sale at just over $3,000.

Budgeting with the cybersquatting factor in mind is extremely important. The process of naming your business is not only costly, but also so critical to the development of your brand. Obtaining professional services is a non-negotiable; omitting this step would be illogical and potentially damaging to your business. Purchasing a domain name from a cybersquatter is also a very real possibility. We’ve seen clients spend sums on domain names that far surpass the cost of name development. It’s fundamental to consider this when budgeting for the expense of naming.

You’d like to name your business Pet Science, but since PetScience.com is not available you’ll just go ahead and purchase PetScience.net. It’s $64,993 cheaper, so it’s a no-brainer. Right? Wrong. Most Australians will try the .com.au or the .com version first. Though a real keener might find you eventually at your obscure .net location, does that really do justice to your brand? Consider the needs of your business; is it primarily conducted online? If so, your name needs to be easily searchable. Do you direct customers to your site or do you rely on traffic being directed your way via search engines and social media sites? The more you rely on your online business, the more you might want to budget for a great domain.

It’s incredibly important that the domain name be conversational. If it gets mentioned over cocktails on a Friday night, will it be remembered the morning after? A great name is easy to recall. It’s Bundy-proof. After you’re over the initial hump, the next step is that it’s got to be searchable. For the love of branding, don’t settle for a phonetic yet grammatically incorrect spelling. Unless you plan to invest millions of marketing dollars on a site like Choosi.com, the spelling needs to be obvious. That means no missing c’s and no ph instead of f; not unless you are a giant multinational retailer with a budget to rival the GDP of a small country.

While a hot domain name like Toys.com (sold in 2009 for just over $5 million) might earn you a lot of good traffic, a punchy name, word of mouth, and good content could easily get you just as far. Social media conductivity is still an extremely powerful force that, in combination with a brand name that is simple, conversational and memorable, will eventually drive the traffic where traffic is due. What’s most important is that once a potential customer has heard your name, they can spell it correctly and find you through a simple online search.

How much would you pay to give your business that extra advantage?

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I hope you are having a great long weekend.

Back in 2009 we launched a brand/business named ThinkSocial to manage Social Media profiles for some of our clients. Since then it has cruised along under the radar while our team learned a great deal about what works (and what doesn’t) and developed a success formula.

Skip forward to today and as Social Media become increasingly more prevalent, we’re doing a big push for ThinkSocial (which we have not done until now), and as such we’ve developed a brand new website and Social Marketing products based on the success formula we’ve developed and use for our clients.

We have simplified the offerings into two products that we manage completely for you, so you can get all the glory and the results you crave, like a social media pro, without having to do the work. You get the expert team, without the HR headache.

I invite you to visit the website and take a look at our products, and then if you are interested we can arrange a call with one of our team, or if you prefer, we can do an audit on your current social media on the house. Either way, we would love to get in touch with you.

www.thinksocial.com.au

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Brand names are a verbally communicated thing (word of mouth is still the most important brand builder). So how a brand sounds and the imagery it creates, along with the emotional response it triggers in the listener, becomes arguably more your brand than your logo.

People have a tendency to shorten long names which is why we have nicknames for things. Take for example the one syllable in coke, verses the four syllables in coca cola. It is important to keep this in mind when coming up with a name and think ‘short’, but avoid jumping to abbreviations for two reasons, first up this can actually lengthen the verbal brand (how many syllables does it take to say the letter W?) and second, people new to a brand that is abbreviated will not immediately know what the abbreviation is for and miss the meaning.

The ideal brand name is a simple one syllable word (or two, just so long as it isn’t easily shortened to one) that creates an instant, concrete picture in the mind (not necessarily product or service related – think Apple), or a strong feeling in heart of the market that is intended for.

The word you choose must sound good, be easy to spell (with no confusing letter swaps) and there should be no confusion when it is heard or read. This will save you lots of grief later.

If you are marketing to other countries it is very important to check that the word does not mean something offensive, or embarrassing in their languages, for example Pajero meaning wanker in Spanish slang.

Of course once you have your shortlist of names it is time to check its availability before locking it in, but that is another blog post entirely!

We recommend this methodology so you take control of your brand from the outset and do not leave it up to the market to create a nickname for you. This way you have a solid foundation to build your marketing strategy from at the very beginning.

If you have any questions about creating your brand name feel free to comment below.

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Happy New Year and on behalf of the Sponge team I wish you a fantastic year of growth and profitability.

It has been a long time since I’ve posted anything so this one will be brief. And I am committing to making time to do so more frequently this year. Hopefully I can persuade some of the team to do so too. While on the subject of the team, we have two new members for 2012, Ming and Ben, and are expecting another two within the next month.

Ming and Ben expand our web development team and we expect them to be awesome for the projects they have been assigned.

Finally, while we have a back log of projects being worked through right now by our web team, we do have some windows opening up shortly for brand strategy and brand creation if you have a project that you are itching to start this year, so get in touch now to avoid disappointment.

Have an awesome week…

Luke

P.S. For my first solid post of 2012 I am thinking of the topic of how crucial it is to get your brand name right first. What do you think?

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