Branding and Marketing with Multiple Domain Names

I've been a branding and positioning expert for people, products and companies for many years now. For the last several years, our first reference tool for any project has been a domain name branding search. While we do much more, we always start there.

In every marketing effort you undertake, branding and positioning should be a crucial element. Grabbing a few extra domain names to market specific brands, to secure branding of new products, specials or programs is probably the lowest cost, highest impact move you could make.

It's actually become quite the hobby for me. I've collected over 300 domain names and only have a handful live. I call it virtual real estate investing.

At less than $8 a year each, registering a domain name is a no-brainer. Do this for every product idea, possible business name, future book title, you name it, that you can think of. It's a top 10 branding tool.

Really, what have you got to lose? Ok, I admit, at over 300 and counting, the renewals can get pretty expensive. And get this -- several of those I registered when you had to pay $35 a year and buy two years at once. That was $70 at a time.

Luckily, it's not so expensive today. But it's important to hurry and grab your own .com as soon as possible to secure your branding position. The other extensions are ok, but there are many reasons to get a .com.

There's more about why a .com is the best to get, ideas on domain naming and the whys and hows of registering your own domain name, in a little report I put together for my clients. It's called "Project Homestead: Stake Your virtual Claim Now". Nothing real technical, just a little report on my adventures and discoveries in domain naming.

For a short time, you can go get it free at www.ebizcafe.com and at the same time start searching for your new domain name, your slice of virtual real estate, for now or for the future. It's only limited as the purpose is to get the word out for the $6.95 .com, .org and .biz sale which ends on December 31st, 2006.

Are you guilty of this?

Zero marketing.

This the number one problem of over 80% of the small business owners I've worked with in the last 25 years.

So what do you do and why should you care?
Generally you throw money at the advertising and promotion opportunities that come to you. These alone are not marketing. There's so much more.

Maybe you've had a website built but can't really see the benefits yet. Because this too is just a small part of marketing. There's so much more.

And the only reason you might care is if you'd like to have more free time.

What's this? More free time - hmmm.
Bet you thought I'd say more sales, more profits or something like that. Of course those are benefits you'll gain also. Otherwise, why bother? But, how can taking on the job of marketing on top of everything else give you more time? Well....It's amazing, but true -- more on that later.

Do you have a brand? Do you have a plan?
If you do -- bravo!
Then, my question to you is, are you working them for all they're worth?
If you don't -- get both started now.
It's that simple and that difficult all at the same time.

I can provide you with thousands of free and paid sources that will show you...
"branding secrets of the pros"
"how to double your sales in 30 days"
"the 4 key secrets to business success"
"the 1 thing that takes you from survival mode to thriving"
"the 10 steps to marketing perfection"
"100 time-savers for business owners"
and the list goes on and on, ad nauseum.

And if you spend the thousands of hours studying all the strategies, I can almost guarantee you one thing. It will cost you dearly. You will have wasted 90% of that time and still not have a plan in action. I've seen it hundreds, maybe thousands of times.

Why is that?
Simple - you're busy, you need shortcuts. You need solutions that work for your business, your market, even your personality, and nothing more.

I can only work with a few clients at a time with my "Market Like You Mean It" shortcut marketing program. In the meantime, I'm publishing these feeds to help guide the rest of you toward more focused sources of information that will help you "Market Like You Mean It" in less time.

I'll share strategies that have worked for almost everyone and those that have worked for some and not for others.

I welcome all input. If you are a marketing expert with a shortcut marketing idea pertinent to small business, please let me know so I may share you and your solution with our readers.

Until the next time,
joyce