What’s in a name?

‘Words have meaning but names have power.’

Whether your marketing is on or offline, B2B or B2C, above or below the line, you cannot get away from the simple fact that ultimately ‘people deal with people’. Words have meaning but names have power. A fact that in today’s fast paced business environment is all too often forgotten by many who overcomplicate their approach to marketing in a constant drive to acquire new customers for their businesses and in doing so miss the opportunity that is ‘Brand you’.

The truth is that any person's favourite word is their name. Using someone’s name can be a silver bullet to get you and your business noticed, above all the impersonal mass marketing noise put out by those that choose to compete with you.

A name defines you – it’s your brand. For you, once you put your name, your character and your brand on it people start to buy you and your personality; not simply your company, product or service. It’s true for you and it’s true for every one of the prospective clients that you meet in business. Yet how many people fail to understand or take advantage of the opportunity that exists for ‘Brand you’.

For a client or prospect, greeting them by their name makes them feel good, lowers barriers, opens up conversation and is a very simple yet meaningful and treasured detail that adds greatly to the way people experience doing business with you. Its simple details like this that separate ‘rain-makers’ from ‘also-rans’ - working to keep people thinking about you, your products and your service. In turn, you capture valuable ‘mindshare’ which is the first and most important step towards developing ‘share of customer’ and subsequently ‘share of market’.

This approach is not simply limited to face-to-face contact at a networking event, conference or meeting. Direct mail is often underutilised by companies in today’s online world, yet offers significant opportunities for ‘Brand you’ as does personalised print and e-marketing. Did you know that using someone's name correctly within an email subject line can provide a notable increase of 14.68% in e-mails opened?

More broadly, the power of names can be used very effectively (as many of my clients know) as part of the response device to lead specific campaign promotions, creating a relationship between the buyer and the seller from the get-go and long before business is concluded.

Put simply, names are an important key to unlocking opportunity for your business and the nice thing is that we all have one!