Domain Names and Branding

A domain is the name of an online business. That’s how somebody finds a web site on the internet. The domain, often the name of a company with an actual physical presence, also helps with establishing its image or brand awareness.

Remember Rusty, my cat buddy who lives down the street? Well, he wants to call the cat toilet seat that he’s inventing, The Cat Stool. While last I checked on NetworkSolutions.com, the domain name was indeed available. But, and maybe it’s just me, it seems to have some unclean connotations. Maybe Rusty should think about, The Cat Seat or Clean Cat? I agree that they’re not the catchiest of names, but they’re more closely associated with what the product actually does.

On the other hand, I guess you can create brand awareness with any name. Take a look at monster.com. Nowadays, when someone yells monster, we don’t start running thinking that Frankenpoodle or Dogula is chasing us, but rather about the employment process and searching for a new job.

When choosing the right domain name, keep it short, simple, and memorable. Companies that succeed with evoking a certain positive image, besides having a great product or service, usually have short names, such as Ferrari, Adobe, Amazon, Google, and Yahoo. Sometimes the name of the company has no significant connection to the products it produces, as noted by the above companies. Or, in our case, CoolZips® has a meaningful association because we produce really cool zipper pulls.

For us, it started off with a brainstorming session . . . Zippitz . . . EasyZips . . . FunZips . . . SillyZips . . . SillyWillyZips . . . Once six-year-old Hannah wrote down CoolZips, we knew that this was the perfect name; short, simple, memorable, meaningful, and the domain name was available. While my forte is customer service, she’s actually our marketing genius. She even came up with the marketing campaign of, People Are Just Butts Walking. You see, from a dog’s standpoint or a small child’s standpoint, we’re just staring at your butts.

Anyway, a brand is a name, a symbol, a design, a combination of these, or anything else that identifies the goods and services of one company and sets them apart from another company. It’s all about image.

While you do want your target market to choose you over the competition, branding is more about getting your prospective customers to see you as the only one that provides a solution to their problem. Some of this is through personal experience and other through perception. You want them to see you as credible, you want them to connect with you emotionally, you want them to be motivated to buy your product, and you want them to be loyal. CoolZips is a fun, safe, and quality product. We take pride in this and our customers not only perceive this, but know it to be true. Loyalty brings repeat business.

Would you be loyal to The Cat Stool? Rusty thinks so. I guess only time will smell, I mean tell.