http://www.isnare.com/?s=author&a=Marcia+Yudkin Marketing Marcia Yudkin Mon, 21 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=902746&ca=Marketing Is your small business mainly you and perhaps a couple of employees? And are you the type of person who would rather stay home with a book than schmooze at a party? If you answered yes to both questions, you may shy away from the concept of branding, thinking either that it's only for mega-compani... Marketing Marcia Yudkin Sun, 20 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=891822&ca=Marketing I run a naming company, and more than 80 percent of the time, clients come to us after they have tried to name their company and don’t like what they have come up with. (The rest of the time, they simply don’t have time or energy to handle naming.) I've also taught seminars on naming and supervised... Marketing Marcia Yudkin Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=891225&ca=Marketing Whether you’re a business owner or nonprofit head who wants to promote your offerings with dignity or a copywriter troubled by the prevalence of exaggerated, over-the-top writing on the Web, you’re wondering whether it’s possible for marketing copy to nail the sale without a carnival-barker tone, wi... Marketing Marcia Yudkin Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=888127&ca=Marketing When coaches, consultants, freelance writers, designers and experts contemplate the prospect of developing a product line, they imagine something equivalent in effort to trudging up a steep, rocky hillside. However, creating a first (or second or third) product doesn’t have to be torturous or even... Business Marcia Yudkin Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=885173&ca=Business One week in my Marketing Minute newsletter I mentioned the company name “The Muse Is In” in the format of its domain name, TheMuseIsIn.com. If your email arrives in what’s called a serif font, that would have made perfect sense. The capital I’s in “Is” and “In” would have little horizontal tops a... Business Marcia Yudkin Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=885176&ca=Business Around the lake from where I live, someone painted the name of their cottage on a rock by their driveway: Happy Ours. The first few times I saw it while walking by, I couldn't help wondering if this was a pidgin version of the English phrases “Happy This is Ours” or “Happily Ours.” The grammar of th... Business Marcia Yudkin Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=885257&ca=Business Suppose you’re not sure whether a word or phrase you want to use in a name or tag line is appealing or distasteful. I was thinking about this dilemma the other day when a client replied to my thumbs down on a word he liked with "There isn’t anything about those negative connotations in the dictiona... Business Marcia Yudkin Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=886935&ca=Business Look up “name change” in news archives, and two types of stories dominate. First, you’ll find thinly disguised press releases announcing the renaming of a product, stadium, college or company, with an upbeat rationale for the change. Second, you’ll find reporting of complaints and controversy about... Marketing Marcia Yudkin Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=881911&ca=Marketing Need a new company name or new product name quickly on a small or non-existent budget? Many business owners and non-profits believe the hands-down answer to that dilemma is a naming contest. In some instances, a naming contest generates so many brilliant entries that it’s hard to choose the best on... Marketing Marcia Yudkin Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.isnare.com/?aid=883181&ca=Marketing "Help! We’re stuck!" That’s a lament I often hear from entrepreneurs who have tried to come up with a product or company name they like, that has some sort of available domain and that can be trademarked. In many cases, the stuckness comes from limited ideas about how to brainstorm name ideas and...