Shakespeare famously wrote, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” in his iconic play, Romeo and Juliet. But does that quote stand up under scrutiny?

In this post, we’re examining the question, “What’s in a name?” We’re discussing business and brand names and asking questions like, “How do I come up with a business name?” and “What brand name will resonate in my market?”

By the time you’ve finished this post, you’ll walk away with two things: A solid understanding of how to create your business name and tips to effectively name your brand.

What’s in a Business or Brand Name?

Does your business name really matter?

There are two arguments to answer that question:

1. No, it doesn’t. So long as you provide exceptional service and meet your customer’s needs, then your business name doesn’t matter.
2. Yes, it does! Your name affects how people think of you and therefore, how they’ll interact and engage with you.

Which do you think has more merit? We’re in support of position #2. We’ll explore why that is, but first, let’s talk about the power of names.

Names hold deep personal, cultural, and sometimes historical connections. They are a distilled representation of a thing. For example, instead of yelling, “Short lady with long brown hair, average build, and propensity for discourse” all someone has to do is call out, “Natalie!” and my attention is theirs. That’s a pretty powerful thing, is it not? To give someone your name is to provide them with the power to call you to attention at any point in time.

Inversely, a good name will also capture the attention and mind space of the person saying or thinking it.

What’s important to note about that last point is that people across all cultures and languages have preconceptions about certain names. Or rather, the sounds that comprise names. That means that they’ll have made up certain ideas about you by the sound of your name alone, even if they haven’t met you or had exposure to your brand yet.

Naming and Sound Symbolism

Have you heard of the Bouba-Kiki effect? It’s also been called the Maluma-Takete effect.

Think of two shapes, one round and the other made up of sharp angles. If you had to name one of them “Bouba” or “Maluma” and the other “Kiki” or “Takete” — which would be which?

Did you name the round shape Bouba and the sharp-angled shape Kiki? If so, you’re in good company.

Across a variety of cultures, people think of Bouba as the softer of the two names and Kiki as the spikier one. This assessment could be due to the mouthfeel of the names, with Bouba rolling off the lips while Kiki remains a staccato sound originating further back in the mouth.

Additionally, people can ascribe sharper qualities to Kiki-type names and softer qualities to Bouba-type names. Psycholinguist Penny Pexman of the University of Calgary says, “There’s something about how humans are fundamentally associative,” she continues, “We want to see patterns in things, we want to find connections between things, and we’ll find them even between sounds, and the things those sounds stand for in the world.”

How Should Sound Symbolism Influence Your Name?

As you decide on a name for your business and brand, keep these two factors at the front of your decision-making.

• Your industry.
• How you want your audience, customers, and clients to feel about you.

Let’s use the examples of Joan and Steven. Joan is a family therapist who’s venturing out on her own and starting her own business. Steven has worked in construction for years and is about to build his own steel manufacturing plant. They both need names for their new businesses to draw in clientele.

Joan wants a name that conveys trust and warmth while Steven wants to name his business something that conveys strength and energy.

Knowing that people associate softer, rolling sounds with the qualities her counseling services represent, Joan opts for a Bouba-type name. Steven, on the other hand, chooses a Kiki-type name as it represents the qualities of his business. Not just that, but anyone hearing their business names will associate those qualities with them whether or not they’ve done business together yet.

As you decide on your business name, think about the qualities you want it to represent and allow that to influence your decision.

How to Create a Business or Brand Name

At Domain.com, we’re dedicated to the business of names and naming. We’re often asked, “What makes for a good domain name?” For starters, it should match your brand name.

When it comes to a good name, here’s the basic advice you’ll find just about anywhere:

• Make it short and memorable.
• Avoid unique spelling, hyphens, and an excess of numbers.
• Make sure it passes the radio test.
  • If someone were only to hear your name, could they type it out and make it to your website? Probably not if you’re using “Qu” instead of the letter “K” and have two hyphens in your domain.

Now, while helpful and true, that advice is more suited to evaluating a name you’ve already come up with, not for creating a new name. So, how do you create a name from scratch?

Tips for Creating Names

There are a variety of types of business and brand names. As you come up with yours, think about the following types:

• Descriptive names.
  • These names give a good idea as to what the business is all about.
  • Examples: Cars.com, Domain.com.
• Abstract names.
  • Imaginary or “made-up” names. Not made up of dictionary words.
  • Examples: Venmo, Google.
• Acronymic names.
  • Short names that are made up of letters that symbolize larger names.
  • Examples: IBM, BMW.
• Geographical names.
  • Names that speak to a geographical location.
  • Eastern Mountain Sports, West Coast Choppers.
• Compound names.
  • Names are made up of a combination of two or more names.
  • Examples: Netflix, YouTube.
• Personal/Founder names.
  • Business names are created using their founders’ names.
  • Examples: Cadbury, Ferrari.  

Not sure which type of business name you ought to use? Here’s something else to consider: How will you market your business?

You see, business names (and domain names) can be broken down into two categories: Brandable or Discoverable.

A discoverable name is a name made up of real dictionary words, like “Family Financial Advisors.” A brandable name isn’t composed of dictionary words, instead, it’s made up, like “Optimizely.”

The former name can count on type-in traffic for website visits. That means that people typing those keywords into their browser will likely find that business as a top result. However, it’s going to cost more for their domain name as it’s likely already been registered and is a premium domain. The latter is made up, so there’s a better chance the domain is unregistered and available. However, you’ll need to create a strong content marketing strategy to support your name so it appears higher in search results.

Ready to Name Your Business and Brand?

Before settling on a final business or brand name, make sure it’s available as a domain name and across social media platforms, too.

Once you’ve decided on a name, share it with us below! We’d love to hear about how you decided on your brand name.

While hair grows back and you can recover from a bad idea like that pretty quickly, it’s another matter to invest in and proceed with a bad business idea. That always guarantees a loss of time and money. 

The best business ideas solve problems. We’ll say it again for the people in the back — the best business ideas solve problems.

So how do you know if you have a great business idea or a dud? In today’s post, we’re going to discuss the process of business idea validation and you’ll learn how and why you should validate your business idea.

Validating your business idea

The worst thing you can do when making business decisions is guess. Guessing is not a good strategy when it comes to your business, your livelihood, and your income.

Idea validation is the process of testing and validating your idea with feedback and data before you start developing a new product or service, or starting a business. This process is essential to developing a business or product that people actually want. If your idea is self-serving and doesn’t help solve the problems of others, it won’t go far.  

Large companies and corporations call this process “Research & Development,” and while you won’t need to do anything at such large a scale, there are a few things you can do right now to validate your idea.

By validating your business idea you’re going to save yourself from a future headache and loss of money. So, let’s dig in and figure out how to validate your idea.

The business idea validation process

Identify your ideal customer

Do you know who your ideal customer is? That’s as good a place to start as any when you’re trying to validate your business idea. If you don’t know who your ideal customer is, who are you supposed to ask for feedback and validation? Sure, you can ask your friends and family, but let’s be honest: They’re likely to sugarcoat things so as not to offend.

Your ideal customer is the person whose needs are met by what you’re offering. To identify those people, you’ll need to know your products and services from your customer’s point of view. Think from their perspective: What sets you apart from competitors? What problems of theirs does your business solve?

Identifying your ideal customer isn’t about identifying who you want as a customer, it’s about identifying who benefits most from your product or business as it is.

Think about what you’ll ask when validating your idea

In order to validate your business idea, you’re going to have to present it to people to get their honest feedback. You don’t want to inundate them with a massive presentation; instead think about how you can present a handful of ideas, the best ideas and solutions your business aims to provide.

If you start with your life story and amble into a presentation about your business, you’re going to lose your interviewees’ attention (yes, interviewing is part of the process.) You’ll want to keep your presentation short so that it doesn’t get confusing and focus on the core of your business or products.

Reach out for interviews and feedback

Once you’ve identified what your ideal customer looks like and know what you’ll be asking, it’s time to do some reachout. Make a list of potential customers or clients that you think fit your ideal customer profile and ask for their time. You’ll want to set expectations with them: Let them know you aren’t trying to sell anything, why you’ve contacted them, and that it won’t take much of their time.

As we said earlier, friends and family are likely not great candidates for interviews. They’re personally vested in you and may gloss over issues they see in your product or business idea. It’s not because they’re trying to be unhelpful, but more often than not, they won’t want to hurt your feelings.

The business idea validation interview

When you start your interview, remember that these people are giving up their time to try and help you succeed. So, say “Thank you” and let them know how much you appreciate their time. Explain that their feedback is essential to you designing and creating something people will actually benefit from. People like to know that they’re important and valued, and assuring them of their importance during this process can help them open up to you.

Give them a brief rundown of your business, but don’t get lost in the weeds or use technical terms that they’re unlikely to understand. Then, launch into the core aspects of your business idea that you need their opinion on. Present these ideas individually and allow people to give you their thoughts on one of them before proceeding into the next. The interview is a back-and-forth between you and the other person, not a one-sided soliloquy.

Once you’ve completed the interview, thank them for their time and again reinforce the importance of their opinion and insights. You may find that you’ve just earned yourself a future customer or client.

Review your feedback and optimize your business idea accordingly

After your interviews, sit down and review what people had to say. Look for common themes and patterns in your feedback — is there anything everyone was excited about? What negative things did they highlight?

This process of validating your business idea isn’t designed to deflate anyone’s confidence, it’s designed to help you create the best and most effective business to suit your customers’ needs and wants.

Take what you’ve learned from the interview feedback and use it to modify and improve your business idea. Always keep the customers’ point of view in mind as you move through this exercise as they’re the ones who will be keeping you in business once you launch.

What happens after you validate your business idea?

After validating your business idea and making any necessary changes, it’s time to create a business plan and launch your business.

Keep in mind that it’s essential for businesses to have a digital presence these days. Online business has boomed throughout the Coronavirus pandemic, and we don’t see it going away any time soon. If you want to be competitive, be where your customers are — online.

Creating an online presence for your business starts with a domain name. Your domain name is your online address and will lead people to your site. You can easily create a beautiful website using a website builder once you’re ready to go live.

If you need help or have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us or comment below. We wish you the best as you launch your business!

Growing up, that was a common refrain in my household. How about yours?

Whether or not we realized it at the time, our parents were the first ones to encourage us to be conscious of our personal brands. They reminded us to be cognizant of our behavior and how we presented ourselves in public because of how others might perceive us (and by extension, them.) We’ve been working on our personal brands from tender young ages and didn’t even realize it. But now, as adults, it’s more important than ever that we be intentional in our branding.

Whether you’re applying to university, looking to start a new career, seeking a change in industries, or are all about reinvention — having a well-developed personal brand gives you an advantage.

In this post, we’re examining what a personal brand is, why you should care about yours, how to cultivate your brand, and most importantly, how to leverage it.

What is a personal brand?

Personal brands are akin to business or company brands. They’re comprised of every public-facing facet of yourself, and inversely, what people think of them.

It’s that special thing that makes you, you. It helps others interpret what you do and why. But most of all, it’s authentic. Personal brands can’t succeed when they’re based on lies and make-believe.

Don’t believe us? “88% of consumers say authenticity is important when deciding which brands they like and support (with 50% saying it’s very important),” according to data from Stackla.

“But why does that matter to my personal brand?” you might ask.

Because in this scenario, you are the product and the consumer is anyone who could potentially interact with you — future classmates, business partners, even life partners.

No one likes to think of themselves as a commodity, but sometimes in life, you have to help someone buy into you over the other guy (e.g. when there are limited spots in a program or just a handful of open roles in your field). A personal brand gives you that edge; without a doubt, it’s the best tool you have in your marketing arsenal.

Now, let’s not confuse personal brand with reputation: these terms are not synonymous.

Your reputation precedes you, but your personal brand is what you craft and how you present yourself to the world. It’s your website, your social media, the name you go by — it’s everything about you. Your brand is intentionally designed by you, not by the words of others as is your reputation.

Why is it important to have a personal brand?

Humans aren’t solitary creatures. No matter what, you have to work with others and live amongst them, even in this era of digital dominance where you can work and school from home.

Our communal lives may be online more than in-person nowadays, but that only makes it more important for you to cultivate your brand. If someone can’t meet you in person — what do you want them to think about you? How do you want an online interaction with you or site to leave them feeling? Excited? Intrigued to learn more about you? Or, if you have no digital presence, perhaps you’re giving them nothing to think about at all. Out of sight out of mind, as the saying goes.

Having a deliberately crafted personal brand is even more vital for those who want a life in the public eye, like influencers, politicians, or business leaders. If you need to win people over, or simply want to grow your community, it’s best to do it genuinely by showing others the best aspects of yourself. Your personal brand does just that.

Ready to start working on yours? How you build your brand depends largely upon your goal: Is it to land that gig? Enter a new field of work? Land a major investment? It’s an insightful process, and we’ll walk you through it.

As you begin, remember that you aren’t locked into a personal brand. The most authentic aspects of yourself that you’d like to share with others at 20 years old will be vastly different at 40. As you evolve and change as person, so should your brand. It will always remain a reflection of yourself — like a polished, digital reflection — but it should never be left to stagnate.   

Creating a personal brand

Crafting your brand is an enlightening process. You’ll learn to see yourself through different eyes, and how others perceive you, in the process. No matter what, keep authenticity at the forefront of this endeavor.

Start building your brand with the following fundamental exercises.

Discover your drive

Begin by asking yourself these questions:

• What motivates you to wake up and get out of bed each day?
• What skills and talents are you most proud of?
• What have you had to work hardest to achieve?
• What skills would you still like to develop that you don’t already have?
• What are your natural interests?
• What doesn’t appeal to you at all?
• How do you want others to remember you?
• What do you want others to say about you when you leave the room?
• Who do you admire? Why?

Understanding what drives you as a human is the first step to developing your personal brand. You can’t communicate what and who you are to others if you’re iffy on the details yourself.

Without insight into what guides you, the way you present yourself may seem erratic and unmoored. Good branding is more than just a great logo. It needs a solid foundation built with brand strategy in mind, or else you’ll fail.

Be honest with yourself when answering these questions. Once you understand where you’re coming from, where you stand, and what areas need some work, it’s time to talk about goals.

Drafting SMART goals

Not all goals are created equal. Some are large, irrelevant, and nebulous. Others are specific, achievable, and time-bound. The latter are SMART goals.

Here’s what that stands for:

• S: Specific
  • This part addresses all the Ws — who, what, when, where, and why.
• M: Measurable
  • How do you know when you’ve reached your goal? How is that success going to be measured?
• A: Attainable
  • Example: No one can lose 50 pounds in a week. Make sure you aren’t setting yourself up for failure by setting a ridiculously unattainable goal.
• R: Relevant
  • Sure, being one of the first humans on Mars would be nice. But unless you’re Elon Musk, how is this goal relevant to you?
• T: Time-bound
  • You have to start somewhere and decide where the “finish line” is. This doesn’t necessarily mean you stop working on your goal when you reach that point. Instead, think of it as a pause where you stop to take stock of your performance before re-calibrating and picking up where you left off in pursuit of your goal, truly finishing only when you’ve accomplished it.

What does a SMART goal look like in practice? Let’s say that I’m working on my personal brand to become a well-recognized influencer and earn the trust of larger businesses and corporations that I’d like to partner with. Instead of creating a vague and intimidating goal of “Increase my social media followers,” I’m going to design a SMART goal. It looks something like this, “I’m going to increase my connections on LinkedIn by 25% in the next 3 months by actively engaging in conversations in groups relevant to my field of work.” All of a sudden, I know what I’m working toward and how to do it, and I can pause in 3 months’ time to evaluate my performance.

Define the tangible aspects of your brand

When you think of a quintessential American burger chain, do the golden arches come to mind? Or is it the bejeweled crown? Maybe a bright orange W with stripes behind it?

Well-known brands have recognizable aspects and features that we almost instantaneously recall when we think of them or hear their name in passing.

When someone thinks of you, what part of your brand comes to mind? Is it your winsome smile or cunning charm? Is there a visual aspect to your brand that someone can conjure up in their mind’s eye? If there isn’t, start thinking about how to change that.

We recommend coming up with your own personal brand guidelines. You can decide on an aesthetic, create cohesive social media profiles designed to support it, decide on a (domain) name, and bring it all together with a website, your digital home. You can check out our guide to branding here to learn about deciding on-brand colors, logos, typography, and more, and view this checklist to make sure you’re covering all your bases in terms of visual and website design.

Going public with your personal brand

There’s no point in working on your personal brand if you plan on being a hermit. It’s meant to be seen and shared with others.

And it isn’t just how you want the world to see you, it’s also a practical leg-up over the competition in everyday life. Why should someone trust your recommendation over another person’s? Why should you be given that spot on the team instead of someone else? How do you ensure you’ll land that job? What happens when a potential employer googles you they find nothing worthwhile?

The best way to ensure control over your brand online is by creating your own website. Decide on a domain name that’s reflective of you and build your site to own your digital space. Social media platforms can come and go (like Vine), so you want to make sure you have a solid presence elsewhere.

Personal Branding Additional Resources

Looking for more inspiration and information to build a personal brand? We’ve got you covered. Check out the following resources to craft an intentional personal brand designed to help you achieve your goals.

• Webinar: Personal Branding 101
• 10 Personal Branding Rules to Live By
• Branding Checklist: Visual and Website Design

What are you waiting for? Get started on your brand today!

Developing a strategy around your brand and learning how to market it are pivotal to the success of not just your brand, but your business as well. And that’s exactly what we’re discussing in today’s blog post. 

If you’d like to learn more about what a brand is and the different elements that comprise it, check out part one of our Guide to Branding, “What is Branding?” here. 

What is Brand Strategy and Marketing?

A strong brand strategy helps you present a unified, consistent brand identity in market: Ranging from your site design, to your social media profiles, and even to how you communicate with customers. 

Consistency is pivotal to branding because it helps set expectations with your audience, and a consistently good experience with your brand increases brand loyalty. Without a brand strategy to drive that consistency, your business will suffer. 

Crafting a brand strategy isn’t difficult, but it does take time and effort. 

A good brand strategy helps you understand your business values and directs your brand to grow in manners beneficial to both your business and customers. It’ll help you communicate with your audience clearly and effectively, attract the right customers, and positions your brand in a way that helps you grow your market share. 

Why is Brand Strategy Important?

Without a good, consistent brand strategy your business will suffer. 

Crafting a brand strategy helps you understand who you are and what matters to your business, like your values and mission. Those are vitally important to understand when making marketing and business decisions. 

When you have an inconsistent brand, your marketing and communications take a hit, and if you can’t clearly communicate your brand and values to your customers, you’ve lost them. 

So let’s look into how to create a brand strategy and what you can do to succeed against the competition. 

How to Create a Brand Strategy

Before sitting down to create your brand strategy, it’s good to have the following information at hand:

• Who’s your target audience?
  • Who are you trying to reach? Do you know what your ideal customer looks like? To craft an effective brand strategy you must know who you’re talking to and what their needs are so you can offer the appropriate solution. If you know your audience, you can speak to them more effectively.
• Who’s your competition?
  • What other businesses and brands are competing for the same customers and audience? This information is vital to know. If you understand your competition, you can figure out how to position yourself in the marketplace to stand out from them and attract customers. 

Once you have that information handy, it’s time to start strategizing. So, let’s do it. To build your brand strategy, follow the steps below. 

Understanding the Core of Your Brand

Your business holds a set of core beliefs that drives and influences every aspect of your brand. You can think of these beliefs as your business values or your mission. 

When your brand and core business beliefs are aligned, it’s a powerful thing. When they’re not, well, you’re facing some issues. 

If you understand what drives your business, what drives your brand, then you can successfully communicate that to your customers both verbally and visually. It allows you to grow your business in a way that successfully sets you apart from competitors and engenders you to your audience. 

Without a set of guiding beliefs, your messaging will be erratic, employees may feel directionless, and overall, your business will suffer. 

To help you determine your core values and beliefs, ask yourself the following questions:

• Who am I? Why does this business exist?
  • These questions help you understand the purpose of your business. 
• What does the future of my business look like? What does success look like and how do I create it?
  • These questions help you understand your business’s vision and mission, and help you determine what needs to be done to support them. 

It’s essential that you start your brand strategy by diving into the heart of your brand and determining your values. These values and your core brand can then be shared with your audience and in market through messaging and visual representations. 

Define Your Brand Voice and Messaging

Now that you understand what makes your brand tick, it’s time to figure out how to communicate that to your customers and in the market. You can think of this as an exercise in brand messaging. 

Brand messaging is the practice of talking about who you are. Like with any practice, the more you hone and refine your messaging, the better it gets. Defining your brand messaging helps your brand communicate honestly and effectively. 

It’s important to spend time figuring out your brand messaging before jumping into the more visual aspects of your brand. That’s because your brand’s visual assets are largely an extension of your messaging and how you represent yourself online and in market. 

For example, when developing Domain.com’s brand strategy, we determined that our messaging needs to be authentic, interesting, and straightforward. Cleverness is okay, but we’re not cutesy and we won’t pander. We try to be honest and transparent while speaking clearly and simply — no “fluff.”

In turn, this helped us craft our visual identity — bold, strong, and energetic. Our approach with images and the more flexible creative elements of our brand is to find clean, clear imagery for complicated concepts. Our minimal illustration style is designed much like our messaging, again, no “fluff.”

To craft the best brand messaging, you’ll need to understand three things:

• Your brand’s personality. 
  • Long gone are the days when businesses were entirely formal and focused on transactions alone. Now, your brand needs to have some personality. What characteristics and human attributes does your brand express? Are you fun and cheerful or serious and direct? Determining what attributes to highlight in your messaging helps you build relationships with the right audience. 
• What voice to use. 
  • Your brand voice is unique. A car dealership doesn’t have the same voice as a non-profit, and for good reason. Your brand’s voice is your brand’s personality put into words and articulated in your customer-facing messaging. 
• What tone to take. 
  • A good way to determine your tone is to think about how you want your messaging to make people feel. Your voice won’t change, but your tone can depending on the context of your message or who you’re talking to. Just because your voice is clever, doesn’t mean you can’t have a serious tone when necessary. 

Once you’ve defined your brand messaging, it’ll be so much easier to communicate effectively and talk about who you are in market. Your brand messaging and voice should be used when sharing your brand story, making a pitch, or making a promise to your customers. 

Define Your Brand’s Visual Identity

Usually, when someone hears the word “brand” they immediately jump to thinking of colors and logos. However, we chose to include visual identity as the third step in your brand strategy because it’s a continuation of your brand messaging. 

Your brand expresses itself through colors, images, and icons just as much as it does with words. When crafting your visual identity keep in mind that you’re designing not just for your immediate needs, but for your brand’s future, too. 

With that said, your visual identity needs to be clear and intuitive so that the different elements, like colors and logos, work together. There needs to be an element of flexibility so that you can adapt and grow as your business does and as you introduce new products or services. And it needs to be comprehensive. Detail your color palette and what your imagery is meant to convey so that your employees or contractors understand and can apply your visual identity to their tasks and responsibilities. 

Translating Your Brand Strategy into Brand Guidelines

Now that you’ve gone through the exercise of determining your brand strategy it’s time to finalize it. 

Translating your brand strategy into a tangible document that contains your brand guidelines is an essential step in achieving business success. Having this information documented not only keeps you accountable, but it makes it easy to share with whomever needs the information, whether that be employees or an outside contractor. 

We recommend using a cloud-based tool, like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, to track this information. Both tools make it easy to work from wherever you’re located and you can access your files across various devices. They also make it easy to collaborate with others and stay on top of tasks. 

Your brand guidelines should detail the following information:

• Mission
• Vision
• Voice & Tone
• Color Palette
• Logos, Taglines, and Icons
• Typography and font
• Visual Language and Identity
• Media kit 
  • Your media kit should include downloadable files of any logos or design elements that your employees or contractors may need to support your brand. 

Putting Your Brand into Market

Ready to take your business and brand into the market? Congrats!

Now that you’ve established your brand strategy, you’ve set yourself up for success. 

You can use your brand strategy and guidelines to talk your customers online and off — in email, via social media, and face-to-face. And you should absolutely use and refer to your brand guidelines when designing your website, the core of your digital identity. 

If you don’t have a website, we can help. With Domain.com’s WebsiteBuilder, you can get online quickly and easily. And while our AI-powered site builder helps make life a little easier by getting your site design started, you retain full control over customizing your site to support your brand identity. 

So what are you waiting for? Get started today. 

Relevant, insightful, and well-crafted audio content delivered in a friendly yet authoritative voice can be an easy, intimate, and powerful way of connecting with different segments of the audience, educating them about your business and its products, generating brand awareness and love, strengthening your identity and eventually boosting your sales. 

If the numbers stated above don’t make a convincing enough case for the humble podcast as a worthy addition to your content marketing mix, the six compelling reasons mentioned in this article surely will.

However, before you get into making the most of your newfound passion, you must address the first step — building an identity for your podcast. This starts with registering a domain name. 

Instead of going the traditional route, consider getting a little creative and giving your podcast a meaningful and contextual online identity.

For example, if your podcast is more tech-oriented, you could register a domain name on .tech. If you’re talking about small business marketing or subjects like SEO and customer management, you could opt for .online or .site. If you’re speaking to creative professionals, or have something to do with housing, design, or outer space, you could opt for .space.

New domain extensions such as these add more character and flavor to your online identity and make you stand out. This ensures that your listener is impressed with you right from the beginning.

6 Ways Podcasts Supercharge Your Marketing

1. Easy and Inexpensive to Produce

It costs money to produce well-researched, high-quality, professional-looking content. But when it comes to podcasts, your production costs are far less than those for other forms, especially videos. 

You don’t need to hire a professional cameraperson or editor to create a podcast. A basic headset with a mic is all you need to get good audio quality. Podcast editing software such as Alitu and Audacity are fairly simple to use and there are enough tutorials on YouTube to help you get started (Audacity is also completely free).

If you are a good writer, you can write your own podcast script, one that channels your thoughts in your own voice and thus is more authentic. However, if you don’t trust your writing skills, hiring a freelance content writer from a platform such as Fiverr is also an option.

2. Stand Apart from the Competition

Content marketing is highly competitive. Almost every brand has a blog, a YouTube channel, and an active social media presence. Compared to these, podcasts are still relatively untapped, yet they have a fast-growing listener base. The number of podcast listeners globally has increased by 42% during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Moreover, research has shown that podcast listeners are dedicated to the podcasts they love. According to this 2019 report by Edison Research on Podcast Consumers, 52% of monthly listeners will listen to an entire episode. And, even though it is easy to listen to podcasts while doing something else, 70% of the listeners claim that, at least sometimes, they listen to podcasts while doing nothing else. 

This is your chance to stand apart from the competition, create simple, meaningful content, and connect with a niche audience that sees the true value of what you have to offer and has great potential to become loyal to your brand. 

3. Establish Your Authority

People nowadays look toward brands as more than just transactional entities. They gravitate towards companies that are experts in what they do, whose products and services are guided by knowledge and experience, who aren’t just in the business of selling but of truly understanding and satisfying their needs. 

This evolution of the customer-business relationship forms the crux of content marketing, and with podcasts you have an edge over other formats. As revealed in the 2019 Podcast Consumer study mentioned above, 74% of listeners say that they listen to podcasts to learn new things, while 71% do so for entertainment. By tapping into this medium, you can establish your brand’s authority not just as a business but as an industry expert and an authentic source of knowledge and entertainment. 

4. Better Engagement

Unlike videos and articles that require people to focus their sight and thoughts on a screen, podcasts can be consumed anywhere, anytime, and in conjunction with other activities. People can listen to them while driving, doing household chores, exercising, or just before bed. 

But ease of consumption isn’t the only way in which podcasts offer better engagement. This is a chance for you to also engage more personally with your audience. Through your voice, you are able to infuse your personality in your content, while a conversational tone makes your matter more relatable. It’s like a person is having a real conversation with you rather than reading an email from you. 

In fact, you should consider including real conversations in your podcasts to encourage audience participation. You can do this by incorporating live chats and Q&As, reading comments and feedback shared with you in real-time, and giving shout outs to people who are tuned in. All of this makes for a wholesome interaction that is missing from other forms of content.

5. Connect with New Audiences

Your podcasts can cover a range of topics all directly related to your business industry — such as trends, product reviews or tutorials, or other general interest topics. For instance, a bike company can have a fitness or travel podcast, while a travel company can have a nature or photography podcast. 

As the owner of a company, you can even leverage your personal brand to gain more customers for your business. For instance, let’s say that you’re an avid surfer who runs a sports equipment company. Talking about your passion for surfing on your podcast and sharing your expert tips and exciting experiences is all sure to help you attract fellow surfers. By identifying topics that interest different segments of your target market, you can reach new audiences and build brand affinity with them. 

If you’re collaborating with another brand on your podcast or inviting people to co-host or interview, you are also opening up immense opportunities for cross-promotion and tapping into yet another consumer base. All you have to do is make sure that all parties involved are actively sharing and promoting your podcast on their platforms.

6. Build Deeper Connections

When you’re talking to your audience through your podcasts, you are quite literally telling your brand’s story in your own words and in your own voice. The very nature of the medium makes it one of the most authentic, personal, and heartfelt forms of communication. It helps people see your brand in a more personable light.

Writing about your brand’s journey, the passions that led to it, the struggles you faced, and the successes you celebrated are good enough, but nothing beats the sentiments that a human’s voice can evoke. It helps people relate better, feel empathy, get inspired, and form a deeper connection with your business; and these are the kind of connections that transform into long-lasting relationships based on friendship and loyalty. 

Get Started with Podcast Marketing

Now that you are well aware of how a podcast can boost your marketing, it’s time to hone your speaking skills and put your voice out there! 

Ensure that you have the right recording equipment that does justice to your content and voice. Find a recording space that permits minimum disturbance. Look for the right music to complement your podcast’s theme and mood. If you’re looking for co-hosts or guests, try to find people who would appeal to your target demographic or whose demographic you’d like to connect with. 

Make sure you put out at least a few (typically three) episodes to start with, so that people who are curious to engage with you more get a chance to do so. This increases their likelihood of becoming your subscribers and potentially becoming your customers and brand ambassadors. You can experiment with different formats and episode lengths to see which ones work best for you. 

Remember that the key is to deliver great content consistently to entice people into coming back for more. 

Author Bio

Alisha is a Senior Content Marketing & Communication Specialist at Radix, the registry behind some of the most successful new domain extensions, including .STORE and .TECH. You can connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter. 

There are millions of published blogs — over 570 million, and that number keeps growing. And nowadays, it’s easy to start a blog with no technical knowledge. 

If you have a passion for beauty, skincare, and appearance, then creating a beauty blog is a great outlet for you. With a blog, you can share your passion with the world, earn income, and potentially make a name for yourself in the industry. 

The beauty business is booming and is anticipated to grow annually at 5.1%. The sooner you get started and make your mark, the better your chances of establishing yourself as an essential part of the industry. 

Today, we’re talking about how to create a beauty blog. From planning, creating, branding, building, marketing, and best practices — we’ve got you covered. 

Keep reading to learn how to start a beauty blog step-by-step. 

Start a Beauty Blog

Beauty blogs are popular and there are quite a few out there you can look to for inspiration before starting your own. 

Why do people start beauty blogs? There are many reasons, but here are some of the common ones:

• Connect with a wide audience of other beauty aficionados.
• Provide tutorials on how to achieve the perfect look.
• Build a brand.
• Become an authority in the beauty industry.
• Earn an income doing something you love.
• Inspire confidence in others.
• Access to exclusive or limited edition merchandise and samples.

What is your motivation to start a blog? Your reasons and motivations will help inform the type of blog you ultimately create and the audience you target. 

How to Create a Beauty Blog

You wouldn’t build a house without a framework, and the same thing is true for your blog. Now that you’ve had some time to think about your motivations and reasons for starting a blog, it’s time to plan. 

There’s no right way to plan your blog — some prefer good ol’ pencil and paper and others prefer to keep their plans online. If you choose the latter, consider using a tool like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. Both offer the ability to create, edit, and track documents from wherever you have an internet connection. Your plans are your blog’s roadmap, so you’ll want to keep a record of them to refer back to and make adjustments as your blog grows. 

What kind of planning is needed to start your beauty blog? Let’s look at what it takes. 

Decide on Your Audience and Niche

We see a lot of first-time bloggers fall into the trap of thinking that they’ll make waves and draw lots of visitors by creating a broadly generic blog that “appeals to everyone.”

But here’s the thing… nothing appeals to everyone. 

If you want to establish a well-known and trusted beauty blog, start small and identify your niche. Doing this allows you to define your target market and create content for your blog that resonates with your readers.

Let’s work on defining your niche. Your niche is “the industry or genre that you specialize in and the types of products or services you offer.” 

Beauty is a great place to start, but it isn’t your final niche. Think of beauty as a large, overarching category comprised of many subgroups. 

Are you an expert on eye makeup? Is your take on beauty inspired by your culture or how you identify?

Representation is important, so for example, your blog could focus on “Indian beauty” or “Trans beauty.” Even those niches could be further refined. Perhaps your beauty blog isn’t about everyday looks and instead focuses on extreme makeup tutorials. The more you narrow your niche, the more your blog will benefit. 

What Are Your Goals?

What do you hope to accomplish with your beauty blog? Take some time to think about your goals and how your blog can support them. 

Want to make revenue? That means you’ll need a hosting plan that offers eCommerce functionality. Just hoping to make connections in the biz? A more basic hosting plan could do the trick. 

At this point, it’s okay to keep your goals high-level. However, as you work on your blog you’ll want to create smaller S.M.A.R.T. goals to keep you on track. 

Building Your Beauty Blog

So, are you ready to turn this blog idea into a reality? 

To create a tangible blog you need two core things:

1. A Domain Name.
2. Blog Hosting and Building. 

Domain Names for Your Beauty Blog

Ever heard the saying, “The first impression is the last impression?” Your domain name is the first impression someone will have of your blog, well before they ever land on one of your posts or makeup guides. 

Now, we’re going to hazard a guess and say that, as a beauty aficionado, you understand a thing or two about appearances and impressions. Don’t you want your first one to be good?

With that said, let’s explore some domain name options. 

You really have two choices when it comes to a domain name for your beauty blog:

1. Purchase and own your domain name. 
   1. Example: yourblog.com or beauty.blog
2. Use a free subdomain that belongs to a larger business. 
   1. Example: yourblog.othercompanyname.com

Of those two options, which do you think is the better choice for making a good impression? The one that emphasizes your blog and your brand — or the one that advertises for another company in the domain name? 

Obviously, we think the first option is the better choice for anyone looking to establish themselves as an authority in the beauty blogging sphere. 

When you register your domain name, you’re its sole owner for the duration of your registration period. Domain name registrars offer multiple-year registration lengths, and good domain registrars offer a way to auto-renew so you never lose your domain name. 

Getting a free domain name sounds too good to be true… because it is. 

If you run a quick online search for “free blogging platforms” you’ll see a plethora of results. These services are great for the casual blogger who doesn’t intend on growing their blog into their own business or brand. When you create an account with one of these services they offer a free domain name, but be aware that what they’re giving you is really a subdomain. It’ll look something like this: yourblog.bloggingservice.com. 

Why is that an issue? Well, if you want to move your blog to another service, you don’t get to take that domain name with you. That means you’ll have to start from square one all over again. 

And what if you want to monetize your blog by running ads? Most free blogging platforms don’t give you an option to do that or they might give you a small percentage of the profits from the ads that they run on your blog. Doesn’t sound like a fair deal to us. 

Tips to Choose a Domain Name

When it comes to choosing a domain name, you can get as creative with it as you can with your makeup. 

While it’s true that .com is the most popular domain name, it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the wide array of available domains. It’s also notoriously difficult to get the .com you want because it’s been around so long that many highly desirable .coms have already been registered. 

So what are these other domains you should consider? For starters, there’s .blog. That one seems pretty straightforward. Is your blog going to focus on tutorials and makeup guides? There’s .academy, .camp, .expert, .guru, and .info, and we’re only just beginning. 

No matter what domain name you choose, keep the following things in mind:

• Make it memorable. 
  • Keep it short and don’t get unique with your spelling. 
• Think about keywords.
  • Your readers will likely find your blog via an online search. Help those search engines know you exist by targeting the keywords your desired audience would use.
• Pass the radio test. 
  • If someone were to hear your domain name on the radio and never see it written down, could they make it to your blog? Keep the hyphens and irrelevant numbers out of your domain name. 

Your blog is an investment in your future. While searching for the perfect domain name, you might come across some domains that are more expensive than others. Those domains are probably premium domain names. Premium domain names have already been registered, but whoever owns them has made them available for purchase.

Premium domain names are often short, memorable, and keyword-rich, and are perfect for brand-building. While they may cost more upfront, they’ll renew at regular rates, just like the average domain name, and they’ll only grow in value. 

Once you’ve selected your domain name go ahead and register it. There’s no “holding” or “dibs” on domain names — what’s available today may not be available tomorrow. 

Blog Hosting and Building Options

You can build and host your blog without any technical knowledge, we promise! If you want to build your blog by coding it, that’s an option, too. 

WordPress

WordPress is an immensely popular choice for building websites and blogs. It’s a free open-source software that can be used and edited to build your site, and it powers 39.5% of all websites. 

Depending on your skill level and technical know-how, you can either work directly with the WordPress code to build your site, or you can customize a WordPress theme. WordPress offers a great deal of flexibility and customization options, so even if you use a popular theme, your blog can differentiate itself from the rest. 

At Domain.com, we offer a few different WordPress hosting plans for your beauty blog. 

WP Live

If you’d like in-depth guidance and one-on-one support while working on your WordPress blog, our WP Live plans are the perfect fit. With WP Live, you get unbeatable WordPress help from experts who customize sessions based on your needs. Live screenshares and step-by-step walkthroughs make it easy to follow along and solve issues fast.

And we don’t stop with set-up assistance. When you use WP Live, you’ll receive the following features:

WordPress Hosting Plans

Want to use WordPress but don’t need as much assistance as our WP Live plan offers? We’ve got you covered. 

Domain.com offers two WordPress hosting plans: WP Starter and WP Essential, both of which offer unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, a customized control panel, and a plethora of pre-installed themes and plugins. 

Our hand-picked selection of popular WordPress themes are sure to start your blog off right. With a multitude of customizable options, you can edit these themes to build a beauty blog that reflects your brand. And to optimize your initial setup, we automatically install and configure your WordPress website with some of the most helpful and widely-used plugins.

WebsiteBuilder

Getting your beauty blog online has never been easier. With Domain.com’s WebsiteBuilder, you can build your blog in minutes. 

How does it work? 

No time to waste wading through hundreds of templates? WebsiteBuilder has you taken care of. Our intelligent technology starts your blog design for you. Answer a few quick questions and our AI-powered builder will select the right layout, including images and initial content, for your site.

There’s no need to fret with code when you use WebsiteBuilder. Its mobile-responsive templates offer built-in design protection to help ensure your blog’s look stays consistent and professional across desktop and mobile devices. 

Did we mention that it’s just fun to use? Our drag-and-drop functionality and image library (over 550,000 images for you to freely use!) make editing enjoyable. Or you can also upload your own images and logos to make your site completely personalized. We’re pretty serious about security though, which is why every WebsiteBuilder plan includes an SSL certificate to ensure your data stays safe. 

And if you want to grow your beauty blog into an eCommerce site where you can sell your own makeup line (dream big, amirite?), WebsiteBuilder is there for you, offering everything you need to scale your online business. 

Beauty Blog Content and Marketing

Once you’ve built your beauty blog, it’ll need some content. 

Content is what engages your audience and keeps them on-site and interacting with you. As a beauty blogger, your content opportunities are as endless as your creativity. 

It’s a best practice to create a content calendar, somewhere you can track all created and upcoming content to help you stick to a schedule. When you post consistently, your readers take note and will come back to your blog time and time again. Search engines are also fond of a regular content cadence or content updates. 

Consider using cloud-based software, like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, to create and maintain your content calendar. This way, you’ll have access to view and edit it wherever you are and can share it with others if need be. 

Beauty Content Ideas

What type of content should you create? 

Blog posts are essential to success, but don’t stop there. Multimedia content is your best friend in such a visually-driven niche. Videos, infographics, GIFs, tutorials, and guides all appeal to your audience. 

Here are some suggestions to spur your imagination:

• Product Hauls
  • What are you shopping for? Share your latest finds with your audience and give them all the deets — where’d you get it? Why? What does it do?
  • There are many ways to frame your haul, from seasonal hauls to specific-look hauls, your options are endless. 
• “Get the Look”
  • “Get the Look” type makeup tutorials are immensely popular! How many times have you seen a celebrity or influencer and thought, “I wish I could do my makeup like that,” or “I wonder how they get such clear skin”? If you haven’t, your audience certainly has!
  • Not sure what looks to cover? Engage your audience by asking them and give the people what they want. 
• Product Reviews
  • Pretty self-explanatory. Buy a product, use it, and review it. 
  • Be helpful above all else. Sure, you can take two seconds to tell someone you did or didn’t like a product, but how does that help them? Tell them the why behind it. Did it make your skin super oily? Did it cause a breakout? Hard to blend? As you provide more information, your audience can make more informed decisions about what they purchase, and they’ll thank you for not wasting their time or money. 
• “Empties”
  • Okay, so why on earth would you want to share empty and used-up products with your followers? Because there’s no better testament to how much you loved that product! 
• Recurring features
  • Monthly favorites
  • Weekly steals
  • Recurring features lead to recurring visitors, so give them something to expect and look forward to on a regular basis.

Content Marketing

There’s one thing to always keep in mind when marketing your beauty blog: You are your biggest champion. 

Want people to share your posts and tutorials? Ask them. Need subscribers? Ask them.

Your beauty blog is only part of your brand. We recommend supporting it with social media accounts where you can share your content, connect with like-minded individuals, and grow a larger audience. You don’t need to have a social media presence on every platform, but make sure you’re present in the channels that your audience uses. Instagram immediately comes to mind as a great option since it’s such a visually-forward platform. 

Pro tip: Your social media handles should match your domain name for branding consistency. 

Email marketing is another great way to keep your audience engaged. Include an email sign-up form on your blog so that you can share new blog posts or recently-published content with your subscribers. 

And last, but certainly not least, focus on your SEO!

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it’s essential if you want to be found via online search engines. Now, it may sound counterintuitive, but SEO isn’t about optimizing search engines. Instead, it’s about optimizing your site so that it performs well in search results. We put together an SEO cheat sheet so you can create perfectly optimized posts, check it out here. 

Monetize Your Beauty Blog

You’re putting a tremendous amount of thought and hard work into starting a beauty blog — why not make some money from it?

Remember, this isn’t usually possible when using large, “free” blogging services. If you’re hosting your blog and own your domain name, it’ll be a lot easier to monetize your blog.

To start, consider including ads on your blog. You can do this either by working directly with advertisers or by creating an account with Google AdSense. 

If you choose the former and want to work directly with advertisers, then make it easy for them to contact you. Create an Ads Page on your blog that details important information for advertisers like your site traffic, views, and demographics, and mention what ad spots you have available. Don’t forget to include your contact information. You can then share this page with your desired advertisers while pitching your blog. 

Start Your Beauty Blog Today

Ready to create your beauty blog? We’re excited to see it.

Once you’ve created your blog, drop a link to it in the comments below. We’d love to hear about your process and learn more about your experience. Don’t hesitate to share any tips or tricks you learned along the way, too. 

That will change as your business grows and you add more talent to your staff. As your team expands you’ll find yourself asking things like:

• Who’s working on what?
• Has anyone even started those projects you’ve been asking about for the past three weeks?
• How much has your team completed on certain tasks?

It’s tough to know the answers to these sorts of questions without tracking down your individual employees and getting a status update from each of them, right?

Wrong.

Nowadays, cloud-based tools make it possible for everyone to be on the same page. Using these productivity tools your team can align on common goals, know what other team members are working on, and hit deadlines more efficiently — no matter where in the world they’re located.

How to Increase Productivity.

One of the most frustrating things about working remotely is wasted time. And a big time waster across remote teams is duplication of effort — when two or more people are working on the same thing (unbeknownst to one another) because of poor planning, communication, and tracking. When that happens people get discouraged because all parties involved realize they could have been using their time more wisely.

Sharing your documents and files with one another prevents this issue from happening. With cloud-based documents and tools, files automatically sync so that one person can see what another is working on. What’s even better is that multiple people can work on these files at the same time if need be. Shared documents are a great and quick way to knock things off your to-do list.

Cloud-based productivity tools don’t stop there, though. They also offer things like video calls. Video calls help your team stay together as if they were meeting in the same room. The face-to-face interaction removes the chance of confusing tone in an email, so your team knows the importance of hitting a deadline without feeling over-managed. Set up a weekly video meeting with your team, and individuals, so everyone can stay on the same page with your business.

Make the Most of Your Time with Cloud-Based Tools.

What cloud-based productivity tools do we recommend?

At Domain.com, we’re big fans of both Google’s G Suite and Microsoft 365. You may be more familiar with one or another, but both offer intuitive, helpful solutions for working from home or remotely.

Do you identify with any of the following statements?

• I need to improve my productivity.
• I need to access files at the office, at home, and in-between.
• I sometimes do work on my laptop, but also my smartphone or tablet.
• I need an email address that my customers’ recognize.
• I need big workplace solutions at small prices.
• I need to maintain the security of my work documents while at home or elsewhere.
• I need to know what my team is working on and when.

If so, G Suite and Microsoft 365 are here to help. Let’s take a look at what they offer. 

Google’s G Suite

G Suite is perfect for those looking to increase their business credibility, build their brand, communicate effectively with employees and customers, and improve productivity.

G Suite Communication Tools

Gmail, Calendar, Hangouts, and Meet are tools designed and built to help you maintain open and effective lines of communication. These resources offer instant messaging, email (that matches your domain name for a professional look), and video chat capabilities.

G Suite Collaboration Tools

Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides, and Sites are tools created to allow for work and collaboration from anywhere. They let you work harmoniously with your team from across the room or across the globe.

G Suite Storage Tools

Having hard copies of your documents can be nice, but it certainly isn’t convenient. G Suite offers Google Drive and Cloud so you can store, edit, and securely maintain your important information. Access and share your files instantly, from anywhere, without worrying about merging documents or attaching and downloading files.

G Suite Management Tools

You want your team to have access to the materials they need while working remotely, but how do you make sure your important business documents don’t get into the wrong hands? G Suite offers Admin, Vault, and Mobile tools to help you easily and securely control your data, devices, and users.

You can learn more about G Suite and our offerings here.

Microsoft Office 365

Microsoft 365 is a great solution for those who are building their digital identity and establishing their business online.

With Microsoft 365, you’ll receive familiar and trusted business tools like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and so much more. Its tools allow you to analyze your business data, protect your business information, and enable social networking and real-time communication with your teams.  

Domain.com offers various Microsoft 365 plans so you can begin with your domain name and a matching email address, and grow into the solutions you need. If you’re already an established business, we’ve got the perfect Microsoft 365 plan for you, too.  We’ll dive into what each one covers right now.

Email Essentials

This plan offers business-class email and calendar services. It includes 15 GB of Exchange Online storage and offers the familiarity of Outlook you know and trust.

You’ll receive an email address to match your domain name with this plan, and that gives you credibility and instant recognition in your customers’ inboxes. 

And don’t forget to keep the team on track and working together with the shared marketing calendar that you’ll receive in the Email Essentials plan.

Business Plus

This plan consists of the core cloud services you’ll need to run your business, including business-class email, online meeting tools, and cloud storage to edit, collaborate, and share your files. You’ll never have to worry about uploading and attaching documents again!

Our Microsoft 365 Business Plus plan provides you with 50 GB of Exchange Online storage, Microsoft Office Online (with familiar tools like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel), 1 TB of business cloud storage with OneDrive, and online meetings, IM, and video chat capabilities with Microsoft Teams.

If you’ve got a remote team, consider starting with this plan, Business Essentials, or the following plan, Business Pro. 

Business Pro

Microsoft 365 Business Pro gives you the freedom to take your office anywhere you go. Working from home, the cafe, or while traveling? Microsoft 365 has your back. 

With this plan, you’ll receive Microsoft Office for desktop, Microsoft 365 apps for mobile and tablets, and automatic syncing across all your devices. 

Put some time back in your day by automating tasks like booking appointments and meetings with Business Pro!

Learn more about Microsoft 365 and get started here.

Work Together Like You’re All Local.

The internet has changed the meaning of a typical workday. Your team members can work anywhere they want, but it’s up to you to make sure they’re not working on whatever they want. Centralized productivity tools address that issue, and make them feel like they’re working in the same room. With close collaboration and the sharing of ideas, your business gets better work from the team.

When your team is spread far and wide across the country, or the world, the tools you use are the thread that holds your business together.

Once team members can work towards the same goal, see what the rest of the team is working on, and efficiently hit all their deadlines, your business stays on the right track. Even without being in the same room, your team can come together to complete the essential tasks that grow your business.

2020 wasn’t kind to traditional retail models — malls and main streets have seen declining foot traffic for years, and the Coronavirus pandemic isn’t helping.

So, what’s an aspiring business owner to do?

Luckily, brick-and-mortar isn’t the end-all-be-all of business models. Instead of investing in a physical property, consider taking your small business dreams online.

Today, we’re taking a deep dive into dropshipping. It’s a great way to start your online business both quickly and easily. In fact, with dropshipping, you can start your business for as little as it costs to create and host a website.

In this guide, we’ll discuss the following questions and topics:

• What is dropshipping?
• What are the pros and cons of dropshipping?
• How do I find a dropshipping supplier?
• How do I determine what products to sell?
• What kind of website do I need for dropshipping?

What is dropshipping?

As you begin researching how to start an online business, you’ll come across the term “dropshipping.” But what does it mean?

Dropshipping is “a streamlined form of retail business wherein the seller accepts customer orders but does not keep goods sold in stock.” That may seem a bit confusing at first… how are you supposed to sell products when you don’t have any inventory? Is it a scam?

Hardly.

The dropshipping eCommerce model takes the fulfillment of customer orders out of your hands. Instead of paying for an inventory that may not sell and the storage fees to house it all, you’ll get your customers’ orders fulfilled at the source. This is usually done by a wholesaler, manufacturer, or 3^rd party vendor (i.e. – “dropshippers”), who’ll manage packaging and shipping the product to the customer. 

Dropshipping example

Renata is a makeup artist living in New York City. She wants to grow her career in her industry. In addition to teaching people how to enhance their natural beauty, she wants to provide them with the makeup and tools they need. As she researches how to start a business, she realizes she has a big problem. Where is she supposed to store all the goods in her 300 square foot apartment? Property is expensive in the city, and she can’t afford to take out a new lease for storage space.

Enter dropshipping. All Renata needs is an eCommerce website where she can adopt a dropshipping model. She selects the products she wants to sell, and every time someone orders makeup or tools from her site she passes that order along to the dropshipper. They then package and ship the item to the original customer. In this scenario, Renata never touches the product (and this process doesn’t have to be disclosed to the end buyer, so they’ll be none the wiser.)

The pros and cons of dropshipping.

Dropshipping, as convenient as it may be, isn’t for everyone. If you’re trying to determine the best eCommerce model for your online business, consider the following pros and cons. 

The benefits of dropshipping.

• There’s a low barrier to entry — all you really need is a website.
• When you choose to pursue dropshipping, you’re freeing yourself from the worries and obligations of manufacturing, inventory, fulfillment, leasing space, and staffing, thereby saving yourself from those substantial expenses.
• You have a greater ability to test products in the market. Since you aren’t buying products in bulk to store and sell, you can quickly adapt and change your offerings depending on market interests. If something isn’t selling, switch it out!
• It’s almost like having a passive income stream. In a traditional retail model, you’re responsible for every aspect of the transaction. With dropshipping, you can focus on other aspects of your business, like marketing, while customers shop your site and a 3^rd party fulfills it.
• Work from anywhere when you dropship. Want to work from the comfort of your couch? Go for it. Prefer a typical office environment? You can do that, too. Like working from exotic locations? That’s doable as well. You can be anywhere in the world and rest assured that your products are reaching your customers.
• No issues with logistics. Worried about having too much inventory to move? Or not enough in stock to meet demand? You don’t have to worry when you dropship — these issues are all taken care of on your behalf.
• You only pay when your customer does. With dropshipping, you only pay for products that your customer has already ordered and paid for, so you’re not losing money on stuff that doesn’t sell. 

The cons of dropshipping.

• There’s a low barrier to entry — all you really need is a website. This looks familiar, we know because we also listed this as a “pro” for dropshipping. Since the barrier to entry is so low, many people can start a dropshipping eCommerce business. If you’re using the same dropshippers and selling the same goods as everyone else, it’ll be difficult to stand out and succeed.
• There can be quality issues. Take this “con” with a grain of salt. If you don’t do your research and choose a poor dropshipper with a less-than-stellar reputation, you’re likely to have issues with your products. This issue can be avoided by researching your suppliers before entering into any agreements with them.
• Your products can change, and you’ll be none the wiser. Your supplier may decide to start using cheaper materials to craft products, or different packaging materials, and you’re likely not to know about it until a customer complains or asks about the change.
• You bear the brunt of customer returns. As a business owner, it’s your responsibility to handle customer complaints and product issues. If someone decides to return a product, they aren’t sending it back to the dropshipper, they send it back to you. You’ll be responsible for providing any refunds unless you have a no-refund policy (n.b. — that might not sit well with potential customers.)
• Shipping times can be lengthy. Amazon Prime, Instacart, and many other services offer near-immediate gratification with super fast shipping. Consumers understand that they may not get the same lightning fast shipping with a small business, but if your dropshipper is located on the other side of the world it can take weeks for products to arrive. Either choose a dropshipper with faster shipping times or be very transparent about shipping times prior to purchase. 
• If you’re selling the same products as everyone else, you may end up paying more for your SEO keywords to try and get a leg up on your competitors. 

How do I find a dropship supplier?

As with most things nowadays, an internet search is a good place to start. If you aren’t finding many options by searching “dropshippers” try going beyond page one of the search results, or expanding your search with other terms like “supplier” or “eCommerce distributor” along with terms relating to the products you’re interested in selling. 

Take time to review the dropshippers you find — have other customers left reviews? If so, do they trend positively or negatively? Find out what their average shipping time is, and always, always read any contracts thoroughly before signing. 

Can’t find what you want on the Internet? Don’t fret — just contact the manufacturer of your desired goods directly. Those manufacturers can provide you with information on their vendors and dropshippers, and perhaps even set up a connection. And then there’s always the possibility that they’ll work directly with you, so don’t hesitate to ask!

If you really want to make sure you’re choosing a reliable manufacturer and dropshipper, consider ordering some of your potential products for yourself and testing them out.

What kind of products should I sell on my eCommerce site? 

Want to know what kind of products you should be selling on your eCommerce website? Well, it depends on your market and more specifically, your niche. 

You aren’t going to succeed trying to be a jack-of-all-trades. Amazon and Walmart already exist, and as a small business owner, it’ll be hard to compete. 

Do your research instead of allowing your personal passions and interests to dictate your products. What does your ideal customer look like? By targeting a niche and understanding their spending habits, along with other demographics, you can cater the perfect selection of products to entice them into purchasing from your site. 

Another big thing to keep in mind is that you shouldn’t be thinking in terms of your own pocketbook. Just because something may seem a little too expensive for you, doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there willing to pay that amount. This is why market research is vitally important to your success. 

Need some ideas to start identifying products you can sell? Take a look at the following suggestions. 

• Items geared toward hobbyists. 
  • Hobbyists and side-hustlers are booming right now, and there are many who’d pay a pretty penny for a desirable item in their niche. 
• Clothing and accessories. 
  • People purchase clothing at unprecedented rates. If you’ve got an eye for style and trends, and know your market, this can be a lucrative path to follow. 
• Repeat purchases or subscriber products. 
  • What’s better than making a sale? Making multiple recurring sales. If you sell subscription products or products that need to be replaced often, you’re in a good position. 

What kind of website do I need for dropshipping?

Wondering what kind of website you need so that you can start your business? You’ve come to the right place, we’re experts on websites (and domains, obviously.)

When creating your website, you need to build it with the future in mind. If your thought process is something along the lines of, “I don’t have any customers yet, I’m going to get the most basic thing I can find,” then you’re not planning for your business growth or your future. 

If cost and pricing worry you, they shouldn’t. You can create great websites for less than the price of a couple of coffees. 

Here are things to consider when planning and creating your website:

• What is my domain name going to be? 
  • Your domain name is like the digital address for your site, and oftentimes the first impression someone has of your site. 
  • A good domain name is short, memorable, and relevant. Too many hyphens and random numbers, and no one will remember it meaning they won’t get to your site. 
  • Maybe you’ve heard that .com is king, but that isn’t necessarily true. A key tenant of a good domain name is relevance, so perhaps consider a .store or .shop for your eCommerce site. 
• Can you sell products with the plan you select?
  • Not all quick website creation plans offer the ability to sell goods and services online. Make sure yours does. 
• Hosting and bandwidth. 
  • As your website grows and gains more online traffic, you want to make sure everyone visiting your site has a good experience. If you don’t have great hosting or enough bandwidth for your visitors, it can make for a poor experience. (Think slow-loading pages and pages timing out.)
• Do I want to create it myself or hire someone?
  • At Domain.com, we offer a smart WebsiteBuilder that helps you get online with ease. Answer a few quick questions and our AI-powered builder will select the right layout (including images and initial content!) for your site. Don’t waste your precious time wading through tons of templates — let us help. 
    • It is important to compare the features and select the plan that best fits your needs, however for anyone intending to create an online store, the eCommerce Plan is going to be ideal. Not only does it include everything needed to sell goods, services, or even downloads of digital goods online, but also priority support to help ensure any issue you experience is resolved as quickly as possible.
  • Would you rather someone help you through the process of creating your website so you can focus on other aspects of your eCommerce dropshipping business? We can do that, too. Our experts can build you a beautiful site from start to finish, provide a strategic marketing plan that’s tailored to your needs, and teach you how to manage your site for long-term success. 

Ready to launch your eCommerce business?

We’re excited for you! We hope you’ve found this guide to dropshipping helpful, and let us know in the comments below if you have any questions. We’d also love to hear about what has and hasn’t worked for your eCommerce site so we can all learn from it. 

We wish you the best of luck and let us know if you need any help with creating your site — we’re here to help!

●  You’ve grown so much that you’re struggling to keep up with customer demands.

●  Your growth has plateaued.

Planning for future growth is crucial for any online business. In today’s time, entrepreneurs have to be prepared to face any unexpected challenges. That’s how you become a leader and stand out in your niche.

The only hiccup here is: preparing your exponential future growth demands a lot of time and patience.

But — it’s not as difficult as you think.

Having a vision for the future and making smart decisions from day one can help you build a scalable business model that can make a significant difference in the longevity of your business.

In this article, we explore five ways you can take your online business to the next level.

How to scale your online business

1. Get your foundation right

This involves two things — your domain name and your website. These form the foundation upon which your online business stands. Your domain name is your business’s online identity. It’s the address that you communicate in presentations, on your business cards, on your banner ads, in a podcast, and more. Registering your domain name is the sign that your idea is now a business.

When registering your domain name, think about how you can make your website more brandable. This doesn’t mean you www.stuffallthekeywordsinyourdomainname.com.

It means making use of new domain extensions that are more meaningful, industry-specific, category-defining, relevant, and most importantly, keyword-rich. For example, a technology startup could opt for a .TECH domain name, an e-commerce business could go for a .STORE domain name, a creative agency could choose .SPACE. And if you’re looking for a more versatile and open name then you could go with .ONLINE or .SITE.

These domain extensions give you a domain name that’s brandable and meaningful to your business. Add a well-made, fully-functional website to this concoction and you have a strong online foundation to build and scale your business.

2. Always plan for the future

Building a business and planning go parallel to each other. That’s because planning is vital to your business whether you’re on day one or year one.

A good way to plan ahead is to start by setting realistic goals for growth. These could be yearly goals that are further broken down into smaller quarterly goals. Doing a simple exercise such as this gives you time to prepare for the coming weeks.

As you start preparing for these goals, you’ll be able to outline the resources and features that you’ll need to move to the next level. Here are some components that you can factor into your plan:

●  Possible resources that you might need.

●  Digital marketing goals.

●  Customer acquisition plan.

All these components will all come down to one key factor: budget.

3. Arrange for funding and spend wisely

A great option here would be to get featured on Shark Tank and get the necessary funding, however, that’s not an approach most online businesses can take advantage of.

Most small business entrepreneurs have one big responsibility to run and scale their business: secure the right amount of funding and collateral.

One of the options here could be bootstrapping where you either dig into your personal savings, take a loan from family members and friends, or get crowdfunding through sources such as Kickstarter.

Another way for entrepreneurs to get funding is to pitch to investors. While investors can provide great value to your business in terms of funding, valuable advice, resources; they’ll also take part ownership of your company.

Most small businesses opt for the latter, however, if you’re unsure about partnering with an investor then you could consider other options such as scholarships and grants. Many large organizations offer scholarships to startups and small businesses. These can range from $5k and up to a larger sum to help you reach the next level.

A few that you could consider include:

●  Fundbox Small Business Funding Scholarship

●  FedEx Small Business Grant Contest

●  U.S. Small Business Administration Grants

4. Study your analytics

Monitoring your business performance gives you a clear insight into the speed of your growth. Sales performance is one of the first metrics you should be studying when your objective is to scale.

●  Is your sales trend healthy?

●  How fast are your sales growing?

●  During what period do you see a spike in sales?

●  What do you attribute that growth to?

Strong sales performance is a key indicator of the overall health of your online business. If your metrics are positive and growing, then you know your business is scaling.

Other important metrics that you could consider to measure business growth are:

●  Primary platforms – which platforms are bringing in the most sales / new customers?

●  Product performance – which products or plans (in case of a service) are your top sellers? Is there an opportunity to add another feature to your product/service?

●  Lifetime Value:Cost per Acquisition (LTV:CAC) – how effective is your marketing? Can you justify the cost per customer acquisition?

Having a strong grip on your analytics will give you confidence and a competitive advantage when pitching to investors. It’ll also give you enough data to justify any expenses on updated technology or tools.

5. Determine your resources

The more you grow, the more resources you’ll need to manage your online business. These resources could be human or technological.

Here are two instances where you might want to invest in human resources.

1. If you’re looking to build a strong content marketing strategy and build a strong company blog, you may want to consider hiring an experienced SEO professional, a content manager, and a few freelancers who can write good content that can help you lead the search results.

1. If you’re looking to build your community on social media, you may want to consider hiring a professional who understands the nitty-gritty of all the social platforms. Someone who can curate engaging posts, drive engagement, and target relevant audiences on different platforms.

For technical resources, let’s explore these two examples.

1. While you could hire an agency to manage your accounts and keep track of your expenses, you could save time by getting a simple accounting software that can do all this and more.

1. As your business grows, so will your customer queries. Instead of managing a customer line that receives an overwhelming amount of calls in a day, you could install a chatbot on your website that could resolve basic customer queries 24×7.

Identifying areas where you can be more productive will help you prioritize your investments. However, once you do invest in these resources, ensure to check their performance periodically to make sure that you’re getting value for your spend.

Ready to scale your online business?

Your next step from here is to get started!

Carve out a plan and list down all the resources that you might need to scale your business.

●  Create systems and processes.

●  Look for investment and other income streams.

●  Find new clients and collaborators.

●  Have the time to step back, relax, and work on your own development.

Author Bio

Alisha is a Senior Content Marketing & Communication Specialist at Radix, the registry behind some of the most successful new domain extensions, including .STORE and .TECH. You can connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter. 

It’s the end of September, folks. Can you believe it?

Soon, we’ll need to put out the pumpkins, draw out the broomsticks and black cats, and prepare for the holidays to come. Do you know what to expect?

It’s one thing to deck the halls with boughs of holly, but another to prepare your website and marketing plan for the holiday season. Today, we’ll explore why you need to participate in the holiday cheer, how you can plan for holiday sales, and ways to engage your site visitors and customers. 

Create a holiday marketing plan for your website

According to Deloitte’s annual holiday retail forecast, holiday sales are projected to “result in sales between $1,147 billion and $1,152 billion during the November-January timeframe.” Of the $1.1+ trillion dollars in holiday sales, $182-$196 billion is expected from e-commerce alone. That’s a 25%-35% increase from last year! And the Pew Research Center states that “Today, 79% of Americans say they make purchases online.” So if you’ve been dragging your feet on creating an e-commerce website, or have been putting off giving your website a festive facelift, there’s no time like the present. 

As autumn proceeds and the days get shorter and darker, people are on the hunt for the best deals and gifts to complete their holiday shopping. Let’s discuss how you can identify your goals so you can finalize your holiday marketing plan and attract these online shoppers.

Holiday goals for your website

Stop and think through your goals before making any changes to your site. What outcomes do you most want to see from your holiday campaign? Are you looking to:

• Drive new business?
• Increase repeat business?
• Focus on sales of a specific product?
• Increase site traffic?
• Something else?

It’s important to remember that you can have multiple goals as they are not mutually exclusive. Once you’ve identified what’s most important to you, you can cater your holiday marketing plan to include campaigns that support your goals.

Building your holiday marketing plan

Your plan serves as the guide to moving prospects through your marketing funnel so they become customers.

A marketing funnel represents the pivotal steps prospects take on their journey to becoming customers. Funnels are broken down into different sections. People start at the top of the funnel, drawn in by your marketing materials (like blog and social media posts), and proceed through to the last step of your funnel which represents a conversion. A conversion happens when the prospect takes the action you want them to take on your site (like making a purchase or signing up for your email list) and becomes a customer or subscriber.

Keep in mind that not everyone makes it all the way through your funnel. There are fewer and fewer people, or prospects, the deeper they go into your funnel. This is why it’s important to make sure your marketing plan is well thought out. You want to encourage as many people as possible through all the steps in your funnel. 

Know what holidays to plan for

Can you make a holiday marketing plan without knowing the key dates this season?

We didn’t think so. 

Here are some holidays to consider planning for:

• Thanksgiving — Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020
• Black Friday — Friday, Nov. 27, 2020
• Small Business Saturday — Saturday, Nov. 28, 2020
• Cyber Monday — Monday, Nov. 30, 2020
• Giving Tuesday — Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020
• Hanukkah — Thursday, Dec. 10 – Friday, Dec. 18, 2020
• Christmas — Friday, Dec. 25, 2020
• Kwanzaa — Saturday, Dec. 26, 2020 – Friday, Jan. 1, 2021
• New Years Eve — Thursday, Dec. 31, 2020
• New Years Day — Friday, Jan. 1, 2021

Drafting your holiday marketing plan

Have you stopped to think about your goals? Are they strategic and measurable?

Good.

Know what dates to plan for?

Good.

Let’s think through a holiday marketing plan together so you understand how to build your own. 

What’s your first goal? For this example, we’re going to set a goal of increasing our revenue by $10,000 this December.

Now that we’ve decided on a goal our next step in creating our plan is to determine the strategy we need to reach our goal. This strategy can actually be comprised of various different methods that can all contribute toward reaching the goal.

If we really want to increase our revenue by $10,000 then a couple of things need to happen. We should:

1. Focus on what products to highlight to drive more revenue
2. Attract more visitors to our site in hopes of converting them into customers

Marketing tactics to include in your plan

Once you know the pivotal actions you need to drive (for us, we need to increase site visitors and decide on a product to focus on to drive the additional revenue) you can figure out the tactics to do so.

Consider the following:

• Blog posts
• Social media posts
• Email marketing
• Coupons and discounts
• Contests and giveaways

But here’s the thing — just listing out your tactics isn’t going to cut it. As you think through your tactics try setting smaller goals for them, like in the following example.

Instead of saying, “I’m going to run a social media promotion offering 20% off my top-selling product to new customers” try setting a more specific goal.

This goal could look something like, “I will use a coupon code for my top-selling product to drive 200 new customer acquisitions by XX/XX/XX date.” This is called a S.M.A.R.T. goal (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.) Go ahead and create S.M.A.R.T goals for all the tactics you’ll use in your holiday marketing plan.

Creating your offer

Once you have your S.M.A.R.T. goals for your marketing tactics identified you can get down to the business of creating your offer(s).

It’s vital that you have a good understanding of your ideal customer and the audience that you’re looking to attract. Sure, you could run a contest where the winner receives a free weekend getaway to the Poconos, but if you sell financial planning consultations then what’s the point? You’re likely to have folks across all spectrums enter your contest and there’s no telling if the person who wins will be your ideal customer and continue a business relationship with you post-getaway.

Your offer should be relevant to your audience. So if you do sell financial planning consultations on your site, consider running a contest where the winner receives a free planning session to help get their finances under control in the new year. This offer is more relevant to the people who are in your audience.

Make your offers look good

As a professional, we’re sure you want to be taken seriously. In that case, presentation matters. Instead of writing a normal Facebook post to announce your offer, consider creating materials specifically for your offers. There are many free tools you can use like Canva. You can “use Canva’s drag-and-drop feature and professional layouts to design consistently stunning graphics.”

Don’t miss out on getting new customers by using outdated graphics when you have free options that help make your business and offers look good.

Measuring your marketing success

In order for you to understand the success of your marketing campaign, you need to implement a way to measure it.

Google Analytics is a great way to measure your website’s performance and figure out what campaigns are working and what might need to be tweaked for better performance.

You can check out our guide to Google Analytics here.

Ready for the holidays?

We bet you are.

We wish you the best of luck in creating your holiday marketing plan and running your marketing campaigns. Let us know what has worked for you and what hasn’t in the comments below. And if you have any other tips or tricks for making the most of the holiday season on your site, let us know!