“Honestly, if I had taken this whole career thing seriously, I would’ve named it something else besides Foo Fighters. It’s the worst F*CKING band name in the world”. ~ Dave Grohl
The Maverick’s take:
Names are highly overrated.
You know, there are a ton of companies, bands, or even people with lousy names that are uber successful.
You can’t tell me Google, Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Ikea are good names.
They’re as dull as dishwater.
Listen;
Saying that a “name” makes a brand, is like saying that your kid’s “name” is the determining factor on whether they become successful or not.
It simply isn’t true.
Look, I’m all for having a great “brand name”, I mean, I’m called: The Email Marketing Maverick – you can’t get much better than that, right?
HEY! No need to be like that.
Geez.
Anyways, in my prideful opinion, your “brand name” has very little bearing on how successful your company, music band, or person you’ll become.
Because it’s the people (or person) behind the brand name that will determine the success of the brand name.
You know, Dave Grohl could’ve called his band Racoon Turd and it wouldn’t have made any difference.
Why?
Cuz it’s Dave Grohl that made the name “Foo Fighters” great.
Dave Grohl’s songs, attitude and his band members are what people grew to love.
Look, let’s say you’re the owner of a fitness gym.
You come up with the name: Incredible Bulk, which I think is a very good name.
But, you’re an overweight fitness trainer that smokes, has only second-hand equipment that’s half rusted, and you have the business acumen of Lindsay Lohan.
Sure, that cool business name (Incredible Bulk) might draw some attention, and pull in a few new customers for a while, UNTIL they realize how substandard and pathetic your gym is.
Now that cool name (Incredible Bulk) isn’t so “cool”. Incredible Bulk is now only associated with negativity.
That’s right, YOU through being completely inept in every way, turned a potentially good name, into a bad name.
And so it is with YOUR name in regards to email marketing.
I’ll explain:
You see, marketers get all excited about subject lines.
They’re always coming up with new clever subject lines to boost their open rates.
But then they send their subscribers substandard and pathetic emails that give zero value to the subscriber.
Well, that’s like coming up with a clever business name to attract new customers but then delivering a shoddy product or service.
It won’t last.
People might get tricked once or twice, but then they’ll simply stop turning up, or for us email marketers, stop opening our emails.
Hear me on this:
If you wanna increase your email open rate, focus less on coming up with clever subject lines and focus more on delivering value-packed emails your subscribers will love.
If you do that, it won’t be long before your subscribers start opening your emails just cuz YOU sent them.
It’s YOU and the quality of your emails that will ultimately determine if your open rates will be good in the long run, not your clever subject lines.
You know, I want every single one of my emails to be so damn good, so easy to read, so entertaining, so relevant, so helpful that when my subscribers see my name: Kelvin Dorsey show up in their inbox, they open.
Listen:
When you’re consistently sending emails that your subscribers love to read, then your subject lines become less and less of a factor on whether your subscribers open the email or not.
Just seeing the sender’s name (your name) in their inbox will suffice.
So, If you have no shame to your email game, there’ll be no shame to your name, only fame!
Boy that sounded hokey, didn’t it?
At least I tried, right?
Ah whadda you care.
I’m done with helping you today.
Kelvin Dorsey ~ Email Marketing Maverick
P.S. Are you ready to start bringing in the bucks with your email marketing, then go hither: Email Playbook
