Brands are on the world stage 24/7. All your brand touchpoints need to be branded to give the same look and feel. You want your customer’s buying process to come across as a seamless experience. ​

Brand management is the planning and maintenance of everything that goes into defining your brand, from design and communication to brand behaviour. Brand touchpoints are the interactions and exposures that a consumer can have with a brand, such as:

The customer journey is a detailed outline of every step a person takes to become a paying customer. The starting point for this process is unique to everyone and by mapping out your customer journey you get an understanding of all the information (touchpoints) a customer needs.

How are they discovering your business?
How do they research?
Any snags along the way?

​Shoppers are looking for magic moments. Here's the journey:

Awareness
Customers decide they have a problem and begin to look at solutions via search engines, social media, ads or word-of-mouth. Show them how you can help them.

Consideration
Here customers want to narrow the field to those products or services that meet their initial criteria. They look at websites, blogs and product pages to compare products and services.

Decision
They look at reviews and customer ratings and decide among their options to buy from you.   

​Retention
This is where you provide customer support to ensure the customers that they made the right decision. You want your customers to feel satisfied.

Loyalty (and if done right, advocacy)
The ultimate goal is for your customer to become a brand advocate, by recommending your brand to others.

Creating a brand story is about building something that people care about. Something they want to buy into. People do not buy products and services. They buy stories and relationships.

Storytelling allows you to present information to your customers that resonates with them on an emotional level. But your story is not just what you tell people. It is what they believe about you, based on the signals your brand sends out about what you do and what you stand for.

​Everything you do, each element of your business, is part of your brand story, from your logo design and marketing material, to your team or staff.

Your business name needs to be unique and memorable, it should be easy to say and you want it to work well as a web address. The shorter, the better. It should reflect the character of your business. You should also make sure that the name doesn’t translate into something inappropriate in a different language.

Use the founder’s name 
​Hewlett-Packard (David Packard and William Redington Hewlett), Marks & Spencer (Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer) and Boots (John Boot) are a few examples.   

Describe what it is 
Mark Zuckerberg originally wrote Facebook as a social network for the community at Harvard. A face book is a printed or online directory helping students get to know each other.

​Make an acronym
Richard Saul Wurman created TED to inspire greater communication between 3 industries: Technology, entertainment, and design.

Make up a word 
Get your creative juice flowing. The name Google came about by accident.

Pick a geographic origin
Jeff Preston Bezos, the founder of Amazon, picked the largest river in the world to communicate Amazon’s vast selection of books.

Describe what it does 
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is a perfect example. It’s used to explore the Internet.

Add a Prefix or Suffix
You can turn a common word into a product name simply by adding a prefix or suffix to it. Examples are Apple’s iPhone, iPad and Audi A3, A4 series.

Change Spellings 
Flickr and Liquid-Plumr use real words that are misspelled. It’s creative and helps when the name you want is already trademarked or the related domain names are already taken.

Take a word out of context 
Apple’s voice-activated assistant Siri was named by its creator Dag Kittalaus. He had planned to name his daughter Siri, which means “beautiful woman who leads you to victory” in Norwegian. Until he had a son.

Use a Verb
You can use a verb as your product name, like Bounce dryer sheets or Apple’s iPod Shuffle. Some examples of brand names that have turned in to generic verbs are Hoover, Tipp-Ex and Google.

That's it for Chapter 2. Next chapter will be posted on 16.11.21.

​I would really appreciate your feedback in the comments below. No need to fill in website or email if you do not wish to do so... Thank you!

My name is May but it is pronounced ‘My’. It’s pronounced this way because I am Norwegian. My surname, Sivertsen, is even trickier to pronounce. Hence my name breaks the first rule of naming a business, namely that it is easy to pronounce!

Naming your business is the most challenging process of branding. Millions of names have already been registered by hundreds of thousands of businesses across the globe so finding, generating, choosing and purchasing the ‘right’ name is difficult. Very difficult. But it is critical.

The sound and feel of your business name should suggest what your business is all about. It should reflect the character of your business. How do you want people to feel when they read or hear this name for the first time?

Your business name needs to be unique and memorable and it should be easy to say. The shorter, the better. You should also make sure that the name doesn’t translate into something inappropriate in a different language.

There’s plenty of ways to go about developing a name for your business.

Here’s 10 ideas and some successful examples.

Use the founder’s name 
Hewlett-Packard (David Packard and William Redington Hewlett), Marks & Spencer (Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer), Boots (John Boot) and IKEA are a few examples. Ikea is named after the initials of its founder, Ingvar Kamprad, the farm where he grew up called Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd, the nearby village.  

Describe what it does 
Create a name that describes what the business does. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is a perfect example of a descriptive name. Consumers use it to explore the Internet. 

Describe what it is 
Mark Zuckerberg originally wrote Facebook as a social network for the student community in Harvard where he himself was studying at the time. A face book is a printed or online directory found at American universities consisting of individuals’ photographs and names, helping students get to know each other.

Make up a word 
The name Google came about by accident. Whilst trying to think up a good name, something that related to the indexing of an immense amount of data the words “googolplex,” and “googol” were suggested. Both words refer to specific large numbers. When they did a search of the domain name registry to see if Googol.com was still available they made the mistake of searching for the name spelled as “google.com ” instead.

Pick a geographic origin 
Jeff Preston Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, picked up a dictionary and scanned word after word until he discovered the word “Amazon”. He liked this name for two reasons. In the past, websites were listed alphabetically, which meant Amazon would always be higher on the page, giving a slight competitive advantage. And secondly, he picked the largest river in the world to communicate Amazon’s vast selection of books.

Add a Prefix or Suffix
You can turn a common word into a product name simply by adding a prefix or suffix to it. An example is Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iMac. BMW 2, 5, 7 series and Audi 2, 3, 4 and 6 series are examples of similar ‘naming systems’.

Change Spellings 
Flickr and Liquid-Plumr use real words that are misspelled. It’s creative and helps when the name you want is already trademarked or the related domain names are already taken.

Take a word out of context 
The name Matrix Electronics didn’t cut it. Apple Computer was named so after Steve Jobs’ visit to a commune he called  an ‘apple orchard: “Partly because I like apples a lot and partially because Apple is ahead of Atari in the phone book and I used to work at Atari.” Siri was also named by an Apple employee. Dag Kittalaus, the Norwegian co-creator of the voice-activated assistant had actually planned to name his daughter Siri, which means “beautiful woman who leads you to victory” in Norwegian. Until he had a son. 

Use a Verb 
You can use a verb as your product name, like Bounce dryer sheets or Apple’s iPod Shuffle. Some examples of brand names that have turned in to generic verbs are Skype, Hoover, Photoshop, Tipp-Ex and Google.

Make an acronym 
Richard Saul Wurman created TED to inspire greater communication between emerging industries. “It occurred to me during frequent airplane flights in 1982 that the only interesting conversations I was having were with people in the technology business, the entertainment industry and the design professions.” Two years later, he planned the first TED conference in California and invited leaders of the technology, entertainment, and design (TED) industries to attend. 

I hope some of these ideas has inspired you to come up with a name for your business. 
The idea behind my business name Trumpet is that if you have a business, you need to let people know about it.

You have to blow your own trumpet;-)

Do you have other ideas for naming a business? If so, I would love to hear from you. (No need to fill in website or email if you do not wish to do so...)

​Thank you!

You want to build a strong connection with your customers through telling them your brand story and you need to communicate clearly, confidently and positively. It is absolutely vital that your logo represents your core values. 
​
Here’s my design principles and some of my logo designs.

​Unique 
Your logo must have the ability to stand out against the crowd and it should be easily recalled after just a glance. Keep it simple for easy recognition. Less is more.

​Memorable  
A few seconds is all it takes to make a first impression, but you need to make sure your logo makes a lasting impression as well.

​Appropriate  
Your logo must represent you. It must be relevant, tailored to your audience and easily identified with your industry. However, it must not become a “me too” version of any other similar business to yours.

​Versatile 
Your logo will be used in a number of ways and in multiple contexts and it has to be effective at any size.

Timeless   
Focus on your brand rather than what the latest trends are. You want your logo to be able to stand the test of time. I designed the logo for Berg Hansen (1) in 1996. Twenty years later this re-design (2) still has links to the original logo.

Talk with one voice. Show one face.

However, your story is not just what you, yourself, tell people. It is also what they believe about you, based on the signals your brand sends. Everything you do, each element of your business, is part of your brand story. Everything from your logo design and marketing material, to your team or staff.

Creating a brand story is the best way to differentiate your business, but it is not simply about standing out and getting noticed. It is about building something that people care about. Something they want to buy into.

To achieve this, you need to start by caring about your customers and the work that you do. What motivates you? What inspires you to wake up and come into work every day?

​You also need to ask yourself why your product or service could be important to your customer. How will what you do or sell fit into the life of your customers?

Why will people care?

There’s nothing like some inspiration from the best and I love everything that Innocent does. You can read their story here.

How will your business change the world? Some of the most successful brand stories begin with answering that question and here’s some inspiring stories from some of them, including AirBnB and Uber.

If you want to build a successful and sustainable business that will create a meaningful bond with your customers, you have to start with your story. It is the foundation of your brand. Here’s a link that can help you get started: www.forbes.com

The “Personal” Brand.
​How can you introduce some “personality” to your brand? ​Please share in the comments below. No need to fill in website or email if you do not wish to do so... Thank you!