The DFN Lounge

With

Tom Dowd

Health Labs LLC

Branding

Have you ever wondered why people will pay a large amount more for a name brand? Or why a company will pay a huge amount of money for a "brand name" or product when they could have just "knocked it off?" The answer is what people in marketing call Branding. All companies know the power of the brand and when customers will pass over other similar products to choose theirs because of the brand, their product branding goals have been accomplished! Some products have done so well in the branding arena that their product brand names are used to describe the actual product…can you think of any? How about Kleenex, Windex or the big one, Coke. When I am asked for my drink selection in restaurants, I am still guilty of always saying "Coke please" only to be followed up by the waiter with "is Pepsi OK?" Yes it is OK…I just always say coke, sorry! Ahh…the power of the brand at work!

Every product and service will benefit from Branding. As Webmasters your site name and address is your brand and the content is your product. The challenging part is setting you apart from the thousands of other Websites; of course having superior content is a good start. The next is a marketing push to get and link to as many people as you can, but how do you maximize your marketing dollars so people will remember your site…the answer is branding. Every Webmaster's goal should be to have a powerful brand that people will remember. This is why companies spend like mad on NASCAR, The Olympics, Super Bowl ads and celebrity endorsements. Everybody is fighting to make their product or service stand out. When a toilet is clogged the first name that comes to my mind is Roto-Rooter, the question that should be on every Webmasters mind is how do I build my brand? How do I make my site stand out from the crowd?

One answer is to have tangible products on your site with your brand put in as many hands of your customers as possible. Sears build its entire empire on the Sears brand! Until just a few years ago Sears only sold their own brand of products, no third party products, even at the cost of top line sales. Why…because the margins they where making far off set the lost top line sales, and the power of the brand kept people coming back to Sears. When you can only buy their branded products at Sears, the customer has to come back to that store. Only through years of mismanagement did Sears have to open the door to third part products to capture top line sales. Branding and huge margins are also why every smart retailer has a house brand to compete with national branded products; you will even see "Compare to" signs in Target and Wal-Mart to "UpSell" the customer to a house brand. Many companies have also created "house brands" that has a different name from the store but is a house brand and can only be brought at that store. Craftsman is a Sears's house brand, Martha Stewart is the Kmart house brand, "when you own the brand you cut out the middleman and you enjoy all the profits as you build a brand," said Jack Seemiller of HealthLabs, LLC. Having a popular brand is almost like having a signed contract with the customer to come back and buy again!

Wal-Mart does not sell Target branded products! For example, "Centrum One-A-Day" from Target, the customer can pick that product up anyplace, not the goal of a retailer. Being unique in the service business or having a unique product is one sure way of setting yourself apart from the crowd. This is also why some Hollywood celebrities say, "any news is good news, as long as they spell my name right!" With the colossal amount of Adult websites today, being unique is a must along with a good service and product. Webmasters also need all the help and business tools available to them to build a site. "Branding" and "Upselling" are a few of those proven tools.

"The art of the Upsell" as it is called in retailing or "OMS'ing." (One More Sales) It is an easy and very profitable way to boost sales, margin and build your brand. Yet very few webmasters are using this proven tool to accomplish the above goals. Let's take a page out of the retail words book. Think of a few OMS items in the retail world….Extended Warranties, Value Meals, Candy and Magazines at the Checkout, Movie Popcorn, and even those trunk and floor mats you feel should have come with the car! The natural OMS products for adult sites are natural sex supplements; the best part about natural supplements is that they have enormous margins! It is the norm to make 3-6 times your investment back on a product when you private label a supplement. Adult sites have the perfect demographics to sell an Herbal Viagra, Big Penis or Big Breast, Energy, Sex Cream or even a natural Diet pill. Natural Supplements are a $43 Billion dollar business and growing with 88% of the population using a natural supplement at one point within the year.

It is a great opportunity to teach and offer OMS items to the Webmaster world as it is lacking in a large number of sites. Offering extra branded products on a site is a keen way to maximize marketing dollars, (customers are there visiting already) adding profits and with every sale your sending out tiny billboards and site advertisement business cards. When a customer likes your product, they will have to come back to repurchase your unique product at your site. Every time a customer uses the supplement they are reminded of your site. If a customer buys a third party product from one of your advertisers, who is also advertising with your competitors, you are missing all the opportunities previously mentioned.

Look through the Enquirer or the Star it is no wonder almost every other page has a natural diet, herbal Viagra, firming cream or breast enhancer advertisement. They are selling products with the "shotgun" approach, adult webmasters have the "sharpshooter" approach to sell sex products, it's like selling chocolate in an airport on Valentines Day! When you have the customer, offer them products you know they would want or be interested in…and why not profit from it as well? As any CEO or business owner knows, you must keep your business moving forward…or you are actually moving backwards. Identifying new products and services is an ongoing task of any business person. Finding "the next step" for a business to take is consistently ranked as a top three key issue any CEO must face. How do you build sales, attract new customers and keep your existing ones, find and keep good employees, improve your product or service? These are the questions every site owner, webmaster and business owner should be asking themselves every day. Try to imagine a world if the computer industry had stood still and not taken that next step.

Tom Dowd