Thursday’s profit tip for authors

Sam Horn’s POP! Create the Perfect Pitch, Title, and Tagline for Anything contains valuable assistance for authors looking to increase their sales by choosing memorable names for their products and services.

To be remembered and favorably acted on, names have to POP! through the clutter.

As Sam Horn wrote in the Introduction to her book, “If what we’re offering doesn’t make an immediate positive impression, people will ‘vote’ with their feet and move on to the next thing.”

A process for choosing memorable names

POP! describes a process for choosing memorable names; names that can immediately make a memorable and positive impression in the “less than one minute we have to prove we’re worth trying and buying.”

Sam Horn’s process of name selection begins with her W9 form that Sams says is “the key to making your marketing message purposeful.” The W9 form helps entrepreneurs provide answers to the 9 following “W” questions:

1. What am I offering?
2. What problem oes my idea or offering solve?
3. Why is it worth trying and buying?
4. Who is my target audience?
5. Who am I and what are my credentials?
6. Who are my competitors and how am I different from them?
7. What resistance or objections will people have to this?
8. What is the purpose of my pitch?
9. When, where, and how do I want people to take action?

Core Words

The purpose of the exercise is to help you identify the Core Words that describe your product.

Once you identify the appropriate Core Words associated with your product or service, POP! describes numerous–often playful–exercises and techniques you can experiment with in order to convert your descriptive Core Words into engaging and memorable names and phases that will stand out in your prospect’s mind.

The name-generation techniques that Sam Horn describe cover a lot of ground. Over a dozen exercises are described, including techniques like playfully combining old and new words, linking your Core Words to metaphors or popular events, or  looking for alliterative and rhyming words.

Conclusion

Sam Horn’s POP! is an unconventional book that has been highly praised by marketing expert like Seth Godin, Jeffrey Gitomer, John Jantsch, and Mark Victor Hansen. You can learn more by visiting Sam Horn’s website, her blog, or the resources described on her Online IdeaPreneur Marketing Game Plan.