The Secret less secret than all secrets

Wow. So I pretended like I already had posted about The Secret…and the next time I logged into WordPress here was this post. Weird.

I was totally unaware of The Secret until a few weeks ago - and apparantly the rest of the world is coming online too. “The Secret” seems to be less secret than “secrets” as a keyword according to Google trends.

People are swarming to figure out what The Secret is all about. This is a GREAT example of viral marketing success. Much better than any YouTube video to date. Then again, it’s a pretty simple formula…pick a huge topic like the “meaning of life” and then provide an “answer”. Who needs to spend money to market something like that? Jesus would be proud.
This has all the makings of a new religion. But judging by the two disciples who told me about it(enthusuastic ski-bum college dropouts in Whistler handing out stickers to their 2-person-band myspace page), this religion would be more likely to be one made up by Douglas Adams or Kurt Vonnegut.

I’m sure there’s something to learn from this, I just can’t figure out what it could be…

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I would not recommend naming a company something if you cannot secure the domain.

Frank Schilling (top-shelf blog btw) owns a pretty good domain with welcomemat.com. It so happens that he is also getting some free links to that domain (http://www.vflyerblog.com/blog/2007/05/08/real-estate-20/) because someone didn’t take the time to notice that WelcomeMat TM- the new mover direct marketing company - actually is located at welcomematservices.com and not welcomemat.com (Frank’s domain).

• This is a big deal.

It happens all the time. Usually it happens by people looking for a specific site via direct navigation, but a link in a post just shows how much everyone - including bloggers and others who write about your company - expect you to own the domain equivalent of your business name.

Even scarier: what happens if Welcome Mat TM decides to do radio, tv, print, or even direct mail? Are people going to remember welcomematservices vs welcomemat? No. Instead Frank gets more traffic to buy himself another boat down in the Caymens.

The WelcomeMat name creates a good visual and I can see how a brainstorming session led them here, but the actual generic word doesn’t exactly convey the business value proposition, they were unable to get the obvious domain, and are probably losing business as seen in the wrong link in that post. And god forbid they get really big and then decide they want the domain…

Rule of thumb - if you have to add +services, +group, +inc, +company, or any other super generic modifier theat is not your company nam, then consider going back to the brainstorming for a new direction. Find something that you can buy the domain for (welcometotheneighbordhood? welcomingmat? welcome?).  Or else consider including the generic as part of your company (mywelcomemat, thewelcomemat) and use that in your logo, collatoral, everything & all the time because you’ll have to brand it yourself.

Key point here is; WelcomeMat TM doesn’t use “services” everywhere, and that vastly devalues their chosen domain.

WelcomeMat does look like a pretty cool company with a valuable service. However…I wouldn’t buy marketing services from a marketing company who failed one of my (admittedly unjustly unfair) key marketing tests: the company name & domain name.