Know-How Exchange : Taglines/Names

Since everyone wants to say that they're "honest and hard working", you'll need to be a bit more specific about what you can (uniquely) offer, (specifically) to who, and why they should hire you (instead of another VA, or a local employee, or no one). Can you share a bit more about your background and specialized knowledge?

It's good to leave room for growth and there's really no harm in appearing larger than life.

Upright Administrative Support Services
"We Want Your Job...at least the parts you don't like."

Randall,

your reaction to this issue is quite reasonable given their general usage: most of them are meaningless rubbish. Yet a good tagline can give a young entrepreneur a lot of confidence in themselves. Furthermore, when used carefully, it can set you apart from the crowd and tell people exactly what you do.

Everyone knows "A fresh hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less, guaranteed". Today it's pretty ordinary, well know. In the 1970s it was an earthquake for Domino's.

This taglines was tested, and tested again and regularly checked to see if they were working well. So let's have a look at what's really going on here. Because all too many marketers do not understand this: you cannot determine the effect of your advertisement before it is published. Final. Put bluntly, you cannot determine its *value*. Value, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder.

Only your market can determine the effectiveness of your advertisement. In the old days of direct marketing this was a tough job - so tough that most people couldn't grasp it or simply didn't see the point. Many still don't and the modern internet marketing phenomenon of the split test - which was developed around 1890 (not 1990!) - is still extremely poorly executed. You only need look at your Google search page to see that! People like Claude Hopkins were using it effectively in the 20s - just as Glenn Livingstone does today. He regularly gets CTRs of 25% and more - the industry average is around 3%.

That means people like Glenn have taken note of what the marketplace has told them. They know what connects brain impulses to movement, and understand the panorama of possibilities that it brings. Because marketing isn't about what people say to someone bearing a clipboard, it's about which one they'll buy when they're looking at a line of products. They'll choose the one that appeals to them. It may - or may not be branded.

Most people prefer the comfort of being in a group where everyone thinks the same. There aren't that many people who are prepared to stand out in this way. They don't like standing out in the crowd because they might make a mistake. I stand on the moderator's hitlist for precisely that reason. I make mistakes.

But wait! What if your tagline isn't effective, it's just the same as everyone elses except that it's a different color? Like the supermarkets, you go in one, you go in them all. The only difference is that one's got an offer this week that the other hasn't. That's marketing where value's been eviscerated.

The point is that with value being "so hard to determine" for most marketers that they simply avoid the question and say it's not possible. That generations of marketers have thought this has led to a situation where it's forgotten. In a world that will pay handsomely for just this, marketing's on a roll.

The end result of this is that people do not know that their taglines need testing. They put up all kinds of things that please the board of directors and the result is people yawning. It's what the board of directors wanted, and still want. So there's still a big market for this kind of marketing!

My point is that a well executed tagline can be effective.

Extremely effective. The tagline "Corns gone in 5 days or your money back" is a little advertisement that's run in the National Enquirer for six decades. They tried "five days" it didn't work as well. I split test my own advertisements, and I am extremely careful who gets to hire me because if they don't have a feel for the split test and what it implies, it's unlikely they'd be a good customer. I use my skills to my own ends.

Thank you for the insight. I am just starting out as a VA and was looking for a tagline for my website. The website will not be very large. My hope is that they will browse the website, get a feel for what I can do for them, and then call or contact me for more information.

I think a good tagline would help in catching the viewers attention, get them to further explore the website and finally make contact with me.

Thanks for your help.