The domain name that you choose for your business will play a major role in determining how your company is perceived by the public. Typical suggestions on domain name selection include finding options that are concise, easy to remember and easy to connect with your services or products. While each of these suggestions certainly make sense in the larger scheme of things, they don’t account for the intricacies of the branding process. Given that much of the average, modern company’s business will be conducted on the web, the selected domain name will play a major role in the overall branding process. Bearing this in mind, it is always cheapest, easiest and most effective to use brand-enhancing strategies in domain name selection from the very outset. In terms of overall brand architecture, the structuring and selection of domains is always a key consideration.
Moving Beyond The Obvious
One of the most important considerations to make when choosing a domain name is whether or not a single, corporate name will suffice for the representation of all your products. Factors worth considering are whether or not users of different products will feel comfortable making purchases or payments on a site that bears a a corporate moniker that they’re unfamiliar with. If the corporate brand proves to be the lesser known entity among consumers who are only familiar with separately-branded products, then a corporate domain name will diminish overall user experience. If there is a corporate brand, product brand and sub-brand, the selected domain name must be specific to the interests of the client.
The Risks Of Corporate Branding In Online Marketing
Choosing to use a corporate brand in your domain name creates a number of additional risks. One of these is the risk of having a single, bad or poorly-rated service or product diminish the appeal of everything else that the corporation has to offer. Using separate domains and creating separate product brands and sub-brands, means that every product or service must either sink or swim on its own. This way, negative publicity for one branded product won’t drag everything else that the corporation has to offer down. Conversely, when this tactic is used, no single service or product will be able to benefit from the goodwill or good word of mouth advertising of all the others.
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Product Brands And Local Markets
Opting to use a domain name that is reflective of a product brand only, often works well in markets in which businesses have a strong, local connection. For this strategy to succeed, however, there must be no related products and interactions and associations with the corporate body on the part of consumers has to be limited. The primary drawback is that corporations will have to pay to brand each product from the ground up, each time a new product is introduced.
Companies like Network Solutions make it possible for businesses to buy domain names across many different price points. Thus, irrespective of the method that you choose, it is always possible to find an affordable range of domain name options for corporate brands, sub-brands and product brands. The only challenge for businesses is simply determining which domain name branding strategy is best in line with the structure of their operations and their overall branding goals.