Recently I’ve been spending a great deal more time on London’s hectic rush hour traffic system. For those who haven’t experienced the pleasures of a cramped tube train, or a bus driven by a half crazed lunatic who can’t speak (that’s any language, not just English) or an 8am overground train from Clapham Junction to Waterloo. I can tell you, it’s not always a pleasurable experience.

Fortunately I have an iPod which I think you will all agree is the best invention since sliced bread. Not only do I have my entire music collection in my pocket, but I can literally escape the maddening crowd around me at the click of a button. I haven’t always understood the power of music, but at times it can make a huge difference to your mood or work rate. For example, I was travelling to Marylebone station recently on the tube, squeezed in closer to a complete stranger than I would normally stand with my wife. Under normal circumstances that would be very stressful, but on this occasion I had Bob Marley’s Legend album playing. Say no more.

Another example, after a hectic night networking at an event near to Waterloo, I had some driving house music playing, keeping my going until I got home and collapsed onto the sofa for some well earned rest.

Listening to all this music and starting to think about how it changed my experience of the product i.e. the tube and an overground train, got me to thinking about how small business could use music to enhance customer experiences. Not only that, but why hasn’t the London Underground continued to play classical music in it’s tube stations to reduce stress - a little experiment they ran a year or so ago (and possibly still do).

So as a small business, how can you use music? Well for a start consider checking out music and communications agency Frukt’s process for matching brands with music. It’s a seven stage process that starts with identifying brand objectives and target audiences, and ending with delivering the music to the correct touch points. If you can’t afford professional consultancy (which 99.0% of small businesses can’t), perhaps you might want to think about:

• where could you apply music to enhance your customers experience (taxi drivers, what about playing some classical music or taking requests, rather than that terrible talk radio show)

• where could you add music to enhance your internal communications (office managers, what about playing some light background music for your office staff)

• do you have appropriate music when people are ‘on hold’?

• what styles of music relate well to your product and target audience?

• when would a dose of good music help customers to appreciate your service?

• do you need general background music, or something custom made (sounds expensive, but there are music students everywhere who could knock you up an Intel style jingle if you think it would help).

Ok granted these are small ideas but then as small businesses we aren’t quite geared up for big brand expenditure. Any clues how much Intel paid for its jingle? Not much by the sounds if things, but $350 million to promote it last year is not an insignificant amount.

There’s a fantastic article on brandchannel.com all about ‘Putting the Metrics into Music’. It quotes some research done by Dr Adrian North at Leicester University:

Brands with music that fit their brand identity are 96% more likely to be recalled than those with non-fit music or no music at all

and

Respondents are 24% more likely to buy a product with music that they recall, like, and understand compared with 8% where the opposite applies

The article starts with the introduction that:

Every time a brand uses music - in marketing, sales or in a PR context, regardless of the music, genre, style, artist, or channel through which it is played, the music is influencing a constituent’s perceptions about the brand. It is effectively creating an asset or liability for its overall brand equity. When the ‘Sound of the Brand’™ is carefully and strategically managed and is consistent and relevant to its target customers, it has a positive impact on the equity of the brand.

So what does all this mean for you.?

Well, as a small business, operating in fierce market conditions, could you think about music as a method of differentiating yourself? How much more likely are you to pick up the phone to a taxi company that you know will play your favourite music in the car, or if you know your customers spend a lot of time on hold, are you happier listening to some smooth jazz or Mozart..? Well I hope you get the idea. Can music drive your brand - try it and see.

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but choosing a good domain name that hasn’t already been registered is hard work these days. If the domain you want isn’t already in use by a competitor, then it’s likely to be taken by a domain name speculator - someone who buys up domains in the hope they will resell at a premium price.

But fear not, if you’re struggling to find a domain name, I came across a fantastic service the other day. It’s from a company Picky Domains and essentially they will help you to find a great name for next to nothing. Well OK it’s $50 dollars, but that’s not at all bad. So how does it work I hear you say? Something like this:

1. you register with Picky Domains and deposit your $50 US dollars,

2. you tell them what your site or service does, NOT what the domain name should be,

3. you include a few guidelines, such as it needs to be made up of two words, without slang and with a .com or .com.au etc,

4. Picky Domains uses it’s army of creative people from around the world to generate ideas which are sent to you for consideration,

5. if you like a suggestion you can accept it there and then and you’re free to register it immediately. If nothing you like is suggested then you can get a full refund of the $50 dollars.

Simple and if I may say so, quite brilliant.

What makes this service that little bit special is that if you’re a blogger, the first time you use the service it’s completely free. Now isn’t that just the icing on the cake.

I’ve been looking into the idea of developing a custom theme for my blog. On the advice of various IM blogs and Aaron Wall’s SEO site, this seems to be a great way to further develop a blogs brand identity and differentiate it from the rest of the pack. It’s also a great way to spend a bucket of cash, right? Wrong.

OK OK it can be and this is why I haven’t taken this step so far. But then I came across a site from Yvo Schaap with a Wordpress theme generator where you can build your own theme in minutes.

Well, not exactly minutes, it actually takes a lot of effort to create something professional looking. But what you will have is a unique, impressive, widget ready theme to call your own. Now that is something to be proud of. The best thing about it though, t’s FREE.

Thanks Yvo, that’s fantastic!

I just have to decide whether or not I have the time, or whether I might be better off heading to RentACoder…

I got a short review on Gobala Krishnan’s blog yesterday which was nice, so thanks Gobala.

Gobala included a definition of blagger from Dictionary.com which is quite interesting:

Not a bad definition, although I don’t plan on being deceitful. To me a blagger is someone who talks about a subject without always knowing all the facts, which I think fits nicely with my journey in internet and small business marketing - I don’t think I’ll ever know everything there is to know, but as long as I’m adding value I’ll be happy.

So I thought I’d check out a few more definitions of blagger, which to be fair I should have done before choosing the name and buying the URL. Anyway, here’s what I found:

From Allwords.com - to scrounge something, to get it for nothing

OK I can live with that, a lot of small business marketing is about getting results without spending much money. So this fits OK.

From the Urban Dictionary - British prison slang for a bank robber, a term for a male of African American heritage.

Oops, neither of those fit, I’m not a bank robber or an African American.

Still, interesting reading anyway. If you want to read other blogging blaggers, check these guys out:

IT Blagger
Tax Blagger

I think the morale of the story - do some thorough research on your name and brand way before you launch. It could be very costly if you get this wrong.