What's In A Name?

I just got a question thrown at me from my friend Daniel Johnson Jr. about setting up the email address he wants on his business cards, brochures, etc. This is something of a big deal for musicians, small business owners, and individuals looking to promote awareness of their brand (like, for example, my music).

Something I’ve always done is focus on my main brand keyword- matthewebel. I want my music to be found, so I use that one word in everything I do- IM clients, Myspace, Facebook, email, everything. If someone’s looking for me and they already know me on one service, chances are very good they’ll find me elsewhere.

Except on Gmail, some other shmuck named Matthew Ebel got matthewebel@gmail.com before I could. Curses!

Anyway, the idea is that my main email starts and ends easily… my name at my name. I also set up all kinds of close-guess emails… matt@, matthew@, etc. so people can get in touch with me if they even come close to the right address.

One other trick that’s handy since I own my own domain is setting up a new address for every service I register with. So if my username on Gizorniplat.com is matthewebel, the email address I’m using is most likely gizorniplat@matthewebel.com. That way if I start getting spam from that address, I know which service is selling or abusing their user database.

The main advice, though, is the same I give for picking a domain name in the first place: make it simple. You want to hammer home that single brand name or word, so use it in everything that’s public. Get creative on the back end, but if it’s on a business card, make it as consistent as possible.

[tags]Matthew Ebel, piano rock, email management, branding[/tags]

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