Do you realize that your name can make or break your business.
Posted on 21 July 2006 by John
If you have been reading my older posts, you might have realized that I have been highly Influenced by Robert Cialdini’s Influence : The Psychology of Persuasion (no pun intended
) and Dr. Cialdini himself.
I am also subscribed to his email newsletter – Inside Influence and the latest issue of the newsletter contained an article that literally shocked me.
Here’s an snippet (be sure to visit the link above) –
The researchers found that the highly fluent stocks (e.g., Slingerman, Flinks, Undersill) were predicted to perform better than highly disfluent stocks (e.g., Sagxter, Frurio, Xagibdan).
Perhaps more interesting, however, was the finding that highly fluent stocks were predicted to appreciate in value, whereas highly disfluent stocks were predicted to depreciate in value.
If you’re questioning whether such a seemingly small factor could actually influence stock processes in the real world, you are not alone—the researchers wondered about this as well.
Consistent with the results from the laboratory study, the data revealed that fluent stocks generally outperformed disfluent stocks after one day and one week.
However, the difference between these stocks diminished as time went on. Nonetheless, the researchers point out that if one invested $1,000 in the ten most fluent companies on the list or the ten least fluent companies on the list, the investment in the ten most fluent companies would have outperformed its counterpart for each of the designated time periods, including a $333 difference one year after the initial public offering.
Wow! Shocking, isn’t it?
Looking at it from an internet business perspective — your domain name matters! Now, I am a sucker for good brandable names. I don’t care if a name is SEO Friendly or whatever but if it is memorable and relates to my business, I go in for it. Repeat business matters a lot.
If you do a bit of loose research, you will find that the most successful sites do indeed have an easy pronounceable name. There may be some exceptions (as even in the stock markets, which was taken as example above) but overall you will find that it works.
Thanks goodness Street Lessons has an easy flow and so do my other major sites.






November 2nd, 2006 at 2:11 am
Interesting Is it applicable to individual names too?