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Most of us are familiar with acronyms. Using few letters, they can be powerful little messages, easy to understand, remember and meaningful. But how can they be effective in highlighting our company?

When our customers need a product/service or help in solving a problem, we want them to choose our company. To make that happen – we often need to differentiate ourselves. There are numerous ways of doing this, and communication is one of them.

We communicate with our customers daily. Chat, email, sms, video, LinkedIn etc. One of the reasons for communicating on several digital platforms is to create presence, customer relationships and ensure company visibility. This in turn results in our customers getting to know us better – who we are, what we do and how we can help them.

But can just a few letters represent all of that and in addition, inspire our customers and help them to remember us when they need a product, service or help?

Acronyms and acronym mnemonics

Research shows that targeted training, like the use of acronyms or what is also called acronym mnemonics, can improve memory. So, by using a company acronym again and again whenever communicating with our customers on digital platforms we can remind them of who we are.

Here are some examples:

#TGIF – Thank Goodness It’s Friday

Just by looking at those 4 letters, we smile, get the weekend feeling and even maybe dream about sleeping in tomorrow. At the same time, these 4 letters could have another effect.We could start visualizing juicy buffalo wings and perfectly salted fries or a big chocolate milkshake with whipped cream, served by waiters with red and white striped shirts. We can thank Alan Stilman for that visualization. In 1965 he started a new restaurant in New York and gave it a name using an acronym that gave most people a great weekend feeling – TGIFridays. According to Wikipedia, « his first restaurant and all future ones are focused on “casual dining” – restaurants that serve moderately-priced food in a casual atmosphere. » He wanted his customers to have that relaxed «Friday at home » feeling, even though they were eating out. Stilman not only thought of a company acronym that would capture his company’s values, he even implemented it into the company name he created.

Smart man.

#DFTBA – Don’t Forget To Be Amazing

Chris Marr at The Content Marketing Academy uses this well-known acronym whenever communicating to his customers. His use of DFTBA was influenced by seeing a MIM or a quote image and he thought it was cool. So, in 2014 he started using it in signing off his emails and then from there it just grew. A few years ago, after using it for a while, Ann Handley told Chris something he wasn’t aware of, that DFTBA was the rallying cry of Nerd Fighters (the Green brothers). So he contacted Nerd Fighters, told them why he was using this particular acronym and wrote a blog about it where he gave them credit. Today, this acronym is stuck on everything Chris does – podcasts, tweets, workshops, articles, presentations, emails, stickers, videos and anything else he produces and shows to his customers. Chris’s philosophy is to continuously educate and encourage his customers, so they can improve and be the best they can be – To Be Amazing. We know that using a company acronym has been effective for CMA in differentiating them from other voices in their industry, because we now think of Chris, CMA and Amazing, every time we see the acronym DFTBA!

The positive effects of a company acronym

By using a well-chosen acronym when communicating we create a positive consistency in our communication, regardless of the subject. Branding can help customers quickly identify our company, products, and services – using a company acronym, either an existing or custom one, can help others to quickly identify our values, who we are and the core attitude our company is based upon.

The “acronym process”

How can we find an acronym or create one that is positive, captures our company’s values and is easy to remember? One way is to ask some questions, create a list based on the answers and try to rate them.

What is the main value we want to share with our customers? What positives do we want them to think about when seeing our acronym and our company name? When seeing our acronym which words will inspire them in their workspace? Can we capture the core mission of our company in just a few words and create an acronym from these words?

At KOGGER we asked ourselves the above questions and here are some of our answers:

#BTCT – Be Transparent Create Trust!

We encourage our customers to be transparent and we show them how at our workshops. We believe that being transparent in everything we do, creates trust. One of the ways we can show our customers the importance of transparency, is by being transparent ourselves. To us that means, showing our prices on our website, educating and helping them by writing honest useful content on our website and sharing any documentation they need. In addition, we want to be transparent as to the challenges we as a company encounter and how we choose to solve them. This transparency will help us in gaining their trust in us as an honest, reliable source of help. We also hope that our acronym will inspire them to be transparent and create trust and will remind everyone, including ourselves, that this is at the core of everything KOGGER does.

This is how we ended up with BTCT – Be Transparent Create Trust.

A company acronym gives all your customers something in common

It also feels great to give your customers something they can have in common when doing business with you. Chris at CMA was surprised when he experienced that the use of his company acronym had a gathering effect on his customers. They often refer to DFTBA and CMA when they meet at various events or communicate with each other on digital platforms.

What will your company acronym be?

You might be new to the industry with just a few customers, or an “old timer” with numerous customers. Regardless of your company size, by using a positive acronym whenever you communicate with customers or vendors, you are giving them a positive boost and quickly reminding them of who you are and your company values.

So, what will your company acronym be?

We would love to hear from you about your acronym and the story behind it!

//KOGGER

#BTCT!

Contenting – our word of the day

We had been married for 3 years and just found out that I was pregnant with our first child. The following day, I went to Oslo and to my big surprise saw pregnant women EVERYWHERE! I came home and Oscar had experienced the same thing visiting Drammen. We started to wonder if the number of pregnant women had increased overnight! But it hadn’t… our focus had.

Oscar got the exact same feeling about 3 years ago while he was researching the subjects “company transparency” and “inbound marketing”, and saw the word “content” EVERYWHERE! Our workshops taught packaging and transparent pricing, but Oscar was understanding that content was equally important. It might seem logical to immediately increase and improve the content on our website, but he felt he neither had the time nor resources to plunge deeper into the world of content, even though he knew he should.

Videos, books and a handful of cool ideas

In 2015, while doing research on how to teach companies the benefits of being transparent Oscar stumbled upon the name Marcus Sheridan and showed me one of his videos – I was immediately intrigued. Since Oscar operated KOGGER alone, the least I could do was read up on marketing and content topics so we could discuss KOGGER’s website and hopefully come up with some good ideas. Being a one-man company, was a lonely job. Creating workshops – himself, performing them – himself, critiquing – himself, inspiring – himself. I figured he needed a discussion partner, to avoid talking to – himself:)

I was really attracted to the subjects inbound and content marketing. Looking at marketing from a “how can we help you” instead of a “how can we promote us” perspective, was appealing. Sources on these subjects were endless and after a lot of reading and discussions, our heads started creating cool ideas of how we could apply this to KOGGER. Only one problem…. We felt that innovating those ideas would require too much time, resources and money. Time, resources and money we didn’t have. So, we kept on talking about content, reading about content and watching videos about content.

By the spring of 2018 Oscar had done a great job on our website but it still only had a minimum of information. I knew that “better content” was always in the back of his mind. His goal was for KOGGER to be transparent, create trust and help our customers and one of the clues to achieving that, was varied, helpful content on our website. Could I find something that could inspire him and help us to evolve the content side of KOGGER, invest as little time and money as possible to avoid over-straining our company’s economy and Oscar’s work capacity?

Well, what do you do when you have a general question like that? You do what people do 40000 times every second – you GOOGLE it!

World Class Communication

I looked for inspiring events and found several so far away from Norway, that I could hear an “empty echo sound” in our bank account. So, I kept on searching and found an interesting event called World Class Communication (WCC) in Edinburgh Scotland, which is only a a two-hour flight, and the best part was that Marcus Sheridan was going to be one of the instructors!

Even though this was a workshop for improving speaking abilities, I strongly felt that it would inspire in other areas too. With the experience of leading more than 150 workshops with 1200 decision makers participating, I knew Oscar would enjoy new ideas for improving his communication methods. Since it was hosted by The Content Marketing Academy (CMA) I had a strong feeling he also would be “content boosted”. I was so excited! I calculated the cost, showed it to him and was confident he would jump at the suggestion and immediately book tickets.

But no…. he surprisingly didn’t want to go. I didn’t get it.

My reasons for him to go were endless… “You enjoy watching Marcus’s videos. You know this will be a challenge but a great inspiration. You know this won’t cost our company too much.” Oscar was reluctant because it kind of freaked him out that the whole workshop would be in English when his mother tongue is Norwegian – even though he speaks great English (I should know since I’m canadian:)

He was used to being the one teaching at workshops so I think he was a little scared at the thought of being a participant and not knowing exactly what was going to happen or how he would have to participate. But, being the smart guy he is, he quickly understood that this is exactly how many of HIS customers feel when going to a KOGGER workshop. In order to understand and communicate better with them and improve the quality of help he was offering, he better be good to go! So, he said yes to going, on one condition….

If I said he had to go, then I had to go too. Didn’t need to ask me twice…

WCC take-aways

Talk about inspirational! WCC in Edinburgh, Scottland, was hosted by Chris Marr and he is the human motor behind The Content Marketing Academy (CMA). Chris and Marcus host this workshop every year and they do a great job. The workshop itself was inspirational with loads of practical advice but, in addition, we got a chance to meet others that wanted to improve their communication. During meals and breaks we enjoyed socializing with the other participants and got a lot of great advice on how to bring our content ideas to life. Even though I halfway had to force Oscar into going, he really enjoyed this workshop and we were both totally inspired!

On the plane home we talked about what we had experienced and highlights. Marcus is the author of a book we had read called “They ask you answer”, so learning more about his question techniques was amazing. Not getting the right answers? Ask more questions and better questions.

We learned about how to “vanguard” at the beginning of a presentation or on our website by addressing “the elephant in the room” and answering all the questions and concerns imaginable, that our customers might have. By doing that, we are transparent, sharing our knowledge and creating trust.

Based on this and our company philosophy we made an acronym for KOGGER. This acronym shows our customers what the core of our company is.

Our company acronym is: BTCT – Be Transparent Create Trust.

The list of positive take-aways from this workshop goes on and on, so if you get a chance to go to WCC or another one of Marcus’s workshops – go!

Inspiration leads to action

The first thing we did after the workshop was make a list of all the FAQ’s we could possibly think of that our customers could have – ones for each workshop and in general. Then “Read More” for all workshops and About Us – where Oscar tells how and why he started KOGGER. Everything was then published on our website in both Norwegian and English. In addition, some of our website layout was changed to ensure user friendliness. Within a few days it was all up and running.

Now Oscar probably thought that he could take a «content break»……but no….

Around the same time, I became a member of Impact Elite on Facebook. It is a free, closed group that Impact Inbound (where Marcus Sheridan is one of the owners) created for marketers. The members there are from all over the world and in that group, you find inspiration, tips, advice etc.

I also became a member of CMA Facebook Group which is a free, Facebook group hosted by Chris Marr. In these groups I was seeing more and more companies not only creating written content but using video to reach out to their customers and getting good results.

I mentioned to Oscar the thought of KOGGER producing a video but the look on his face said “never gonna happen”.

But, as the canadian nag I am, I kept talking to him about making a video. Still no positive response. So, I pulled out the “you can buy new technical gear” card”.

Our hope is to inspire you

We imagine there are a lot of small or even large companies that feel they don’t have the resources, time nor money to “up their game” when it comes to content marketing.

The excuses for not taking “content action” are probably endless. But if by sharing our content journey and including our frustrations, mistakes and successes, can inspire to creating more content, videos and help in seeing the importance of using several digital platforms – then that to us is what being transparent is all about.

//Leah & Oscar

KOGGER | #BTCT

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A Little Acronyme Goes A Long Way

Our Content Journey