Cheap Chicken: How Your Product Name Can Make or Break its Success

Does Your Product Name Make Your Audience Feel Good?

Tomorrow is Cheap Chicken Friday at my local grocery store chain. How do I know this? Because every Friday when I go into the store to get the items on my list, I am bombarded with signs and announcements on the PA system reminding me that it’s Friday and I can get Cheap Chicken to take home for my family. What is Cheap Chicken? It’s a store-cooked rotisserie chicken that is discounted to $5 on Fridays. I get that the store is trying to sell more chicken. And I’m thrilled that the powers-that-be for the entire business want to make my life easier by cooking the chicken for me. But you know what? I don’t want cheap chicken. I want a good meal and a great price.

What do the words Cheap Chicken say to you? When you hear them, how do they make you feel? When I hear “cheap chicken” I think of tasteless, dry, old, yucky chicken. And that’s not very appetizing to me. I don’t want to eat it myself, and I certainly don’ want to feed it to my family, no matter how much time it will save me. I’d rather pay full price for their rotisserie chicken on any other night of the week than just on Cheap Chicken Friday.

But, if they called the promo Bargain Chicken Friday, Easy Chicken Friday or Time-Saver Chicken Friday, I might be more inclined to pick one up. The truth is, I can think of an assortment of meals I can make easily with an already cooked chicken. But I won’t even entertain the idea of that with something called Cheap Chicken.

Are You Offering Cheap Chicken or Time-Saver Chicken to Your Buyers?

Let’s be honest. Your audience is that pool of people you want to convert to buyers. But, you will never convert anyone in your audience to a buyer if the name of your product doesn’t resonate well with them. I’m not likely to buy Cheap Chicken. It makes my stomach turn. But, I will buy Time-Saver Chicken.

Here are some other products that have seen sales soar simply by changing their name.

• Prunes: Who eats prunes? Old people who have trouble going to the bathroom. And what are prunes? Dried plums. That’s it – dried plums. They look like giant raisins. But, in 2000 when the California Food Board finally convinced the FDA to change the name of prunes to dried plums, sales started to skyrocket. Why? Because suddenly, prunes were no longer old people food to help get the digestive system working. They became dried plums – a healthy snack for people of all ages. At least in the US. People in the rest of the world don’t seem to have an issue eating prunes. But we Americans prefer to eat dried plums.
• Fruitcake: I don’t know about you, but fruitcake is not something I have a good feeling about. The thought of fruitcake – which I hear is very good – puts the same expression on my face as when I accidentally put mushrooms on my daughter’s pizza. But, a Native Texas Pecan Cake from Collin Street Bakery is something I’d really like to try. Do you know what that is? It’s fruitcake. A good copy writer simply changed the name of the bakery’s fruitcake and focused on the use of native Texas pecans in his copy and sales of Collin Street Bakery’s fruitcake soared 60%. Yes – changing the name of fruitcake to NAtive Texas Pecan Cakes increased sales by 60%

Increase Product Sales: Change the Product Name So Your Buyers Can Feel Good About It.

The big lesson here is to look at the names of your products that have low sales. You know your product is good. And you know that your product can really help people. You believe your product can solve problems in a way your competitors’ products can’t. Then why are sales so low? Change the name. Shift the focus from fruitcake to Native Texas Pecan Cake. Transform your prune into a dried plum.

Do you need help with that? Contact a good copy writer and content developer who has the skill and know-how to help you with that. That’s what we’re here for: helping you make more money with content that sells. And if your product name isn’t motivating potential buyers to want to know more so that they will ultimately buy from you, all the compelling copy in the world isn’t going to help you reach your sales goals.