I was asked by a friend of mine the following question:
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I am just in the process of opening my new small business up and bouncing a few names off of you for feedback. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.
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Since this is a very critical stage of building your foundation in your new business, I wanted to share some ideas with all readers and would love to hear theirs.
Few things to keep in mind when you are naming a business:
1. You Better Like It: Make sure you like the name. If not, it is like a bad tattoo, you will avoid sharing and promoting it.
2. Easy to Remember: A business needs to be promoted – so if the name is hard to remember you will lose out on a lot of business, through your own marketing efforts and word of mouth. (I remember seeing a sign for that, but can’t remember the name. It was a fancy name, but its not coming to me…)
3. Domain Website: Make sure the domain name for your new business is available. In my opinion .com is the only option. Even if it is a regional business, people will always remember .com but they will forget the rest of the ‘dots’.
4. Avoid Trends: Remember, whats popular these days might not be tomorrow. So do not go with a trend unless your intention is to ride a trend and get off the wave when a new trend arrives. Think sustainability.
5. Thousands of Followers: When choosing the name think of it from the end. Meaning, when the time comes where you have 10’s of thousands of followers – what name do you want to build a brand (built trust) around?
Readers, please do post some other suggestions as they would be helpful for all.
Fred Sarkari
Thanks for all the info Fred and it makes perfect sense, keep it simple and keep it memorable. You always want a name to pop up into people’s minds. Or a slogan to remember you by. Pizza Pizza may not be the best pizza place in town but we all know their number and they generate millions of sales a year by branding their phone number.
Great work,
Wayne B. –
Muskoka, Ontario
Glad you enjoyed it Wayne, appreciate the comments.
I think you just came up with one that should be added to the list.
Along with a company name, have a slogan.
Thanks
I have a few minutes and there’s a creative energy moving through my office.
Brand names hold a special interest with me… people can take away so much from one word, make what you name your business / product that much more critical. It’s in this delicate balance that brand names either become part of our everyday lexicon, or get tossed aside and forgotten. My favorite brand names are:
Wii: With a name that sounds small and childish and makes an easy target for potty humor, the Nintendo Wii created a media firestorm when it was introduced. It is a name that you don’t forget. Phonetically, it sounds like “we,” a nod to its multiplayer design, or “whee,” the sound of people having fun.
Jawbone: I really like this name for Bluetooth’s headset. Jawbone resonates with multiple layers of meaning. In addition to describing where the headset is worn, “jawbone” means to verbally persuade, and isn’t that what you’re doing most of the time you are on a cell phone?
Twitter: Imagine millions of cheeping chickadees and you won’t be far off (a place where people share what they happen to be doing at the moment, no matter how trivial).
Chevy Volt: The name is short, friendly, and perfectly fits the product (electric concept car).
Apple: The story is apples are the favorite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and a nod to the time he worked at an apple orchard.
Other great brand names (note what the name conjures up for you the moment you read it), and by no means is this list complete, are:
• Absolute
• AOL (America Online) … if your brand can be abbreviated like IBM, Esso, RIM then you get double mileage.
• Armani
• Avaya
• Black & Decker
• Blue Pumpkin
• Butterball
• Ikea
• KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken)
• Mustang
• Myron Manufacturing
• Pizza Hut
• Second Cup
• Starbucks
• Tim Hortons
• Tropicana
• U.S.A (United States of America)
• Viper
• Virgin
• Wal Mart
Nick, you are amazing.
That is a great post comment.
Thanks for taking the time.
I know it will be useful for all the readers
Great post and great comments.
What strikes me is how the concept of branding has changed in the last several decades. Think about it. I don’t think anyone would have consider naming something “Virgin” back then. The sexual connection would have been way too risky. And I doubt Wii or Twitter would have made it either. They would have been consider too strange, I think.
But these days those types of names are actually better. Consider Google, for example. You know you’ve arrived when people are using your name as a verb.
Steve DeVane
IBM used to be descriptive as International Business Machines. Is IBM an improvement?
What the hell does AFLAC mean?
Atlantic Telephone and Telegraph moved to AT&T, then to Southwestern Bell, then SBC, then Cingular and then…AT&T. What a waste of time, money and stationary. No wonder the public is confused.
A company name should be indicative of what it does/sells. Initials and meaningless acronyms are a total waste. Get a name that means something, hopefully something positive.
Oh, this was a great post. I am in the middle of trying to figure out a name for my company and I have yet to figure it out. My brain hurts from thinking too much. Sometimes I wish I had $50,000 to pay someone to do it for me, but then it wouldn’t be as much fun though, right?
Steve, Hank and Lindsay, thanks for your great comments.
Steve you are absolutely right. The concept of branding and marketing has changed.
There is so much clutter out there now that you need to be different with a catchy yet relevant name. Or you just become part of the clutter.
Hank, I agree that a name should be relevant to what the company does. On the other hand, with so much branding out there, curiosity seems to win the branding game.
It has been working with all the larger companies, even movie trailers are all based on catching the curiosity.
Curiosity makes people stop in their feet from the other 60,000 daily thoughts in their minds.
Lindsay, Never hire someone to name your company. It is your company and the name needs to resonate through you. That being said, the best thing you can do is brain storm with as many people as possible and keep writing words down that you think of. Soon enough few of those words will just click.
Fred, this is a great post – good comments too. I work on ‘kiss’ – keep it simple stupid.
Can’t go wrong, we all know we’d like something ‘ritzi, ditzi, funki’ but at the end of the day the simplest name can be the most engaging.
Julie
Hello Julie, thanks for the comment
It is so true what you say. We at times make everything in our business just so complicated.
Late Saturday night I was on my 7th or 8th Corona when then purpose of brand hit me. Out of the multitude of beers on the market why do I keep only ordering Corona? Why does my drinking buddy only order Moosehead? Why do we become loyal to one particular brand, other than to be part of a tribe? Brands thrive because they are decision making short cuts for time starved consumers.
Nick this is such a phenomenal insight that I had to create a mini post on it.
Thanks for your great comments.
http://mentalsidewalk.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/how-and-why-do-brands-work-drink-a-corona-to-find-out/