Ten “can’t miss” dos and don’ts when naming a business.
Choosing a business name is one of the most important tasks when starting, growing or changing a business. Not only is it part of that first impression you make among your audience, but it, along with your logo, is the heart of your brand. Your brand is all about how you connect and then are perceived – so your name needs to be descriptive, inspiring, and relatable, and needs to evoke positive feelings, or at least curiosity.
It can feel like a herculean task! And, well, it can be. The naming process is not for the faint of heart. For every idea, opinion or action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. . . oh wait, that’s Newton’s law of motion. But the first rule to get comfortable with is that you won’t be able to please everybody. As much as you’d probably like consensus, it will lead you to a “safe” or boring name, watered down. For some businesses, depending on your industry, that might be okay. But remember, the right name can actually propel a business forward.
So where do you start? At Insight180, we believe naming and identity work always begins with positioning strategy and competitive analysis. It is essential that you determine what you want your name to do for you. For some, it’s simply an identifier that helps separate you from your competitors. But a good name can show the world how you are different, create positive and ongoing engagement with your customers, provide a vast source of marketing and advertising images, or completely dominate a category.
For most companies, the naming process begins with some kind of brainstorming – throwing every conceivable idea up on a white board, combining terms, looking up meanings, and developing a list. But for many, this is where they get stuck. We’ve had some companies come to us at this point, because, while there is no shortage of interesting ideas, knowing which ones are best can be difficult to discern. As one staffing company CEO shared with me, he was just too enmeshed in the company and process; he needed to step back and get some guidance in order to see the big picture. For him, hiring an outside objective expert was the best use of time and resources.
There are different types of names that work better for different categories of business, but for the purposes of providing some helpful dos and don’ts, we recommend the following.
Naming Dos and Don’ts
1. Be Different. Your name should stand out from competitors’ names, as well as from other words in a sentence. This is sometimes called “speech-stream visibility,” the quality that lets the eye or the ear pick out the name as a proper (or capitalized) word instead of a common word.
2. Be Brief. Four syllables or less. More than four, and people will start to abbreviate the name in ways that could be detrimental to the brand.
3. Be Appropriate, but not so descriptive as to sound generic. A common mistake is to choose a name that doubles as a descriptor, which will cause it to converge with other descriptive names. Actually, a strong brand name can be “blind,” meaning that it gives no clue as to its connection with the product, service or company it represents, yet still “feels” appropriate. Just be careful not to be so obscure you make your audience think too hard and lose interest.
4. Be easy to spell. When you turn your name into a spelling contest (like Phyre for Fire) or add numbers like 2 for “to” and 4 for “for,” you introduce more confusion among customers, and make your brand difficult to access in databases that require correct spelling. It also causes hesitation and creates problems with the aesthetic flow.
5. Be satisfying to pronounce. A good name has “mouthfeel,” meaning that people like the way it sounds and are therefore more willing to use it.
6. Be suitable for “brandplay.” The best names have creative “legs” — they readily lend themselves to great storytelling, graphics, PR, advertising and other communications with your audience. With this in mind, see #9 below.
7. Avoid partial names like “Quali” or “Tron” that may force people to have to think before they understand what you’re trying to say. Be sure your name is clear.
8. Avoid the “Atlas” approach. Be targeted, not all-encompassing. You really can’t be all things and all-inclusive, ever. This goes back to positioning and knowing your audience and your goals.
9. Avoid trite or cliché names, like Peak or Pinnacle. These are generic “superior” names. It’s been done to death and is meaningless. And, while this is really a topic for another article altogether, avoid the overdone images that support these names – no globes, lighthouses or swooshes unless they are completely original in execution.
10. Avoid acronyms. IBM got away with it, but acronyms really don’t help to set you apart. They say nothing about your business and can be particularly confusing in cross-cultural communication.
And of course, rule #11 is break the rules! But we mean that more in terms of creativity. When you’re brainstorming, go a little crazy. Sometimes the discussion around a far-fetched idea will bring you back to something magical. Remember, these are just guidelines and if there’s a compelling reason for varying from the list, well, you’ll know.
Hopefully, this has informed you about how to determine a good name, or at least narrow down your list. Of course, you need to check on URL availability through a domain registration service. Do this sooner rather than later. And, you want to make sure that the name is legally available for trademark–– the US Patent and Trademark Office website is a great resource.
— Wendy Baird, principal and president
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