The Branding Chronicles : The Perfect Name, Part One
Building a brand is like building a house:
There are foundations, walls, windows and doors that need to be right in order for the entire structure to hold together. The same goes for your brand—there are several elements that need to be right in order for it to work.
The most important part of a successful brand is your name. A name should stand out from the crowd and stay fresh. The name of your product is what will make people remember you, and when they do, they will be able to find you on social media platforms as well as on other websites that promote products and services.
Trying to think up a good brand name is one of the hardest parts of launching a new product. It is much easier said than done, but if you put in enough time and effort, you might just come up with the perfect name for your product.
Names have a significant impact on the success of your brand. They are mainly the equivalent of a first impression when meeting someone new. It’s the first thing that people will see when they visit your website or read about you in the news, so it is important to ensure you give adequate thought to naming your new business.
Tailoring a name to your unique brand personality will help you stand out from the crowd and make a lasting impression on potential customers
A great name can help a business to become successful, but an inappropriate name can actually damage a business’ chances of being profitable. It needs to be memorable and easy to say, spell and understand. It also needs to ‘fit’, not only the brand but also its target market.
The main thing you need to think about is whether the name of your brand will help it to stand out within its sector or if it’s relevant to the brand or maybe the brand story.
Your target market may have an impact on the type of name that would be suitable for your business. For example, if you are targeting young adults you’d choose something that is fresh and trendy, while an older target audience would prefer something more explanatory and/or maybe a bit nostalgic.
When creating a new brand, there is no right or wrong way of coming up with a name, however, there are certain factors that should be taken into consideration when choosing a suitable one for your brand.
Here are a couple of tips you may want to consider while choosing the perfect brand name :
1. Choose a name for search engines
First of all, think about how customers might search for your products or services. Search engines like Google love brands with strong names, so choosing something that won’t get lost in the shuffle can really help boost your SEO (search engine optimization). You should also make sure that any social media channels you use match up with your brand name as well.
2. Short and catchy
In general, your brand name should be short, memorable, and easy to pronounce. It’s also a good idea to choose a name that is not too similar to existing brands in the same industry, as this may cause confusion among customers.
3. Avoid made-up words
If your brand name is a made-up word, we’re going to assume it’s a startup. And if it’s a startup, we’re going to assume it will go out of business.
Avoid made-up words for your brand names. If you can’t say the name of your brand out loud without wincing, we won’t buy it.
We know that big companies sometimes use made-up words for their brands. And we know that successful startups sometimes use real words for their brands. We just don’t think we’ll be able to tell which is which. So avoid made-ups, especially if you’re a startup.
4. Make it simple to spell
Making your brand name easy to spell is another important step in building your brand. People are always using search engines to find businesses on the Internet and when they are searching for a business if they have trouble spelling the name of the business they can be easily turned away. If your business name is difficult to spell, you might lose half or more of your potential traffic from search engines and therefore lose sales.
So make your brand name easy to spell. Pronunciations are less important than spellings; you can always tell customers how to pronounce a word if they don’t already know. Better to have the name be easy for them to type into their computer than easy for them to say out loud.
5. Focus on what you’re selling
You can’t just choose a random name and hope that everything falls into place. That process will only hurt you in the long run.
The most common mistake is to focus too much on the product itself, and not enough on what you are selling. If you don’t understand why this is a mistake, think of Apple’s iPad. The physical object is a superior tablet computer, but the reason it was an enormous hit was that it was marketed as a device that would replace your laptop computer AND your television AND your telephone AND your camera AND your music player.
In other words: focus on what you are selling when choosing a brand name, but don’t worry too much about the actual product itself.
6. Brainstorm and ask people around you
Make sure you get as much feedback as possible before settling on your final name. Ask friends and family if they like it, ask experts like marketing or PR professionals and even ask complete strangers if they would use or buy your product based on the name you want to use.
At remark agency, we’ve helped clients choose names for new businesses and products. Looking to start up a new business or even thinking about a rebranding strategy. We’re here to help .
