How To Come Up With A Name For Your Business – Coming up with a brand is one of the most important steps when starting a business. A well-thought-out name can propel your business forward, and the wrong one can turn into a marketing nightmare. Where would Amazon be today if it had stuck with its original name, Cadabra? Founders often think they know what makes a good brand. But choosing a vague reference or visionary ideal (like Cadabra) for a name can confuse customers. Naming a brand isn’t as simple as creating a fancy word or choosing a name that looks great on paper. Fortunately, setting up a branding process can ensure that your name is relevant, memorable and meaningful. It helps you choose a name that grabs people’s attention and is easy to remember, making marketing, sales and brand awareness easier. To help your business become a household name, we’ll explore how to come up with a brand name, cover brand name guidelines, describe the brand name process, and share examples of how popular companies decide on brand names. What makes a good brand A good brand is a mixture of creativity and strategy. It highlights your company’s mission, vision and values while showing personality and creativity. Josh Reeves, CEO of Gusto, said it best when he described how his team came up with the company name. “Choose your name… it drives everything else—the visual design, the way you communicate it to the team, the way you talk about it with customers. So if you’re going to sink your time and energy into something, it should be. therefore.” Strong brand names tend to fall into one (or more) of the following categories: Descriptive: Brand names that tell potential buyers exactly what you do or do. Examples: Dude Wipes, The Weather Channel, Booking.com, and PayPal. Evocative: These names use metaphors and suggestions to express a company’s creativity, suggest its values, and tell a brand story.Examples: Nike, Amazon, Virgin, Uber, and Patagonia.Compounds: Nouns that combine two words to form a new word are today popular and can be considered descriptive and evocative. Examples: Photoshop, WhatsApp, Headspace, Airtable and YouTube. Resourceful: Fancy names are a great way to differentiate your company and showcase your unique brand identity. But you’ll need to do more work to tell your company’s story and educate customers about your offering Examples: Google, Pixar, Garmin, Slack, and Zoom Acronymic: Good brand names are short and memorable fusible, so if you want a long name, it might make sense to use an abbreviation. Keep in mind that meaning is often removed by abbreviation, so it’s not the best option to talk about. Examples: VRBO, BMW, IKEA, UPS and IBM. Company Name Guidelines There are restrictions when choosing a company name. Without structure or boundaries, you can end up with crazy names that have nothing to do with your brand. These brand name guides can help you stay on track throughout the process so you end up with a name that fits your business. Easy to pronounce and spell. Even famous brands run into problems with bad pronunciation. But you don’t want stakeholders, potential customers, or employees searching the web to misunderstand your company name. Simply put and spelled so it doesn’t distract people from your products or services. Memorable Image Source I don’t know about you, but I never run to the store for “facial tissue.” Brands like Kleenex, Chapstick, and Band-Aid are such prominent names that people use them as generic terms. So when you’re coming up with a brand name, choose one that sticks in people’s minds to help raise your awareness above the competition. Image Source Meaningful brand names that suggest a company’s history make it easier for customers to associate your values with the brand. Think of the investment platform, Robinhood. The fictional story is about a gangster who steals from the rich to the poor, which is in line with the company’s ethos of “Invest for All”. Image Source Strong Visual Identity Words have power, but it takes about 10 seconds for someone to look at your logo to form an impression of your brand. Among other elements, your brand name must look great on paper and online. Experiment with the logo’s text and graphics to see if the name is too long or difficult to design. How to Name a Brand Now that you have inspiration for a name and guidelines to follow, it’s time to explore the details of how to name a brand. This approach is most effective when paired with your branding strategy, so take the time to do this work before entering the naming process. 1. Describe your brand’s purpose and identity. Define your identity and purpose, solidify what sets you apart from the competition and how you plan to position your company. You can get this information from your position statement. If you don’t already have one, ask yourself these questions: Why does your company exist? This is your vision. What does your company do? This is your mission. How do you do what you do? This is about your values. Interestingly, 89% of shoppers are loyal to brands that share their values. What brand identity do you want to create? This is your brand personality. What do you want to achieve with the brand? Maybe you want customers to immediately understand your offer, or maybe you want to emphasize your innovative spirit. Once you’ve answered these questions, it’s time to look outside. 2. Consider your customers and competitors. No brand succeeds in strength, so it’s essential to choose a name that resonates with your audience and your industry. People often identify with the brands they buy. This is good news for businesses, as customers who have an emotional connection to a brand have a 306% higher lifetime value. Consider customer reviews and surveys when coming up with a brand name. This feedback can show how people feel about your brand, which is useful when coming up with brand ideas. If customers are talking about how fun it is to work with your team and use your product, it wouldn’t make sense to adopt a serious brand or personality. Another important aspect is your industry. What are the standards for naming? What are your competitors doing? Based on your brand’s position, you need to decide whether to follow the industry formula or choose an unconventional name that will make your brand stand out. 3. Brainstorming and discovery. Yes, it’s time to break out the board. But before you get started, build a team that has ideas and approval. You need to define who is involved in the decision-making process. If you are a solopreneur, you can ask a few trusted friends or colleagues to participate. Fill your board with any ideas you can think of, and if you get stuck, think about: Adjectives that describe your service, product or brand. How customers feel about your brand or how you want them to feel. The words you want. connect with your business When coming up with ideas, think about what you think makes a good brand name and consider any big concerns you have about naming. Feeling stuck? Try Shopify’s business name generator. 4. Refine your ideas. You probably have a long list of brands – and that’s a good thing. It is easier to cut than to create. Start narrowing your list by considering the following factors for each name: Does it fit your brand personality? Does it have emotional resonance? Is it meaningful or related to the history of your company? How does it look on paper and on screen? Is there a brand for it? Are domain names and social media descriptions available? Is it different from the competition? Is it short, memorable and easy to spell and pronounce? Create a list of 10-15 names for the next step. If you have less than this, that’s fine – aim for three to five options. 5. Get feedback. There’s nothing like asking your team, customers, stakeholders or colleagues for feedback. You’ll quickly learn if a competitor’s name is hard to pronounce or if people aren’t doing well. If possible, ask the opinions of a diverse group of people individually to avoid the problem of groupthink. After gathering feedback, it’s good to see how the final options translate between languages. Consider where your company will operate and where you hope to expand. Wix learned this lesson the hard way, but the humor-focused brand handled it well. Before making a final decision, take a look at how some popular companies came up with their brands. How these three companies came up with brand names From misspellings to company-wide brainstorming, there are many stories that highlight the creativity and complexity of the branding process. See how these three brands decided on the name. Gusto It was originally called ZenPayroll, but Gusto has changed its name
How to come up with a slogan for your business, how to come up with a name for your business, how to come up with a good business name, how to come up with a good brand name, how to come up with a signature for your name, how to come up with a tagline for your business, how to come up with a name for your company, how to come up with business name, how to come up with a logo for your business, how to come up with a name for your blog, how to come up with a business name for crafts, how to come up with a business name generator
