Most people who nurtured their companies right from when it was just an idea in their minds would recall how challenging it was finding a great brand name that didn’t just represent their business but was also a perfect fit for the products and services they offer.
And although finding the perfect name was difficult for them, what if we told you we could simplify the process so you don’t have to experience any delays in launching your ground-breaking company?
The only thing you have to do is follow the steps in this article because these steps will set you on the right path to finding a great brand name for your company.
Why Your Company Needs the Perfect Name
Ever wondered why Cadabra became Amazon, why Burbn became Instagram, why Sky Peer-to-Peer became Skype, why AuctionWeb became eBay, and why Cargo House became Starbucks?
The answer is simple; these brands were searching for the perfect name because a terrible brand name can hinder a company’s growth, just the same way an unpleasant name can make our lives unnecessarily difficult.
Don’t be that CEO that neglects to find a great name because it can directly boost your company’s financial success by helping it:
- Attract great clients: The perfect name is memorable and can help your business stand out from the crowd and capture your target audience’s attention.
- Emotionally connect with your clients: It’d also allow your company to connect with your clients on a more personal level.
- Build a fantastic team: It can help your company grow by attracting exceptionally talented employees.
- Boost referrals: A company with the perfect brand name is easier to recommend.
- Boost your sales: Getting the perfect name would increase the sales of your products and services.
With that said, let’s begin our journey and see how you can get the best name for your company.
5 Steps to the Perfect Name for Your Business
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Getting a Clear Understanding of Your Company
If you’re going to start a company that’d provide exceptional products to other businesses, then you’ll need a thorough grasp of both your business and that of your clients. You can do this by compiling all of your business’s core principles and meticulously selecting the most crucial ones.
Get a complete understanding of what works and what doesn’t because it’d give you a clear idea of what your company should strive to achieve and what it needs to do to win the hearts of your clients.
Remember that perfect brand names are crafted from powerful brand visions, and that’s simply because naming a solid idea is far easier than naming a confusing one.
After getting the crucial principles of your company, it’s time to compose a one-sentence value proposition that incorporates these ideas so you can set the tone of your brand.
Knowing the Best Tone for Your Brand Name
Understand that whenever a name fails to connect with its target audience emotionally, it loses its power. And this often happens because the name’s tone doesn’t resonate with its audience. That’s why choosing the right tone for your brand name has a direct impact on how your clients perceive it.
However, before you establish your brand tone, you must first determine who your clients are, their products or services, the challenges they’re encountering, what your company offers, and why they should be interested in using your products.
And while you’re at it, research your competition to see what sorts of products they have and how your company can outperform them with better products and services. This information would make it a lot easier to choose a tone that aligns with your clients’ needs.
Getting in Touch With Your Brand Elements
Don’t stop at a great tone; you also need to be mindful of your branding elements, your company’s main ideas, the feelings you want to create in your clients, your company’s values, and the advantages your clients would get from working with your company.
Understanding your branding elements can help you define your company’s identity. So make sure you get a pen and paper and write some ideas for each of these elements.
Preparing a Project Statement
Preparing a project statement would help you extract a great name from your brand. And this is something you’d need because it’d reveal a clearer picture of what your name should do.
Here’s an excellent example of a project statement:
- I’m looking for a creative and community-oriented name for a cake shop. It should be inviting, powerful, and magical all at the same time.
Brainstorming: Put Your Creativity to Work
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It’s time to put your creativity to work and brainstorm names that meet your project statement. And to make your brainstorming session faster and more fun, get a team, explain your brand, its elements, tone, and project statement. Encourage them to find or craft the craziest and most creative name ideas they can think of.
Your team should not be afraid to choose names that are modern, fascinating, or metaphorical because customers enjoy wordplay, and coming up with unique word combinations might be your winning strategy.
However, if you don’t have a team and coming up with the perfect name sounds tough, then a strong company name generator is the way to go.
Test Every Ideal Name
We know that many entrepreneurs feel overwhelmed while trying to develop an excellent name for their business.
There’s so much information available out there that it can get difficult to tell if the names on your shortlist are amazing strokes of genius or totally unattractive names without adequate direction.
To help you test the ideal names you found, we’ve created a simple checklist that will allow you to confidently select a name for your company, products, software, or just about anything else.
Here’s What to Look Out for While Brainstorming Your Brand Name
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While searching for the perfect name, make sure you get one that CAREs. And you can do that by finding:
Contextual Names – Good brand names both have and provide context. They serve as the company’s foundation, supporting and setting the tone for a range of essential business components. And that’s why a funny name is not the best idea if you want your company to appear serious and trustworthy.
So, make sure your name aligns with your brand and its positioning. Putting a name in context by looking at it through the lens of your company’s brand, its positioning, and goal can help you assess the strength of your name and its potential impact on the market.
Appealing Names – Don’t be like those companies that, in an attempt to appear unique and edgy, use names that are not only difficult to say and spell but lack appeal with their target audience.
Clients should love the way your company name looks and sounds. If they do, they’ll be a lot more interested in learning more about your company and telling their friends—other companies—about it.
Remarkable Names – What do you think gets folks talking? Something that’s truly unique. And that’s why you need to make sure you create a one-of-a-kind name for yourself. It doesn’t have to be outrageous, but it shouldn’t be anything that any other company in your industry might claim as their own.
A catchy name sticks in a client’s mind, making it easier to promote. So find a remarkable brand name because, like Apple, it can contribute to the growth and survival of your company.
Evocative Names – To make maximum impact, your company’s name must provoke a strong emotional response from your target audience to make maximum impact. So make sure your company’s name generates a positive emotional reaction or inspires an idea linked to your brand messaging.
The best company names connect with their target audience and evoke a strong positive emotional response.
What to Avoid While Naming Your Company
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Choosing a name based on the CARE principles will help your business grow in the future. You’d also have a significant advantage over your competition if you choose a compelling, memorable name that resonates with your target audience and provokes powerful emotions.
But while choosing a perfect name for your business, make sure:
- It isn’t Difficult – If your name is hard to spell or pronounce, then it’ll hurt your company’s referral because your clients would find it a lot harder to remember your company’s name. Not to mention the long-term marketing difficulties that arise because of difficult names.
- It Isn’t Obscure – If you have a company that wants to appeal to many people, using vague, personal symbols or metaphors may not be the greatest option. And although a tiny percentage of your audience may enjoy a unique name that only they understand, the vast majority will not.
- It Isn’t Neutral – While you don’t want to pick a name that’s too technical or complicated, you also don’t want to come up with something that doesn’t excite clients. A boring name is more difficult to recall than one that is vivid and compelling. So avoid bland names because they can be so comparable to the industry norm that it’d turn off customers and push them to seek another company to deal with. A bland name will always make you blend in with the crowd, leaving you at a disadvantage from the outset.
- It Hasn’t Been Taken – Choosing a name that has already been trademarked would not only defeat your goal of being distinctive, it’d also result in legal issues in the future. So double-check with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to ensure another brand hasn’t trademarked your name.
Don’t forget to test your name with an audience. The last step is to perform an audience test on the names you’ve discovered that meet your company’s requirements so you can be sure that your clients would love your name.