Naming your business is a vital step in making it a reality but more importantly it can be crucial to it’s success. Choosing the correct brand-able name for your business can be the difference between mediocrity and a thriving venture and you should take special precaution before settling on your final choice. Lets take a look at what you should consider when naming your business by first asking ourselves a few questions about our business.
Who are my customers?
What is my niche?
What is my product or service and how is it different from similar ideas?
What do my customers know the competition by and how will I stand out?
What words, sybols or pictures can they easily identify with?
What is your vision for the company, your goals and what words may convey that vision or feeling?
I feel the first question to be all important because no matter how you answer the following questions you still need to choose a name that will appeal to your customer. I highly recommend taking a look at what else is out there both similar and not so similar products or services. Have a look at web sites and magazines that your customer finds interesting, pay close attention to keywords, colors and the general design of things. Perhaps there is a word or phrase in there capable of helping you build a name that may not directly describe your product but will have great mass appeal to your audience.
The next step I recommend is to begin building possibilities from what should be a decent size list of answers and notes to the preceding questions. I personally like to go a bit abstract when coming up with a name, I begin to visualize objects that may convey the idea or vision for my product or service and jot them down as I go. For example when I was searching for a name for this blog I begin making a list of objects that were symbolic of growing, building, incubating, brainstorming and branching out to help others. I began seeing the branches of a tree, the winding paths of a river, the seeds of a plant and soil. I like the idea of tree branches and continued to visualize them branching out in all directions, intermingling with other trees and spreading to create a forest canopy. Growing, replicating, spreading and it hit me Viral, yes Viral Thinking! So create yourself a list and dare to think a bit outside the box as they call. But be careful not to stray to far off course keeping in mind that you still need that name to appeal to your target audience.
Now begin to narrow it down, my guess is this will be an easy process as it is hard to come up with one good name much less a whole page full. One or two should really grab you so take a few and begin answering a whole new set of questions.
Will this name appeal to my target customer?
Is this name on an even playing field with the professionalism of my target market?
Does it allow me to develop and expand into other areas complimentary to my product?
What about spelling, will it be hard to remember? Did you create a new word that may not be as recognizable as you think.
Will it carry over to a web address easily? Let face it this is a very important part of business these days.
Lastly and the final step: Is this name available for use? Now Tom’s Tools in Maine probably won’t have a problem with Tom’s tools of So-Cal unless perhaps So-Cal Tom has visions of producing his own line and marketing it nationally. Always consider the possibilities up front.
It’s never a bad idea to bounce the name off of a few of your close friends or coworkers, but be careful not to involve to many and be sure that they truly have your best interest in mind. There you have it, hopefully you have just come up with a killer name for your new business. I have also begun compiling a list a naming and branding links in my del.icio.us profile http://del.icio.us/viralthinking.
Some important extras to consider:
If you create a word I recommend Googling it to be sure that it is not actually a real word in a foreign language.
Which brings me to my next point if you do decide to go with a foreign word be sure to research what exactly that word means, you would hate to alienate a large group of customers by telling them to suck an egg in their native language.
Try to avoid getting to cutsie with it, unless of coarse you are looking to sell baby items.
