Are you stuck trying to name something in your business?
Naming is incredibly important because it not only creates a first impression for people but it’s something that you own. It’s not something that anybody else can have. So having a very powerful name is a very strategic advantage for your brand.
My name is Gurpreet Singh. I’m the Online Business Expert and brand strategist. In this blog, I’m going to share my best tips, tricks, tools and techniques for naming your brand or anything related to your brand.
So let’s quickly review the advice that you’ve probably heard already.
A quick Google search will tell you that your name should be easy to spell, easy to say and easy to remember. That’s kind of a given.
Second, you want to make sure that the name is available. So this means different things in different arenas.
So first of all, for social media and your website URL, you’re going to make sure that there’s some form of your name that is available.
One of the clothing companies, ADAY, they don’t actually have aday.com. They use thisisaday.com and they also use that handle for a lot of their social media accounts. So even if your specific name isn’t exactly available, you can sometimes work around that piece.
Now, the second part is more important. I’m not a lawyer so I can’t give you the exact advice but you definitely want to check your name against the trademark registries in your country whether you’re in the US or the UK or wherever you are in the world to make sure that somebody in your space, in a related industry is not using your name already or it’s not protected legally.
And lastly, you want the name to be something that’s meaningful to you and your business. So you want it to communicate something that tells people a little bit about your business or at the very least is something that holds a special place in your heart so that you
have a chance to use your name as a jumping off point for stories that you tell about your brand.
If you connect your brand name to your why behind your business instead of the how, it can grow and scale with you even if your exact products and services change over time.
Types of Brand Names
Okay, so now that we have the tried and true advice out of the way, let’s talk about some different techniques that you can use to name your brand, business, product, market, method, anything that you’re naming in your business.
Combined Words
You can always make up words or even combine two existing words to create a new one. So you can think of brands like FedEx, Yahoo.
I did this for my IELTS website IELTS Educaton. I of course combined brand and ‘Education’ to tell people that the course is helping them getting, better in the lELTS. So that’s definitely an option.
You have to be a little bit wary of the memorability of your word, how you’re spelling it to make sure that people aren’t going to misspell
it all of the time and the cheese factor.
So sometimes when you squish two words together, it can be a little cheesy. So depending on what your brand personality is, that may or may not be a good fit for you.
Descriptive
Next, it can be descriptive and this doesn’t mean that you have to be ABC Plumbing. You can choose something that is descriptive of your brand, values, the brand experience that your provide or even the type of client that you work with. Some big brands that you’ll recognize that use this technique are like Land Rover, Discovery Channel and Pampers.
Loosely related real word
Another technique that seems to work very well especially for a lot of really big companies is to choose a word that is real and is either really loosely related to what you’re doing or not related at all, at least on the surface.
So Apple does this clearly. You wouldn’t think of the fruit being related to technology on first impression. Also, Caterpillar, the, I mean, they’re a conglomerate so they have, they’re mostly known for their construction equipment but they also do financial services and a few other things but that doesn’t seem to be related either but it’s at least a word that people know and recognize and it also gives you a chance to tell a story about whatever word that you choose.
Personal Brand
Now, if you’re a freelancer, author, consultant, advisor, coach, mentor, that type of person and you’re basing your business around your genius, your skills and perhaps even your time in the business, naming your business after yourself can be a clear option.
So you’ll notice that my primary business is kayeputnam.com because it is the brand strategy, the impressions that I have, it’s the way that I
interact with the market and I also will name things that are underneath my main brand. So there’s some benefits to this. If you are a personal brand, it gives you the ability to pivot if you need to.
So if I tomorrow decide that I am no longer doing brand strategy, I’m going to become a Facebook ads strategist, I could do that and preserve some of the brand equity that I’ve built over time.
Now, if you’re doing something like software as a service, e-commerce or a business that YOU KNOW that you want to sell and scale really large in the future, naming your business after yourself probably isn’t the best option but even some really large brands have done this.
I mean, think Michael Kors, even something like Larabar is named after the founder whose name is Lara. Another benefit to doing this is that it creates a clear connection between you as the founder and the person and people that you’re serving.
Acronyms
Lastly, another type of common name that you see are acronyms. Now, I don’t necessarily recommend this but since there are so many big businesses that have acronyms, let’s just at least cover that it’s an option. So think about H&M, IBM, BMW, MTV. These are all massive brands that hold a very significant place in our minds but for small businesses, it’s going to be very hard to make a few combination
of letters significant and memorable in your ideal clients’ minds.
Keep in mind that those businesses have spent millions and millions of dollars on building up the recognition with their brand’s name.
Let’s talk about some techniques and strategies
So now that we’ve talked about the types of brands, let’s talk about some techniques and strategies that you can use to make them more memorable. Like I mentioned in the beginning of the blog.
I would be remiss to tap into some of these psychological triggers that make your name better.
Alliteration
So one memory cue is using alliteration in your name. Alliteration is when you pair up two words or more that have the same letter as the first letter so like Coca-Cola, Lululemon, Best Buy. These brands all become more memorable because the words literally roll off of our tongue ’cause we’re starting each of the words with the same letter.
Rythimg
Another pattern that you can use when you’re naming your business, brand, product, et cetera is rhyming to make it more memorable. Brands like StubHub, 7-Eleven, and Piggly Wiggly have all employed this technique to make their brands more memorable in their ideal clients’ minds.
Common Phrase
Next, you can also take common phrases, cliches, or puns and modify them to fit your business.
One of my favorite online entrepreneurs, Ash Ambirge, recently, actually not recently, I think it was a couple of years ago now, but she sold a course that I purchased that was called The Six Appeal Process. Obviously a play on words from six appeal.
If you employ this technique though, be aware that it may not translate cross-culturally. So if you’re doing business in one country and then you also want to appeal to customers in other countries, it’s not going to be a direct translation so you may lose some of the appeal when you’re crossing country borders.
Word and Word
Another pattern that you see often when it comes to naming is using word and word. Stop and Shop, Crate and Barrel, The Pig and the Lady in Honolulu, Hawaii, one of my favorite restaurants. This pairing is used often and it creates a fun juxtaposition between two different words which adds to the meaning and to the descriptive quality of the name.
So one of my best pieces of advice, when you’re naming your business, is
A, try not to get too frustrated. So this is definitely a process. Most likely, the first 10, 15 or even 20 names that you come up with and maybe even fall in love with a little bit are probably going to be taken already by somebody else who thought of them first. So think of this as a
brainstorming exercise where you’re coming up with as many options as humanly possible.
Try to connect the name to a story, to the deeper values and principles that your brand embodies not just this superficial thing that you’re selling and if you get seriously stuck, there are professionals that can help facilitate this naming process for you and although it’s not the main service that I offer for my clients as we create their brand strategy, I have facilitated this process, this technique of naming several times for different clients.
I have some tools that I have found extremely helpful. One of them is onym.co which is an incredible curated list of websites and resources and tools that you can use to brainstorm lots of options.
I also like leandomainsearch.com. For everybody who feels like all of the best domain names are taken, this provides some fun options and a good brainstorming tool as well.
I also use onlydomains.com to check availability and also to give me other related options when I’m looking at URLs.
Click the link below this blog I’ll link you up to my full blog post that explains this entire process in depth. If you enter your email address on that page, you’ll get additional resources, worksheets and training that you can use to name your business and above all, enjoy what you’re doing, have fun. Kudos to you for expanding your business or starting your business, whatever exciting stage that you are at and I hope that you find the perfect name.
