5 Tips for Choosing a Brand Name for Your Business – 2020 Guide
September 17, 2020Have you ever had the opportunity to name someone or something? Then you know it’s not an easy task. Not easy at all. A famous Marvel’s superhero once said – with great power comes great responsibility. It’s just that once you give someone or something a name, it will stay that way forever. Not everyone approaches this with the same dose of seriousness and responsibility. The name does not determine success, but it can certainly have an impact on the success or be the cause of failure. This is why many celebrities from Hollywood have completely different birth names than the ones we know them by.
Choosing the right brand name is not easy, but it is extremely important! Just as a person’s name affects the first impression, so does the brand name. Surely you have known someone with a weird name and have witnessed the reaction of other people when they meet him.
And what about brands and their names? Same as with people, it is no different from brands it is even more complex! A brand name has several roles, and the most important is to refer to a product or service. Strong names become part of our daily lives and convey to us direct or indirect messages about the product. Accordingly, the brand name has an extremely complex role.
For consumers, the name will potentially be the first point of contact with your brand and will immediately form their first impression of the product. Therefore, it is crucial to choose the right name for your brand!
To make sure you’re are on the right track in choosing the right name, here are a couple of tips.
1. Begin with a brainstorm
To tell you the truth, coming up with creative brand names for your business can be exhausting. Not to mention it will take you a lot of time. It is for these reasons that we think the best idea is to, make a list of keywords that you like that are related to the essence of your product or service when you come up with a name.
For example, a catering company can associate with keywords like “catering”, “event”, the names of various dishes, and all of them can be combined into a million combinations that will make a phenomenal brand name. But if this is still not resulting in a good brand name, then you can also consult brand name generators, such as Wix. It can fuel your imagination.
Just don’t rush things. Take your time! Ask, think, develop ideas with your colleagues. It is important not to have prejudices in the process of finding the ideal name because sometimes, even initially unconventional, slightly insane ideas can end up as great idea guides to better ideas or end up as a great name themselves.
2. Incorporate the values of your business in the brand name
Try to express the philosophy of your own company through the name, something that is unique to you. A name can be a quick, easy, and essential way to present your product or service. Company names often represent their product or service, good examples are Facebook and Instagram.
We are all so used to the name Google, but have you ever wondered what it means? IT giant Google has a powerful name that means “one followed by 100 zeros” saying that they are a search engine that will give answers to almost all of your questions. Which is the essence of a search engine?
There are thousands of innovative technology companies, but Apple is such a recognizable brand that all other companies are in its shadow. Its name serves as a whole platform for product branding. The brand name is the first indication that the company is “thinking differently.” The name Apple itself has great power because it instills confidence in consumers.
3. Analyze business brand names of your competition
What exactly is a good brand name? To be honest, what a good brand name is, depends on the industry.
The name created from the combination of the initials of the owner’s surname is good for a law firm, which does not mean that it is good for an IT business as well.
Therefore, we strongly advise you to do some digging among the names of your competition so that you can see what are the success factors in determining their brand name.
4. Avoid difficult names, or can easily be misspelled or mispronounced
Names that have a high risk of being misspelled or mispronounced are generally a bad idea for a brand name. If people need to ask how to write or pronounce your name all the time, then you have to come to terms with the fact that the chances of new consumers finding you are extremely low, sometimes, almost none. This is super important on social media. You are aware that many people like to search for brands on social media or tag them when they are satisfied, so the best is to make it short and simple.
5. Associate the name with the logo
If you want to brand properly, especially when it comes to online branding, you must also provide a logo that people will recognize and associate with you and your business brand.
And again, Apple did it masterfully. They designed an apple-shaped logo. It couldn’t be simpler or more recognizable than that. Which is the goal! Their idea was to choose a logo that would be unusual for a technology company and thus stand out from the competition. And they succeeded! As soon as people see a bitten apple, everyone thinks of Apple first.
Finally, there is no universal formula for choosing the ideal brand name precisely because of the diversity of characteristics from one brand to another. It is desirable to work on a redesign, changes in the concept of advertising, and product improvements, but the brand name is the one that should remain the same forever.
We hope these 5 steps will help you choose the ideal name for your business brand.