As a brand, you only have about 10 seconds to make an impression on a potential customer. So, what can you get right in this short time? It should be the most unmissable thing anyone notices about your business — its name.
While entrepreneurs will turn to many resources to find the perfect company name, it doesn’t need to be so complex. One of Capex CPA partners - Squadhelp, has done this more than 35,000 times, and they can confidently tell you that there are three major steps to acing the brand name game. Let’s dive straight into these:
1. Study Your Brand
The first step to naming your business must be intrinsic. In order to converse clearly with your audience, you should first be very clear about your identity.
Your brand simply implies who you are and how you want to be seen. This branding process directly shapes your naming process.
For example, let’s talk about Nike. It is an epic business name. But rarely does anyone know what Nike even means. Its awesomeness is directly a result of its brand story and how its founders wanted it to be perceived. The outcome is a brand that is seen as a winner with a go-getter attitude. And it helps that Nike means the Greek goddess of victory.
So, how can you begin to understand your brand well? Start with a solid value proposition or elevator pitch, or USP. You can suit the terminology to your taste, but the point is that you should be able to describe your brand in as few words as possible with the utmost clarity. You can use Sequoia Capital’s website for this activity. They do a great job at breaking a brand down to its essence.
For example:
● DoorDash: DoorDash is an on-demand delivery service.
● Airbnb: Airbnb links people around the world with unique homes and unforgettable experiences.
● Whatsapp: Whatsapp, now part of Meta, is an end-to-end encrypted mobile messenger app.
What Your Brand’s Tone
Once you have the value proposition, it’s equally important to understand and articulate your brand’s tone. This defines its character, attitude, and personality. The five most typically used brand tones are:
● Modern
● Emotionally Powerful
● Pragmatic
● Playful and Fun
● Pre-eminent
Brand names like Zoom and Uber are modern, whereas luxury fashion designer names such as Gucci or Louis Vuitton are pre-eminent. A name like Slack, on the other hand, is a combination of modern and playful since what they do is directionally opposite to slacking.
Finally, before closing in on this step, you should also study your competition and target customers. The questions you should answer are:
● How do I want to be seen by my potential customers
● Where do I want to stand in comparison to the competition
While studying and evaluating your brand is the most time-consuming step in this process, it will ensure you're on the best track to finding the perfect business name.
2. Brainstorm Good and Bad Business Names
Now, on to the fun and creative aspect — brainstorming a ton of business name ideas! This is your chance to get together with your team and think freely. Don’t be analytical at this point. You can think of bold, unique, quirky, or even bad names.
The only requirement is that everyone involved in the namestorm should have an idea of the brand proposition and persona charted out in Step 1.
You can also use this Squadhelp naming worksheet to kick start the brainstorming process. We go over the various categories under which you can explore names and the tools you can use, such as thesaurus, rhyming words, industry slang, etc.
Some other ways to get started are thinking of short and real words that stir up curiosity. Popular examples are Apple, Slack, and Uber, among others. You can also try bolder, in-your-face names such as The Honest Company, The Boring Company, and so on.
However, these are just a launchpad for you to begin brainstorming. Don’t be afraid to try unusual names or something entirely outside of these categories. Remember, no evaluating or judging your ideas at this stage. You can end the brainstorm with 200 odd names or less.
Shortlist the final ten names …
We then move on to shortlisting. Now is when you should evaluate your business name ideas against your brand tone and value proposition. If others are participating, ensure they have your branding brief with these details.
You can evaluate names by checking how it sounds and looks on different properties such as social media or on paper, how excited it gets you and your team, and if they fit with your brand personality. Get feedback on all of the brainstormed names you generated, analyze how catchy or memorable they are, and then plan to end this step with less than ten shortlisted names.
For example, if you’ve decided that you want to be seen as a pragmatic brand, keep emotionally charged names to a minimum. But feel free to play around within a category. Even if you want a practical and solution-driven name, you can still experiment with alternate spellings (example, Lyft) or short and spunky (example, Zoom).
3. Validate for the Ultimate Test
You’re now super close to locking in your business name but first it must pass a series of checks for logistics and feedback. This final step can really be the tie-breaker between your top name choices.
● Domain names: Few businesses can flourish without a website. You will need a domain name that matches your business name. In the perfect world, your domain name would be yourbusinessname.com, and it would be readily and cheaply available. But that rarely ever happens.
Check for the range of domain options available around your chosen name. You can look for alternate spellings (Lyft, Tumblr, Flickr), .co URLs, prefixing “the '' to your name, among other options. If this seems impossible, you can check out our business name creator.
● Trademark: This isn’t the most exciting step but it can save you significant trouble in the future. Most existing words carry some level of a trademark, and there have been more than 6.7 million trademark applications. So, you should check if your business name is available legally. You can also deploy a legal consultant at this stage. Skipping this check may lead to cease and desist letters in the future.
● Audience response: Run your name by as many friends, acquaintances, family members, strangers as possible. Ultimately, it’s they who will use the name more than you. So, write down feedback, use analytics, and decode which name sits well with your target audience
Remember, this could be considerably different than the name you had picked out but what your target audience thinks matters more. You can also do a linguistic research test at this time to pinpoint the name’s meanings in other languages or to check for any complex pronunciations.
One Last Step to Stand Out …
If you've followed the three steps outlined above, you are in a better position than many entrepreneurs to find the ultimate business name. Yet, if you are willing to go the extra mile, there’s one more highly underrated step that can differentiate your branding strategy from the crowd. It’s called brand imagination.
Your business name, in isolation, is only a piece of paper. Its potential depends on your ability to visualize your brand’s power. To do so, you should be able to help your customers see what the brand stands for and how it can change their lives for the better. Once this vision is clear in your mind, it will become the guidepost for everything in the branding process and help your brand truly stand out.
Final Words
A business name is undoubtedly one of the most crucial fragments of your company’s identity. It is only fair that you spend time and effort on this process. To proceed in a methodical and strategic way, you can follow a 3-step technique to land the ultimate brand name.
Start by deeply understanding your brand, its values, and tone. Decide and act according to how you want your customers to see you. As Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said, “your brand is what other people say about you when you're not in the room.”
Once you are very clear about this, start brainstorming judgment-free names for your business. You can try quirky, bold, modern, emotional or any other names. Then shortlist for the best names mapped against your branding brief, value proposition and brand tone. Don’t forget to check for available domain names, trademarks, and audience response.
Wrap up this process with a distinct vision for your brand. This imagination should have the potential to excite you and your audience. With this 3+1-step brand naming manual, what you should have with you is a stellar business name that resonates with your target customers while also appealing to your business goals.
Once you have your business name, consider including your Capex Financial and Tax advisors in your business registration and accounting process. For an in-depth discussion on this and Wealth management, click on this link —> https://capexcpa.com/contact
-The Capex CPA Team
