• How-to

Just like you name your babies, you name your business. The criteria, however, differs greatly. Unlike the former, the name you give your startup is crucial to your brand, business and the message you want to give your customers.

Moreover, an exclusive name creates several exciting branding and marketing opportunities as you go along scaling and growing your business. A name with the right ring is what you should really look at in order to create some buzz in town and use as a tool to connect with all those potential customers!

What does it say?
For starters, decide what you’d like to communicate and offer to your audience. What is your startup’s unique selling proposition? When brainstorming, identify specific qualities of your business you would like to associate a name with. More importantly, your company’s name should be customer-centric, keeping in mind what he/she will be buying, allowing it to communicate that.

From a services aspect, your firm’s name should let customers know the exact nature of services offered. Say you run a consulting company—will you partner with them? Provide help to set up a firm? Can clients outsource their day-to-day functions to you? Clarity is the key.

Keep it short ’n’ catchy
A short yet unique name will give your firm a sure-shot brand recall value! Names should ideally be easy to pronounce and remember, so try and capture the essence with one word, preferably a noun. Remember, your customers need to connect with your firm and long, complicated names will only confuse them.

Also, try and not limit it to a particular kind of activity such as ‘manufacturing’ or ‘telecom’. This could be a problem when you scale up or add verticals. So the mantra is, go easy on syllables but not on the novelty of your name. Also, think of a catchy tagline to complement the name; it helps create subconscious impact on a customer’s mind.

Ease of search
Your firm has to be searchable on Google! There is no other way these days. It is advisable to add a second word to your company’s name, preferably a verb, explaining the exact nature of your business, such as ‘technologies,’ ‘enterprise,’ ‘PR’ or ‘media,’ to put the name in the right industry category.
The idea here is to think the way a customer would when researching on the web, so that your company shows up many times.

Suggestive versus descriptive
Suggestive or descriptive names are dependent on the industry you operate in. Experts say, for B2B businesses, creative or suggestive names work better as opposed to descriptive names which hold good for the B2C industry, as they are more customer-centric.

Dos and don’ts
* Don’t try and create a bias with customers. For example, don’t name your restaurant ‘Simply Delicious,’ as it is your bias!
* Do not hardsell your personal passion as an entrepreneur through your firm’s name
* Consider your customer when naming your firm
* Don’t go too technical with business jargon
* Keep it simple, appealing yet easy to understand by every layman

©Entrepreneur October 2010

Tags:
brand, business, name, startup