Why your business name is everything

What’s in a business name you ask? Absolutely everything. Especially when it comes to three of the key paths to brand loyalty: recognition, purchase and trust. And here’s why.

1. Recognition – make it easy to remember and recall.
2. Purchase – recognition and recall are fundamental to product and service selection.
3. Trust – people are loyal to those they know and recognise.

And these all comes down to the worth of your name. First impressions count and judgements are made and often lasting. Your business name is intrinsically linked with your product and/or service offering and your approach to communication and customer service.

Names stick. They also influence assumptions. How many times have you remembered back to someone you didn’t like or was unkind to you in your childhood and whenever you hear that name again it makes you shudder. In fact, research has now found if someone has an unusual name, they are not as likely to be considered for serious jobs, yet sometimes an unfortunate alignment can be memorable – think the famous, like poet William Wordsworth or infamous, like US lawyer Sue Yoo.

So when it comes to naming your new business, consider the following:

Align with your offering

If you’re serious, have a smart tone; if you’re innovative, keep that in mind; and be clever but not too much that it can backfire.

Be memorable, but simple

You want to be easily found on Google, a simple url, and to say out loud (remember the recognition factor).

Ensure integrity and trust

No matter your business, these two are paramount and if you don’t have them, no matter how good your killer brand name is, it won’t mean anything.

Making memorable, simple and trustworthy brand names is in our DNA. There’s an art and process to working through options that tick all the boxes. Talk with us. We can work with you to brainstorm business names that will truly resonate with your audience and get you on the way to branding your business the right way.

See the below links for further reading on the topic of creating a business name.

• Five ways to come up with a killer business name
• Business Names Ideas – Our Four Commandments
• Creating Good Business Brand Names
• Coming up with a business name: a Zestful new start-up