Before launching a business, most entrepreneurs wonder what things to have and put in place and their relative importance to determine which to achieve first or spend many resources on.
And we all know that creating a strong business plan and a fantastic business idea for a market is crucial. But after these, you might be wondering what’s next, and the answer to that is naming your company and its products.
But unfortunately, this turns out to be one of the major challenges entrepreneurs confront when starting their companies. Although naming is a crucial component that’s frequently given little attention, it’s extremely vital because a company’s—or product’s—name can impact whether or not it succeeds in a market.
Choosing a name for your brand can be stressful, especially when you don’t know how to go about it. That’s why we’ve put together three simple steps to answer every new entrepreneur’s pressing question, which is, ‘How do I go about naming a business?’
Three Time-Tested Steps to Finding Perfect Brand Names
- Discover Your Brand
Your brand’s tone, image, and offerings are the most critical aspects of your company since they determine how well customers interact and relate with you.
Therefore, while naming your business, keep in mind that your brand is the most important aspect to take into account. Establish the identity, values, tone, and emotions you want customers to associate with your company, then focus on finding a name that wholly expresses this.
Consider the company FedEx, whose name stands for Federal Express, which is consistent with the products and services the company provides. Another company, for example, the cosmetics company Sephora, would avoid such a name because it doesn’t relate to their brand.
Therefore, whether you want to brainstorm or employ a unique name generator, keep in mind that your brand will have an impact on how people perceive your business and, in turn, how they engage with it.
- Start Looking for Appropriate Brand Names
Assuming you have a team of people who can assist you in coming up with great ideas, give them a description of the tone and values of your brand as well as the appropriate resources, including a board, a notepad, pencils, markers, and some snacks to reduce the stress.
Your objective should be to generate as many distinct, innovative, and catchy company names as you can that accurately describe your brand.
Avoid criticizing or deeply examining the names you come up with since doing so at this stage will disrupt you and your team’s idea flow.
Use the following resources to help you come up with ideas:
- Thesaurus and dictionary
- Business name generator
- Color-related names
- Rhymes
- Niche-specific business slang
Come up with 200 or more brief, memorable, and intriguing words that can describe your business, no matter how unusual or bizarre the words may first seem. When analyzing them in the next step, you’ll see the true potential in those names.
- Analyze the Potential Names
After your brainstorming session, you should have 200 or fewer options that, after removing individual preferences, have an equal chance of representing your company as its name.
Make a list of the most qualified candidates and ensure they meet some crucial validation requirements. These validation criteria include:
- Getting Consumer Feedback: This crucial assessment will determine how much the name will pique your target audience’s attention.
Get feedback from close friends, people in your target audience, customers, and random bystanders, and use their opinions to rate your name options.
- Searching for a Matching ‘.com’ Domain Name: Due to the importance of the internet in today’s market, if your company name does not have a matching domain name, a solid social media presence, and an attractive website, it will not have the most impact in the market.
So make sure your name option has these elements available before choosing it to represent your business.
- Trademarking: The USPTO offers trademark protection as a way to avoid legal problems regarding infringement.
The trademark registration process can be challenging and complicated for new business owners. Therefore, we advise enlisting the aid of a skilled trademark lawyer.
After the validation process, you can choose the name that passes all checks and will benefit your business the most.
Conclusion
The success of your brand depends on your company name since it will either make you stand out and improve brand sales, performance, and awareness or make people disinterested in your business.
You must give your company a name that accurately captures the essence of your business while also being interesting enough to draw in new clients.
Grant Polachek is the head of branding for Squadhelp.com, 3X Inc 5000 startup and disruptive naming agency. Squadhelp has reviewed more than 1 million names and curated a collection of the best available names on the web today. We are also the world’s leading crowdsource naming platform, supporting clients from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 companies