So what’s in a name? If your answer is nothing, then you could not be further from the truth. So many will choose a name that is not only unrelated to their business, but most often times, absolutely ridiculous. Your business needs to be professionally branded and can’t be if you have chosen a name like ‘Bone-yard Buddies’ for a collision repair business. Or what about ‘Super Duper Car Fun’? What the heck is that about? How do your future customers find you? Car fun? Seriously? I doubt that there is a customer out there that got into an accident, damaged their car and found anything about that experience fun.
It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to come up with a catchy and relevant name, but until you sit down and try to come up with one, you really don’t know how difficult it can actually be. Most disappointing is that when you do, someone else already took it. Worse, someone who isn’t even in business anymore.
There are several things to consider while being creative and the least should not be the names marketing value. How will your name stand out against your competition? Does the name transfer well in Social Media platforms? Will you be viewed as serious competition? Or will you blend yourself right out of business? Following are guidelines that will help you to make your choices based on sound experiences by those that have gone before you:
The 5-10 Rule-The greatest and most successful companies throughout our history have had great success using this concept. These companies have five to ten letters in their name, had at least one hard consonant and several had repeating letters. Some of the greats to be considered are Mattel, Hasbro, Google, Yahoo, CitiBank, Ford, Honda, Apple, Exxon, Mobil, Cisco and Verizon. These are to name only a few, this list could go on and on and in fact does.
