Have you ever considered how important your business name is? Companies and corporations from all over the world invest hundreds of millions of dollars every year into sales and marketing campaigns that are designed to increase their profiles and branding.
Most small business will be lucky enough to have a budget that extends beyond a few strategically placed advertisements in a local newspaper but many forget that there is one free advertising feature that many companies fail to consider and that’s the business name itself.
A unique and catchy business name will instantly spring to mind whenever a prospect is considering the products and services that you provide. In most cases, you won’t need to be ridiculously clever and there’s no need to hire the services of marketing gurus who will charge an arm and a leg to come up with a name that taps into the psyche of your market.
By following a few handy tips, you can come up with a business name that will never be forgotten:
Business Name Relevance
Remember that there is no strict formula for coming up with a catchy business name and for certain products and services, you will need to adopt a more cautious approach so that your potential customers don’t lose track of what you are actually selling. ‘Bright Spark’ may well be an inspirational name for somebody providing electrical services, but it could also be applied to many other fields of work (lighting, pyrotechnics and spark plugs, for example). Keep it relevant and don’t expect your customers to think on the same wavelength as you might.
Brainstorming
Don’t assume that you are the only person who knows how your business, and therefore your clients, works. Organise a brainstorming session with other employees or potential customers to see what words and phrases spring to mind whenever somebody thinks of the products and services that you provide. Somebody might just have a hidden gem that will propel your sales overnight.
Be Unique
Your business name can be dynamically simple yet still hold the attention of your prospects. In many cases, an unrelated name will actually work if it is audibly appealing to your prospects. An ‘Apple’ has nothing to do with computers. The ‘Amazon’ has nothing to do with books. Who knows what an ‘Adobe’ is anyway? These are all unrelated terms, but are equally successful in their own right as highly recognisable business names.
Gentle Nudges
You can still pull off a unique sounding business name by adding a relevant word to an unrelated one. Take the example of Pizza Hut. The name tells us exactly what they specialise in, but the ‘hut’ part is unrelated. It’s unlikely that there are many kings who eat burgers, but Burger King is still a highly recognisable brand and business name.
Acronyms
Acronyms are incredibly easy to remember, especially if the acronym creates a word as well. Fiat, the Italian car manufacturer, is actually an acronym of Fabbrica Italiano Automobili Torino. Anybody with anything less than a languages degree will struggle with the full name, but the Fiat acronym itself has stood the test of time over many years.