Choosing the Best Name for Your Business

Deciding on a company’s name is the first step towards creating its brand, and a well-chosen name will ensure that more customers can find and remember your business. While company names can always be changed and rebranded, this can result in a loss in brand awareness and customers. It’s crucial to choose an effective business name from the start. Sometimes the success or failure of a business can hinge upon its name, so it may be wise to seek professional guidance. Here are five considerations that should be made when choosing a name for your business.

Consider your resources

The name you choose should depend on the resources at your disposal. A unique or unusual name may prove more successful if it is backed up by an effective marketing strategy, while simpler names can be more informative and require less advertising to be successful. However, these informative names can often sound generic and forgettable, so it’s important to strike a balance between the two.

Keep it simple and memorable

The key to an effective business name is memorability. However clever or witty your name is, it won’t be worth much if potential customers can’t remember it. Remember, the best names are short and easy to spell and pronounce. Unique names can be great, but complicated spellings make it more difficult for clients to find it in a directory or online.

Trademark protection

A trademark will protect your company’s name and safeguard your brand against potential imposters. According to trademark law, to qualify for protection, your name should be distinctive. Strange and unique names are far more likely to gain legal protection than a generic sounding name like “Smith’s Groceries.”

Avoid Generic Names and Puns

Recognizing clichés and blunders will help you to sidestep some of the common pitfalls when naming a business. Too many companies’ names are ruined by bad jokes. A good pun can potentially be very memorable, but the odds are that your joke will fall flat, which could portray a negative image and result in lost credibility. You should also try to avoid generic adjective-noun names, where one word is created out of two “dynamic” sounding names. All too often, companies with names like GloboTech and HyperServe find it much more difficult to stand out among their peers.

Keep a domain name in mind

Online sales and marketing have become key components of any effective business strategy. That’s why it’s so important to maximize your web presence with web-friendly name. Is an appropriate web domain available? It’s always good practice for your domain name to match closely to your company’s name, and always make sure that it’s spelled the same as it sounds so that your site can be easily found.