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Why Your Business Needs a Awesome Company Name

by Brandnic Official 15/08/2019

Impact of Names

Read Time: 12 minutes

Table of Contents


1. Setting the Record Straight – Does a cool company name always reflect the business?
2. Getting started – How to come up with some nice company name ideas
3. Cool Names for a Business – One word, two or more?
4. Cool Online Names – How fast can you tap it out?
5. Cool store names – .shop,  .store, .io
6. Consider that cool names shouldn’t always follow trends
7. A cool brand name considers the future
8. A brand name is not only the words you choose
9. Test out your potential brand names

 

Each month 540,000 new company owners show up in the market, according to the 2017 Kauffman Index of startup action and, no doubt, there is a huge amount of competition between these companies.

A great deal of new, innovative approaches and tactics are used every day to appeal to and attract their target audience. as these startups fight to be recognized as unique, in the sea of new enterprises that pop up each month, and with each company needing to create a relationship with their consumers, there’s no doubt that a brand’s name can be powerful.

Because, with 77% of customers choosing products solely due to the brand name, it’s clear that a company with a cool one is most likely to be more successful than its competition. An interesting name, like Hotmail, Starbucks, Netflix or Amazon, is going to be remembered.

A snappy name that delivers the company’s purpose, product and selling point is going to attract their target audience.

An uninspired name, by contrast, may sell the company’s purpose but lack the power needed to attract consumers.

Enterprises such as Global Payments Inc., or Packaging Corp. of America are just some examples of this—pure purpose, no power or emotion or snappiness. Robotic in the way they sound, these companies perhaps aren’t going to reach their audience.

But it’s easier said than done. creating a cool, powerful, snappy brand name… it isn’t easy. There’s certainly a distinction between recognizing what makes a brand name cool, and actually inventing one. So how do they do it? How do they create a successful company name?

Cool Company Names

Cool and shorter company names always have a long-lasting impact.

Setting the Record Straight – Does a cool company name always reflect the business?

One thing that we should recognize is that a few of the huge, mammoth brand names out there, such as Google, Apple, and Samsung, are not actually related to what the company sells, produces or manufactures. So why are these examples so successful? Simply put, such brand names are a success because they are memorable. Punchy. They deliver on recognisability. They have power.

Business Name Perception

Examples of names that don’t describe what the business offers.

But it’s obvious that these companies are, of course, incredibly wealthy or profitable. Startups simply don’t have the budget to match these giants, nor do they have the experience or the client base. So one thing you should consider, if you’re in the process of trying to create a brand name as cool as these colossal companies, is to use a word that emphasizes the purpose of your company, in addition to a word that’s intriguing; something that’s going to grab the attention of your target audience; a brand name that will be easy to spread via word-of-mouth; something that has memorability and will stir up emotions in your target audience.

Getting started – How to come up with some nice company name ideas

There are a whole host of different kinds of company names up for grabs out there, and each has the potential to suit their company in their own way.

So what are some other useful strategies for creating a powerful name for your business?

If you’re ready to create some cool brand name proposals, follow some of these ideas to make a list of ten potential names in practically no time…

Domain Name Importance

Coming up with a naming idea?

1. First things first – research your keywords

A key thing associated with a cool company name is that it can boost reputability for the business via the company website. What’s the secret behind this? To guarantee that the domain matches the keywords that your target audience is using to discover your company.

One way of discovering these keywords would be to begin by using the Google Keyword Tool, or WordStream’s FREE keyword tool, which generate a list of words that are potentially associated with your company – words which your consumers are also going to use when they want to search for your company on the internet.

By pre-empting potential searches using keywords, you are more likely to be discovered by the target audience.

Search engine optimization is becoming increasingly important in the creation and marketing of new companies; it’s the thing that drives traffic and increases ranking online. So using keywords is a great technique to create a cool brand name.

2. Check out your competitors

It’s essential to see how your company compares with others which are similar to your own. Specifically, you should be looking to identify which words or phrases and terms they use. Ask yourself, for instance, what impact their brand names have on their consumers. How do their names make you feel? What tone of voice do they use?

Have they chosen pleasant-sounding words or words which use power and impact?

But you also need to also identify what distinguishes your brand name from the competition and pinpoint what makes you unique.

A company name should drive your customers to pick your brand above others.

3. Nail down what you do from your target market’s perspective

So you may establish a brand name that’s different, but what about the company’s purpose? This, of course, should be unique too.

For example, your product might be clothes, shoes or coats, but your unique selling point might be the style of these products. Or, for instance, you could sell beds, but your consumers are searching for something different to the run-of-the-mill – they want a deep sleep. This is what your target market actually buys. This is how you distinguish your company.

You have to think about how your target market selects its products. Think, from their perspective, about the issue they may have that you can resolve.

4. Play around with the spelling of the words you have

One thing that can be inspiring, or that conjure intrigue in a company, are words or brand names that are misspelled. In so many cases these misspelled words have a story behind them, which has resulted in the business keeping the alternative spelling. One example of this is Lands’ End; note the apostrophe here which features in the spelling because the company didn’t have the funds to correct the printing mistake.

There are many other misspelled company names that are misspelled, such as Reebok, for instance. In this case, the company created their brand name from the African antelope ‘Rhebok’, and the name just stuck. Another example is the world-famous Google, from the misspelled ‘googolplex’. Both companies are now globally recognizable and people choose these enterprises because these names have power.

SuperValu, Proactiv, Froot Loops, Krispy Kreme… the list goes on.

These are some of the many now giant companies that are instantly recognizable today. Their names just work!

Misspellings can work. But, then again, misspellings can fail. If used for a word that describes the product, misspellings can become confusing and misleading. An example of this could be shoes for shoes – simply unsuitable and ambiguous, which can potentially lead to consumers ending up on the incorrect website.

5. Create a mish-mash of two words

There are so many companies that use the technique of combining different words. It’s a popular strategy and it has worked. Simply using two names, such as ‘coupon’ and ‘group’ (to make Groupon) or ‘brand’ and ‘nick’ (to make our name, Brandnic), can have a powerful impact on consumers.

Other ways to combine two different words could be to use a family name and a brand name together. This strategy can be effective because of the reputation of an already well-known family or enterprise name.

There are plenty of examples of this, specifically with car manufacturers. For instance, Ford Focus, Honda Civic, and Volkswagen Polo all use a family name combined with the name of the individual product.

Other examples of brands that use an eponymous name are Adidas (from Adolf Dassler) and Tesla, which came from the world-famous Nikola Tesla.

Research relating to eponymous brand names reveals very little about the potential success of this strategy. There are conflicting results here. For example, some research conducted by the University of Oklahoma discovered that eponymous naming potentially creates a 3% increase or return of investment for your enterprise, whereas the Duke Fuqua School of Business found that naming a company after yourself leads to a reduced value in business – of around 8%.

So when thinking of your own cool brand name, one possible approach could be to blend two words together, creating your own unique identity with the meaning of the old and the innovative new. But remember that there’s no certainty that this will create a drastic bearing on the success of your company.

6. Make sure the chosen name is actually available

Before choosing your brand name, it’s essential to certify that it’s open for use. It can be a challenge to pick the perfect idea, particularly when there are so many new startups out there seizing powerful brand names for themselves. So, to distinguish yourself from your competition and, to avoid legal issues, make sure the name you choose is actually available.

Cool Names for a Business – One word, two or more?

If you’re in the process of thinking of cool names for a new business, it’s important to think about its length. There is a multitude of companies out there that have now revised the length of their brand names. For instance, Hewlett-Packard re-branded itself as HP, Federal Express has changed its name to FedEx, Apple Computer subsequently changed to just Apple.

The nice and high attractive domain names are easy and catchy in terms of pronouncing and highly memorable.

And there are so many more to include! Burbn is now Instagram, Weight Watchers is now WW, Dunkin’ Donuts is Dunkin’ and Lucky and GoldStar Co., Ltd is LG. These are just a few examples of the now instantly recognizable, relatable enterprises out there.

Making your brand name short, or a single word, in these cases, seems to work for many of the largest companies.

This technique means that these companies benefit from increased marketing via word-of-mouth, which is an integral part of growing the brand.

Exceptions to this strategy include Coca-cola, Mercedes-Benz and Tiffany & Co.

However, is it true to say that shorter is always better? In some cases, no. It’s more complex than that. There are quite a few anomalies when it comes to creating a cool brand name.

Trendy vs Old Giants

The industry’s giants.

Because when it comes to brand names, there are so many variables to take into consideration. It’s not simply about word count. It’s about the number of syllables too. Put simply, this can affect the memorability of your company. It can influence how the brand name is pronounced.

One rule of thumb could be to maintain a maximum of four syllables per word. More than this and it can get difficult to pronounce and, later, memorize.

Some of the above examples indeed re-branded, and they changed their brands to names that have two syllables. But how many syllables is appropriate for a brand name? A one-word, the two-syllable name may be the most common, but you could choose more.

Cool Online Names – How fast can you tap it out?

Another factor to consider when thinking about cool enterprise names is that it’s important to take into account the website or online presence of the company. This includes, most importantly, the speed at which your target audience can type out your domain name or website. It’s an important factor because it affects memorability and, therefore, the search rate of your company.

Three-letter domains are extremely rare. They are also incredibly expensive. Whereas four- and five-letter domains can be typed quickly and easily memorable.

Short Letter Domain Names

Short domains could be an acronym for any business.

Browse our four letter business domain names if you’re looking for a snappy, short name that’s inspiring and brand-ready.

Cool store names – .shop,  .store, .io

Before we get into decision making, it’s important to realize that there are multiple sorts of domain names that you can use for the online presence of your company.

There are some domain names that use the technique of spelling out what the company does to the target market. In contrast to this, there are other kinds of brand names that may inform the audience something deep and intriguing about the company. So one thing you should decide is what kind of domain name you want to use.

Research suggests that 90% of online searchers only look at the first page they need, once they’ve found the information they’re looking for.

Using some online search engine optimization, such as the keywords mentioned above may aid in receiving more visits to your company webpage.

Another thing to consider is that there has been so much confusion over domain extensions since the number of these boosted. The question people want to know is whether or not domain extensions such as .store, .shop, .io aid or hamper search engine ranking.

.com name extension

COM domains are the winner in every aspect.

Another thing is that it is much preferred to have a .COM domain name that having any extension, COM rules.

One way to make this issue less confusing could be that using .store or .shop or, .io can make certain that your domain features express to the target consumer that they can buy what they’re looking for from your website.

There was a time where nearly all companies chose to end with ‘ly’. There was a year in which many company’s domain names were spelled oddly. This may seem like a cool, fun idea at the time when the trends are popular, but your brand name needs to transcend the here and now.

Late in the 1990s, enterprises jumped on the .com bandwagon. They used .com at the end of their brand name particularly because their companies were online businesses.

But this trend didn’t last, and once it ended, .com was no longer popular. It was associated with not having a business model, and these companies got rid of the .com from their brand names.

A cool brand name considers the future

Like the section above, a cool, powerful brand name should anticipate change.

It’s important to recognize that a company should always be changing, getting bigger or evolving, regardless of the product or niche they’re in. So one thing you should take into consideration is that you don’t want to restrict yourself with your brand name.

Simply, a brand name should anticipate this growth. It should consider the larger picture of the overall business.

You may sell women’s handbags, but there is always the potential to expand your target audience and start selling men’s products later on.

Impact of Names

Considering the future of branding.

So it’s important to select a brand name that encompasses the potential growth of your company. One example of this is the huge company Amazon, an enterprise that began selling books, but perhaps wouldn’t have become the mammoth that it is today had it selected a restrictive brand name. Now it is a huge, ever-expanding online marketplace, but remember that it began much smaller.

A brand name is not only the words you choose

Something that you may not consider straightaway is the fact that a brand is more than just the words. It’s not just a process of selecting certain words and phrases. In fact, it is more like a sum of the unique, exclusive parts of an enterprise that unite to create your brand’s identity.

You have to think big when creating a cool brand name. You have to consider things like a company logo, the typeface selection, the colors that you would like to use…

It’s important to think about the tone of voice that you want to emphasize in order to reach the target audience.

Similarly, some brand names make use of numbers, which the target market might associate with the value of your company. In one study, for example, participants associated the higher number out of two brand names with more seats on an aircraft.

Of course, this estimation is more exact; It’s important to recognize that the process of association between a number and the value often does take place subconsciously. And there are so many different variables when thinking about using a number for a company brand name. How complex the number is maybe one factor to consider.

Cool Store Names

Everything gets connected with your -.COM

You might also think about what the target market associates with your chosen number (seven, for example, may be linked with luck, which can lead to an increased perception of value in your company).

Phonetically, a number can have an impact on the value of your company. Consider using a brand name and number that are alliterative, i.e. has the same initial letter as each other.

Research points to positive associations between numbers in a brand name and value in a company, but you need to be smart when thinking about which numbers to use.

Test out your potential brand names

Choosing a name that’s powerful isn’t easy. That’s why it’s important to try out your potential company name with your company first.

A cool name should be suitable for use over the phone. It should be easy to pronounce and you should practice saying it out loud to test how it sounds.

Because, as mentioned above, a powerful marketing strategy is word-of-mouth, so the brand name should be easily recognizable and easy to say.

So, that’s the background behind how to create and why you need a cool brand name. And with these points, you’re ready to research, create and test out your own.

Finding a Name

A marketplace for brand names.

Alternatively, why not check out the cool, ready-made brand names you can buy right here at Brandnic Marketplace.






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