Keep Up

Whether it’s a completely made up word or simply stating the obvious, the name of your business has a huge impact on how your target audience perceives who you are and what you do.  The question is, does this perception match?  Or are you having to work extra hard to manage it?

What’s In a Name Anyway

Branding and associated marketing aside, the name of your business speaks volumes about your culture, your offering (products and services), right through to the way you operate and whether I (as your potential customer) “get” you or not.

Business names have moved on significantly over the past 20-30yrs when businesses were named based on what they do (Carpet Barn?). Since then business names have evolved to be really anything you want them to be!

Where to Start

Now with a complete blank canvas for naming your business, the tough question is – where to start?

We have named many, many businesses over the years – some come about easily (AwaJets) and some can take a little longer to develop but all start with the marketing plan.

The marketing plan provides us with the background knowledge and direction to then guide our ideas into the style of names and types of words that will engage with our target audience, be a good fit in our market (compared to our competitors) and reflect our unique value proposition, company values and even our company culture.  As an ideas business, LIT was a clear winner for us when we renamed ourselves in 2019!

Some Basic Rules of the Road

With everyone working to the same game plan and strategy ie. a marketing plan, we’ve narrowed the field for the style, feeling and direction of our naming ideas. This is where a few extra parameters can be super helpful…

1. Easy to Spell – Phonetic is best!  You’ll find it super difficult (and frustrating!) to get your website URL remembered and let people know your email addresses if the spelling isn’t easy or obvious.  This is where Te Reo and other phonetic languages are so fabulous!
2. Domain is Available – Keep a domain provider website open to check on the availability of your potential website urls before adding them to the “POSSIBLES” list. We use www.1stdomains.co.nz but any of the providers will give what you need. Will you be happy with a work-around option or one of the non .co.nz options?  What other businesses are using a similar name?
3. Short & Sweet – 5-6 letters is always good, if you can make it work. This is where made up words/names come to table but can be a little harder to get your head around.

Market Perception Check

If you’ve come up with a few good options but are still in doubt or having trouble committing to a single name then this is when you might want to consider investing in some market research – either DIY or call in the professionals!

Focus groups are a great way to get in depth feedback on customer perceptions as well as descriptions (in their words) so you can really tell if your name(s) is hitting the mark.

You may want to get your creative/graphic designer to mock up a few logo ideas using your final selection of names to get even more feedback and perception comments on your proposed colours, font style and graphics a well!