Your business brand speaks to how your company is perceived by consumers.
A well-developed brand reflects a company’s values and incites emotions, helping to differentiate the brand from the competition. For example, the Apple brand image might be equated with innovation, while Chanel’s brand values speak to elegant, traditional luxury.
Given a brand name’s significance, it should come as no surprise that the perfect name requires more than picking a catchy word or phrase.
A strategic, structured development process will allow you to create the right brand name for your business. This article provides the essential information you need to get started.
Good brand name traits
Unique
One of the main goals of branding is differentiation, or the art of setting your business apart from the rest. It’s important to select a unique business name that isn’t easily confused with others.
Look for a moniker that’s one of a kind but not too out there—which can detract from its memorability and user-friendliness (more on those points below).
Keep it simple. Research has shown that simple brand names perform better in the stock market, possibly reflecting the human preference for easy-to-process information.
Dove and Olay are two examples of unique names that are succinct but stand out. Plus, the rounded letters and vowels in these names suggest softness, which is fitting for a personal care brand.
Memorable
A company name also needs to be memorable. Consumers should be able to recall your business.
If they stumble across your products or services at a time when they don’t need those goods—but are captivated by a memorable brand name—they may return as customers later when they do need those goods.
A memorable name also supports word-of-mouth marketing, making it easy for people to disseminate and share your brand name with others.
BMW is a great example of a memorable brand name. Many people don’t realize that the acronym comes from the auto manufacturer’s German name: Bayerische Motoren Werke.
That’s a mouthful! BMW is easier to recall. Twix is another easy-to-remember and fitting name, since the “Twi” calls to mind “twin,” speaking to the fact that the chocolate always comes in packs of two.
User-friendly
While a brand name should be unique, it shouldn’t be too complex. For example, a gimmick like replacing letters with numbers can cause confusion.
Further, remember that a brand name needs to serve in multiple contexts. For example, it should be easily incorporated into social media, business cards, logo design, a website domain name, and more.
A descriptive name like Groupon is one good example. The name is unique and memorable without being too complex. By combining the words “Group” and “Coupon,” the name even speaks to the business’s offerings (discounts on group-based activities).
Nike is another fantastic example. It’s just four letters! This makes it easy to incorporate into logos, websites, and more. Plus, Nike is the Greek goddess of victory, a great fit for a sports brand.
Future-proof
Ideally, your business will be a thriving success and will last for years or even decades to come. Brands like Coca-Cola, Boeing, and L.L. Bean have been around for over a century.
If you want your brand name to go the distance, make it future-proof. Avoid referencing trends of the moment and don’t get overly specific. UPS—short for “United Parcel Service”—shows how an old name can be modernized and future-proofed.
Taking a big-picture approach can also future-proof your brand by allowing you to more easily expand your product or service offerings later. The initialism “VS” for the brand Victoria’s Secret is a great example.
While VS is now synonymous with lingerie, the name itself doesn’t mention this. This has allowed the business to expand into other areas, like cosmetics, accessories, and athleisure.
Creating a brand name
1. Identify your target audience
Your target audience refers to the primary market for your products or services. Who are you catering to and who do you want to reach with your brand?
This includes basic demographic and psychographic information, like age, sex, location, occupation, marital status, hobbies, and more. It can help to create a fictional persona of your target market member, even giving them a name and a face.
There are a few ways to identify your target audience. If your business is already up and running, you can gather data from existing customers to see which traits they share.
If not, you can conduct market research, canvassing consumers at large. You can also look at brands in your market and see what their consumer base looks like. Social media and website analytics are one way to do this.
2. Define your brand personality
Once you have your target audience defined, you can go on to define your brand personality. How will your brand reflect the personality of your target consumer?
Start by identifying the values shared by your brand and that archetype, such as convenience or affordability. Then, consider how those values can be expressed verbally, visually, or emotionally to help position your brand.
It can help to think of your brand as a person. What would they be like to interact with? Are they fun-loving and zany or purposeful and serious? Would they use laid-back or professional language? What kind of music would they listen to?
What social media would they use? Compare two major tech brands like Apple versus Microsoft and you can probably quickly identify which one would be “the fun one.”
3. Make a list of brand name ideas
Once you’ve narrowed down your target audience and defined your brand personality, you can start brainstorming brand name ideas. This is the fun part! Make the most of it.
Give yourself plenty of time, get comfortable, and just jot down everything that comes to mind. Save the critiques for later. The idea is to get as many names and ideas on paper as possible.
It can help to make this a group activity, so ask your employees to join in.
Accumulating all of your ideas on a whiteboard or shared screen is a great way to combine forces, allowing one person’s thoughts to inspire others’ ideas. You can also use name generator tools, a thesaurus, and foreign language dictionaries to help get inspiration.
4. Aim for simplicity with your brand name
While it’s hard to find an available one these days, one-word brand names are always ideal.
They’re easy to remember, strong and relatable. If you think about some of the most successful and recognizable businesses in the world – Target, Amazon, Apple – they all have one-word names.
Sometimes you have to invent a word – Twitter, Google, Starbucks – but the effect is the same. A two-word name is acceptable when one word is not an option, but avoid going with three or more words if possible. Long names complicate everything from choosing a domain name to future product packaging.
Simple names are also more likely to inspire customer trust. In a study of 700 stocks that traded between 1990 and 2004, researchers found that companies with simple names earned 11 percent more than those with difficult-to-pronounce names.
Several factors go into this:
- When looking at a name, simple names appear more truthful than complex names.
- Simpler names are easier to remember and require less effort to process, making them preferable.
- Simple names convey integrity and competence to consumers.
5. Think about the logo when considering a brand name
Business owners usually think about the logo after selecting a brand name, but it’s good to keep designs in mind when brainstorming name ideas. Your brand name and logo will become synonymous, so they can’t be considered independent components.
Will you use a specific script or font to create a textual logo like Coca-Cola or Facebook, or will you go with an abstract logo like Apple or Target?
These decisions may not directly impact the logo, but they can be a deciding factor when choosing between two or more options. While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to logo creation, good logos are usually simple, memorable, versatile, authentic and timeless.
6. Consider future growth when choosing a brand name
While you may specialize in a particular product now, you don’t want to limit your company to selling only that product forever. The wrong brand name can seriously hamper your ability to scale in the years to come.
For example, let’s say your startup sells cat food. Using the brand name “Cat Food Incorporated” doesn’t give you much room to expand into, say, dog food in the future. However, if you went with the brand name “Healthy Pets Incorporated,” you have room to expand food and product lines.
This sort of thing happens all the time. For example, Boston Market used to be called Boston Chicken.
Then it wanted to add other types of foods to the menu and had to embark on a rebranding exercise that cost the company more than $14 million. It’s best to get it right from the beginning.
7. Secure social media accounts with your brand name
Just as it’s crucial to reserve a domain name with your brand name, you should scoop up other digital versions of your brand name. For example, you’ll want to build a social media presence for your brand name, so lock down Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram accounts.
If your brand name isn’t available on platforms you want to use for social media marketing, you may even rethink the name. Use social media monitoring tools to track brand name mentions so you can respond to customers and see how the public perceives your brand.
8. Consider your company values when naming your brand
When seeing your brand name, potential customers should get a sense of what your company is about. For example, IMPACT is the name of an award-winning marketing agency.
Its goal is to create the maximum impact for its clients; the company reinforces this message by writing the name in all capital letters. Another example is Whole Foods, which implies natural, unprocessed food choices.
9. Prioritize uniqueness in your brand name
The strongest brand names are distinctive. When someone hears your brand name, they should associate it only with your company’s products or services.
Steer away from descriptive words related to your product, such as “Yummy Yogurt” or “Durable Tires.” You can, however, combine words to create a descriptive brand name, such as “Yumgurt” or “DuraTire.” Gather your team to brainstorm characteristics, values and emotions related to your brand offering. Then try the following:
- Combining words: Examples of word-combination brand names include PayPal and Snapchat.
- Changing the spelling: Examples of spelling changes in brand names include Chick-fil-A or Fiverr.
- Alliteration: Examples of brand names that use alliteration include Dunkin’ Donuts and Krispy Kreme.
- Rhyming: Examples of brand names that use rhyming include GrubHub and Reese’s Pieces.
- Metaphors: Examples of brand names that use a metaphor include Nike and Quartz.
- A related word: Use a single word that is related but not directly descriptive, like Google or Amazon.
- An unrelated word: Use a single word that’s not related at all, like Square or Apple.
- Homophone: Use a homophone like “Sugar Bare Waxing Studio” or “Wild Hare Salon.”
- Founder’s name: Use the founder’s name, like Kellogg’s or Hilton. Naming your brand after yourself isn’t usually recommended because it can cost the business much more to establish a memorable brand. However, it’s still possible if you want to devote the time and money to build your brand under that name.
10. Ensure your brand name is memorable
Your brand name must be memorable so consumers and potential customers can easily seek you out and recommend you to others. If you sell in a retail environment, a memorable name allows customers to find you amid a sea of competing products.
Some factors that go into a memorable brand name include the following:
- Meaning: Your brand name should conjure some kind of meaning in customers’ minds, whether it’s product-related or a characteristic your brand embodies.
- Emotion: Your brand name should have an emotional component. Many brands evoke a feeling. Some, like Disney, create this emotion through associations over time, but others have it baked into the brand name. For example, QuickBooks conveys ease of use. HomeGoods combines two words, each with a positive connotation. Sandals Resorts invokes a casual, laid-back atmosphere.
- Uniqueness: The name you choose should be very different from competitive products or companies. If it has similarities to an existing brand name, that brand should be in a totally different industry or make a product with a different target market, to avoid confusion.
Side notes
Branding is a critical component of launching a business. With more businesses being created every day, a distinct, memorable brand name can set your company apart from the competition.
As you move through the brand-naming process, keep an open mind and don’t rush your decision. Rebranding is an expensive proposition, so get it right the first time.
