I was delighted to provide information to journalist Charlotte Jensen for an article about small business naming at AOL Small Business.
The article isn’t available at their website anymore, so I’ve reproduced it below.
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BEST AND WORST BUSINESS NAMES FOR YOUR SMALL BUSINESS
By CHARLOTTE JENSEN, AOL SMALL BUSINESS
Posted: 2010-04-09 13:49:45
Looking for the perfect name for your new restaurant? What could possibly be more charming than calling it Rat’s?
There is such a place: Rat’s Restaurant in Hamilton, New Jersey, which is Zagat-rated and an OpenTable.com Diners’ Choice winner. The place, named after the character Ratty in The Wind in the Willows, looks absolutely lovely and enjoys a strong following. The name is definitely memorable, too. But more than a few patrons have likely found the choice of name less than delectable.
You won’t be able to please everyone when naming your business, but there are some strategies you can follow to ensure you pick something lasting and effective. “The name is the foundation of the brand,” says Laurel Sutton, principal and co-founder of Catchword, a naming agency in San Francisco. “The right name can do a lot of the heavy brand lifting for a company with little money for marketing and help ensure its survival.” Here, Sutton provides some do’s and don’ts every entrepreneur should consider.
Do check to see if the name is available. “You need to check for both domain name and trademark availability,” says Sutton. “Nothing like getting a cease-and-desist letter to derail a launch!”
Do consider the URL. According to Sutton, Experts Exchange LLC, an online knowledge resource for IT/tech, sounds fine until you take a closer look at the URL: expertsexchange.com. The URL was eventually changed to experts-exchange.com.
Do size up the competition. What kind of style is conveyed? What is their messaging like? “You want your name to be different and stand out,” Sutton says.
Do have some fun. This works best for smaller, local businesses interested in conveying friendliness and playfulness. But remember: This only works if humor serves your brand messaging, says Sutton. She points to some successful examples: Just Desserts, the specialty bakery chain in Oakland, California, and Good Vibrations, a San Francisco company that sells adult toys. “Its punny name does double duty — it promotes vibrator merchandise and establishes a user-friendly, non-seedy persona for the company,” she says.
The name Innuwindow, for a window treatments company in Boston, is clearly fun, but according to Sutton, the humorous name doesn’t serve the brand effectively.
Don’t be too literal. “The name doesn’t have to convey everything the company is and does — just what makes that company different from all the rest,” says Sutton. “A great name has lots of layers and engages you emotionally. Whether it’s through the sound of it, the images it evokes, it makes connections with customers.”
What kind of image does Analtech Inc. evoke? Apparently, the name, short for analytical technology, seemed fine in the 1960s when it was created. But today, Analtech, which does thin layer chromatography, is the first to admit it “faces certain challenges because of the ‘juvenile’ humor that has developed in the past few decades and current Web filters that may block the company name,” as stated on its Web site. An online survey asks customers if they think the name should change.
Unfortunately, renaming a business is difficult, time consuming and costly, Sutton says: “The bigger and older your company gets, the harder it is to reeducate your existing customer base that you’re changing your brand name.”
Don’t ignore your target audience. Sutton suggests you put yourself in their shoes. Just because you love the name, doesn’t mean your customers will. Always consider what target audiences think and feel when they hear your business’s name. Consider Dress Barn Inc.: “Women’s dresses and suits amidst hay and barn animals is not the kind of image you want to evoke,” Sutton says.
On the other hand, the names Birth Day Presence, which offers birth doula support in the New York City area, and Fur Pection, a dog grooming business in Lakewood, Colorado, connect more effectively with target customers.
Don’t be so clever that customers trip over your name. Laudi Vidni, an online woman’s handbag company, spells “individual” backward. That’s definitely clever (and the bags are design-your-own, hence “individual”), but the name could be hard for customers to spell or pronounce.
If you’re going to be clever, be clever with a purpose. Sutton points to Boku Inc., the name of a mobile phone payment service. “[The name] plays on the French word ‘beaucoup’ and conveys the idea of an abundance of money,” she says. “So it’s not just clever — it’s smart strategically.”