How To Choose The Right Business Name For Your Startup

What’s in a name? Apparently a lot, especially for startups. The choice of name can make or break your business. Getting found online is your top priority.

Your startup may be a retail store or offer professional services, i.e. accounting, legal or maybe software development. Whatever you’re offering doesn’t change the fact that your new business needs to attract customers and fast track sales.

Competition for eyeballs, i.e. website visitors is substantial online. However, you can get out front and ahead of your competitors when your business name is memorable for the right reasons!

Entrepreneurs know there are many obstacles to startup success, particularly in the early days of operation. Marketing is critical for brand awareness and quick sales, so it pays to make sure your business name is not holding it back!

Aim To Get It Right The First Time

First impressions always count, and on average, it takes a person just seven seconds to form a lasting impression, so your startup won’t want it to be negative.

Once an impression is created, it’s hard to shift it significantly – and more so when its customers are voicing their negative feedback on social media.

Choose a name your intended customers will not ridicule for its inappropriateness, bad humor, or association with a nightmarish event. Fail to get this right, and your business will always be in damage control to protect its sales and reputation.

Plus it may become harder to attract staff, and when you do, they may burn out if their role includes hours each day minimizing the negative impact of your business name.

Furthermore, not only will your staff be unproductive in explaining why your business has its name, many customers may be turned off before they contact you or make a purchase. Clearly, this is not the start you want for your business so you can try a brand name generator to get your startup off to a flying start.

To help you along in this article, we look at some of the worst names in history, and how you can make the right choice for your company.

Weird Names

Humankind has a lot of experience with weird names, particularly for name places. For example, did you know there is a town called Asbestos? It’s a town in Canada. Asbestos dust is a killer, and in the 1970s well over 100,000 people were dying from asbestos-related diseases every year, so why would you name a town after it!

In business, there have been many poor name choices and lots of articles written about them. For example, for inappropriate business names see this article here.The names are so inappropriate we won’t mention them here, but you can imagine the hours they’d need to invest in the management of ongoing negative feedback.

However, some companies choose business names that are edgy and thus memorable.

Depending on your service or product offering, a tongue-in-cheek name can appeal to your target audience while not sitting well with everyone else. Humor can work too using a play on words, for example, a bakery called Bread Pitt.

Using this tact for picking a name can be risky, so make sure you run your options by your advisors and a carefully chosen sample audience. See further on for more on how to choose a perfect name for your startup.

Business Name Trend

Saying it as it is, i.e. a name that describes your work or offering is the trend that’s currently hard to shift due to its perfect SEO compatibility.

For example, in Forbes, an Accounting practice named their business ‘cheap accounting’, and they secured the domain of the same name. This business has never needed a big marketing budget, and customer inquiries just keep coming month after month – all because of their business name, letting customers know their services are well priced.

How To Choose Your Business Name

Common sense is priceless

Use sound judgment and listen to your intuition. If a name excites you, it’s also likely to do so with your intended audience.

Customers ultimately choose

Your customers should be choosing your business name, and you can enable this action by reaching out for their feedback. Create a shortlist of names and grab every opportunity to ask people you meet what they think of your list of names. Remember to ask your social media followers.

Enjoy the process

Give it time – choosing a name is important and shouldn’t be hurried. Write down every idea you have, and remember there are no bad options at this early stage. From an idea may spring more suggestions, not just from you but also from the people you engage with while at work and even during your own time.

Summary

Choosing a name for your business should be fun and the process enjoyable, but often it’s rushed without careful thought, and this is when the outcome is negative.

Avoid leaving your business name to the last minute. This is a project that must cover all bases from being unique, and memorable to representing what your business stands for, i.e. its values, and also its solutions.

Therefore when choosing a business name, you need to be thorough and inclusive, with your intended customers, so they too enjoy being part of the journey.