Salesforce.com did a piece entitled, “How To Give Your Business A Name That Sticks” The author of the article is Deborah Sweeney who is the CEO of MyCorporation.com.
The article covered three main areas: Pick a name that defines you, Make sure no one else has that name and Build your brand.
From the article:
Pick a name that defines you
When naming your business, you want a potential customer to look you up online, or walk by your storefront and instantly get a good idea of what it is you do and (more importantly) how you do it. If you’re in the business of building furniture, and you only do so from oak trees, that’s great fuel for a very specific name, even in a name as simple as Frank’s Oak Furniture (provided your name is Frank, of course). You should always strive for creativity and uniqueness as much as possible, but make sure not to be so obscure that your audience won’t even grasp what it is you’re conveying.
In addition to the article SalesForce.com is giving away a free e-book, How to Name Your Small Business you can follow the link and put in your info to receive the e-book.
Jeff Bezos was being a bit obscure when he called his online book store, Amazon. “Jeff’s Books” would have probably brought him more success since it’s so much clearer.
Seriously though, if you actually need advice like this, is starting your own business the wisest of moves?
Yeah I thought being Salesforce they would delve deeper, but I guess for a free e-book they wanted to keep it short and simple.
The art of domain (re)branding often needs to be explained in step by step guides, that seasoned professionals might find overly pedantic.
That being said, a ‘sticky’ brand can be a generic (eg Apple), a composite (eg Beacon Bakers), or a made up word/phrase (eg Whambo). One can add acronyms to the pool as well (eg OXI).
The key element in all is distinction of the product or service and ability to associate them with the name.
“The key element in all is distinction of the product or service and ability to associate them with the name.”
Good quote Theo
Please view DomainsFeast.com for such business names.