Brain-Burning Brand Names Boost Business

Part of my job as a copy­writer is com­ing up with names. A while ago, I wrote a blog post on the power of names. I won’t repeat it here, except to reit­er­ate that brand­ing, albeit not a pri­or­ity for most, is still incred­i­bly important.

And it’s some­thing you mustn’t ignore.

Why? Because choos­ing a name for your busi­ness or prod­uct, even your domain name, is often the sin­gle, most impor­tant busi­ness deci­sion you’ll ever make.

To that end, let me share with you some nam­ing tips. In my expe­ri­ence, I have five char­ac­ter­is­tics of great brand names, which I call the five “S’s.” I encour­age you to fol­low when try­ing to come up with a solid, long-​​lasting, and highly prof­itable name.

For starters, let me point out that the best names are rel­a­tively short, easy to pro­nounce, and easy to remem­ber. They have con­sid­er­able mnemonic value.

And mnemonic value often trans­lates into finan­cial value.

A mnemonic is a device — such as a word, sym­bol, or sound — intended to assist in recall. If a name car­ries some mnemonic value, it will increase traf­fic, sales, and value to your busi­ness on its own. The more mnemonic a name is, the more valu­able it is.

There are var­i­ous rea­sons for this.

First, the web over­loads us with infor­ma­tion. It keeps grow­ing every day. As a result, peo­ple no longer have the time to search the Inter­net let alone pages upon pages of search engine results in order to find exactly what they want.

Sure, search engines will always have a place. But more and more peo­ple would love to skip irrel­e­vant search engine results. Many will in fact attempt to reach web­sites directly by guess­ing and typ­ing plau­si­ble domains into their browsers.

(How often have you done this? I do all the time.)

Either that or, when do they use the search engines, they will search for spe­cific names, espe­cially those they remem­ber, or names that are intu­itive and can be eas­ily deduced.

And they do so before they try to search for some­thing generic or gen­eral, which might force them to wade through pages of search engine results to no avail.

Think about it. How eas­ier would it be if they knew of a name before­hand and typed it into a search engine? How much more rel­e­vant would search engine results be?

You guessed it, more. A heck­u­valot more.

Take search engine trends, or even trend­ing top­ics that appear on the front page of social net­work­ing sites. When a cur­rent news item, hot issue, major event, or pop­u­lar con­tro­versy crops up, the Inter­net gets inun­dated with peo­ple look­ing those terms up.

Search trends often include brands and brand names, too.

Your objec­tive, there­fore, is to choose not only a good name but also one that burns itself into the mind of the mar­ket­place — the hearts and brains of the peo­ple in your mar­ket. That’s the power of being “hooked on mnemon­ics.”

Nev­er­the­less, while the avail­abil­ity of good brand names is shrink­ing, here are five basic guide­lines to fol­low. Try to fol­low these as much as you can. I call them the “5 S’s of Nam­ing” (and yes, using the let­ter “S” is a mnemonic), which are:

1. Sug­ges­tive­ness
2. Spelling
3. Size
4. Singsong
5. Scal­a­bil­ity

1. Sug­ges­tive­ness

First, choose a sug­ges­tive name, one that com­mu­ni­cates the main ben­e­fit if not at least the nature of the prod­uct, busi­ness, or web­site. Benefit-​​based names have a mul­ti­tude of advan­tages beyond ease-​​of-​​recall, includ­ing credibility.

Stud­ies show sug­ges­tive names that instantly com­mu­ni­cate what the prod­uct or busi­ness is all about, what’s their pur­pose or ben­e­fit, in one fell swoop, can rapidly increase desir­abil­ity, believ­abil­ity, sales, and of course, brand equity.

Look at some of the strongest brand names out there. You will notice that most of them tend to have a name in which the main pur­pose or ben­e­fit is suggested.

For exam­ple, “Jiffy Lube” means a fast oil change. “Band-​​Aid” means a ban­dage that comes to your aid. “Dura­cell” means a bat­tery cell that’s durable and longlasting.

Benefit-​​based sug­ges­tive­ness applies par­tic­u­larly well to domain names. Why? Because if a brand name is already taken, you can resort to its core ben­e­fit or pur­pose instead.

For exam­ple, if you sought a finan­cial plan­ner and were given a bunch of URLs, would you choose nafep​.com (which is an actual name, by the way)? Or InvestRight​.com?

2. Spelling

Sec­ond, make it easy to pro­nounce and hard to mis­spell. If you must spell it, then scrap it. The moment you’re forced to spell your busi­ness, prod­uct, or domain name when ask­ing peo­ple to look you up, you’ve lost them already.

Think of the peo­ple try­ing to find you — whether they use a search engine or not. Make it easy for them and avoid any­thing that impedes the proper spelling of the name.

For instance, avoid num­bers, hard-​​to-​​pronounce words, or acronyms. Unless you are IBM, AOL, CNN, BMW, or some other, already well-​​known brand, avoid acronyms or ini­tials at all costs — they are prob­a­bly the worst of the bunch.

In short, make the name intu­itive. I’m not just talk­ing about unique names, either. Avoid generic words that are eas­ily or com­monly mis­spelled, which may impede traffic.

For exam­ple, if you have a wed­ding plan­ner site, would you call your busi­ness “Mar­riages Made Easy”? Or “Wed­dings Well Done”? The two are good, but the lat­ter is best as “mar­riage” can often be mis­spelled with one “R” instead of two.

(If you already have one and it’s too late, hope­fully it’s not too late to reg­is­ter the mis­spelled domain to cap­ture addi­tional traf­fic — lest they go nowhere, to a com­peti­tor, and much less to a site that might be less favor­able, like some adult site. Eek!)

On the other hand, if an acronym makes a name easy to pro­nounce, easy to remem­ber, and shorter, then sure. Go for it! In fact, this brings me to the third guideline…

3. Size

The shorter it is, the bet­ter it will be. For exam­ple, which one would you remem­ber the most and have the least amount of trou­ble (or poten­tial for error) in typ­ing into your browser: YetAn​oth​er​Hier​ar​chi​cal​ly​Or​ga​nize​dO​r​a​cle​.com? Or Yahoo​.com?

Long names can be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive as it dimin­ishes its mnemonic value. “Fed­eral Express” is now FedEx. “FedEx” means a courier that express-​​ships your pack­ages, fed­er­ally. But since they now ship around the world, FedEx makes bet­ter sense.

Or take a look at “Ken­tucky Fried Chicken,” which is now KFC. I don’t know why exactly they changed the name, but I sur­mise that it’s because of the word “fried,” which tends to com­mu­ni­cate unhealth­i­ness in a now health-​​conscious society.

But be care­ful, if you’re brand-​​new and decide to use an acronym, make sure to avoid con­fu­sion. It’s best to choose an acronym that’s mem­o­rable or eas­ily pronounceable.

Take the afore­men­tioned Yahoo!, for instance. Or SHIELD, which means “Strate­gic Home­land Inter­ven­tion, Enforce­ment, and Logis­tics Divi­sion.” (Sorry. Couldn’t resist. My love for comic-​​book heroes slipped through.)

Or bet­ter yet, start with a reg­u­lar name first, build your brand, and then shorten it, if appro­pri­ate — although that may be an expen­sive propo­si­tion. Remem­ber, IBM wasn’t always IBM, but “Inter­na­tional Busi­ness Machines.” AOL, Amer­ica Online. Etc.

4. Singsong

The fourth guide­line is to use rep­e­ti­tion. Rep­e­ti­tious sounds are pleas­ing to the ear and add a singsong qual­ity. As the adage goes, “Rep­e­ti­tion is the par­ent of learning.”

By mak­ing the pro­nun­ci­a­tion sim­pler, rep­e­ti­tion helps to cre­ate men­tal “hooks.” And by mak­ing the name esthet­i­cally pleas­ing, stud­ies show you also increase cred­i­bil­ity, too.

If you can make your name rhyme, you’re going to cre­ate a name that will almost instantly cre­ate an indeli­ble mark on people’s minds. When the need for your solu­tion arises, peo­ple will nat­u­rally think of your name first.

Which is the whole point of a good, mem­o­rable brand name.

Don’t for­get allit­er­a­tion, also known as “head rhymes,” too. (Nor­mal rhymes are called “foot rhymes.”) It’s all about rep­e­ti­tion. For exam­ple, NoBrainerBlinds​.com, Coca-​​Cola, Site​Sell​.com, Krispy Kreme, Google, and so on have that pleas­ing, singsong quality.

Also, strong-​​sounding or “choppy” con­so­nants (like the sound of “P,” “D,” “T,” and “K”), used par­tic­u­larly at the begin­ning, help recall by adding emphasis.

They are called plo­sives. And accord­ing to nam­ing expert Steve Rivkin, “It makes lin­guis­tic sense to start a brand name with a strong-​​sounding con­so­nant or a plo­sive.”

5. Scal­a­bil­ity

One thing to be care­ful of is to choose a name that’s not too spe­cific, lim­ited, or con­strained. Oth­er­wise, it can lit­er­ally paint your prod­uct or busi­ness into a corner.

Remem­ber the names I men­tioned ear­lier that were later changed to their abbre­vi­ated ver­sions in order to shorten them? Rebrand­ing is often a very costly exer­cise, and you want to avoid that as much as pos­si­ble. So choose wisely from the outset.

But some­times, it’s unavoid­able. Some names, while they may be rel­e­vant today, could become irrel­e­vant, incom­pat­i­ble, or imprac­ti­cal in the future.

In other words, don’t choose a name that’s time-​​sensitive, sit­u­a­tional, inflex­i­ble, or linked to some­thing else — such as a cur­rent event, another brand, or some fad or trend.

If things change (and they will), will the name still apply? Will it still be rel­e­vant? Can it lose its com­mer­cial value? Will you be forced to change if you decided to expand?

A scal­able name is a name that’s ever­green, exten­si­ble, eas­ily mod­i­fi­able (with­out any costly over­haul to the brand or depre­ci­a­tion in brand equity), and com­pat­i­ble with future changes, trends, addi­tions, part­ners, exten­sions, or markets.

That’s why it’s impor­tant that, while the name may be sug­ges­tive, don’t make it too generic. Some unique names may not be as sug­ges­tive, but they can cer­tainly become some of the most mem­o­rable — and prof­itable — brands.

A few good online exam­ples are Google, Twit­ter, Hulu, etc. Or in some cases, and for the lack of a bet­ter word, some names can be “uniqui­fied,” either by:

• A com­bi­na­tion of sug­ges­tive words, such as — hyphens added for illus­tra­tion — Word-​​Press, Face-​​Book, Click-​​Bank, Photo-​​Shop, Micro-Soft(ware), etc;

• A generic, sug­ges­tive name made unique in some way, like Kleenex (clean­li­ness), Windex (washes win­dows), Sen­so­dyne (tooth­paste for sen­si­tive teeth), Natrel (nat­u­rally fil­tered milk), iPhone (smart phone), Aqua­fina (fine bot­tled water), etc;
• Or a com­pletely dif­fer­ent name that may not be related but is indi­rectly asso­ci­ated with its core ben­e­fit, idea, or pur­pose — such as Ivory (white soap that’s lux­u­ri­ous), Godiva (spe­cialty choco­lates that are “sin­ful” to eat), Raid (insec­ti­cide that’s as effi­cient as a mil­i­tary raid), JuicyFruit (fruit-​​flavored gum), etc.

Bot­tom line, make sure you stay away from names that are unat­trac­tive, con­fus­ing, easy to mis­spell, obscure, too long, inflex­i­ble, and can be eas­ily for­got­ten or ignored.

Bad names not only can impede your busi­ness’ growth, but it can also kill your cred­i­bil­ity, cost you in lost sales, and become coun­ter­pro­duc­tive and, often­times, even prohibitive.

In essence, make it easy for peo­ple to find you and do busi­ness with you.

Like a brand that burns an owner’s indi­cia on its live­stock, choose an eas­ily rec­og­niz­able brand that burns itself into the brains of your mar­ket. For the more you do, and the more mem­o­rable you are, then the more prof­itable you will become.

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

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