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Brain Burning
Brand Names Boost Business
By Michel Fortin (c) 2009
A while ago, I wrote a blog post on the power of names. I won't repeat
it here, except for the fact that, while branding may not be a
priority for you, choosing a name for your business or product (even
your domain name) is often the single, most important business
decision you will ever make.
In this blog post I submit five characteristics of great brand names,
which I call the five "S's." They are characteristics I encourage you
to follow when coming up with a solid, long-lasting, and highly
profitable name.
For starters, let me point out that the best names are names that are
short, easy to pronounce, and easy to remember. They have considerable
mnemonic value, which 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
improve 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, due to the growing overload of information on the web, 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 deduce, first -
and do so before they try to search for something too 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, a lot more.
Take, for instance, search engine trends, even trends that appear on
the front page of social networking sites. When a current news item,
hot topic, major event, or popular controversy crops up, the Internet
becomes inundated with people looking those terms up. Search trends
often include brand names, too.
Your objective, therefore, is to choose not only a good brand name but
also one that burns itself into the mind of the marketplace. The
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 improve 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 your business, your product, or
your website - whether they use a search engine or not. Make it easy
for them to do so and avoid anything that impedes the proper spelling
of the brand 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 "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 to a competitor, much less a site that might be less
favorable, like some ädult site.)
On the other hand, if an acronym makes a name easy to pronounce, easy
to remember, and shorter, then go for it. In fact, this is 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:
YetAnotherHierarchicallyOrganizedOracle.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
internationally, FedEx makes better sense.
________________________________
Read the rest of Michel's article "Brain Burning Brand Names Boost Business" at:
http://www.sitepronews.com/2009/05/26/brain-burning-brand-names-boost-business/
________________________________
About The Author
Michel Fortin is a direct response copywriter, marketing strategy
consultant, and instrumental in some of the most lucrative online
businesses and wildly successful marketing campaigns to ever hit the
web. For more articles like this one, please visit his blog at
www.michelfortin.com and subscribe to his RSS feed.
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