People often don’t place as much importance in the name of a company as they should. It’s just a name, right? How hard is it to just pick something? Well, there are many things you need to ask yourself first before making that important final decision.

1.

     Does my name align with my product? Of course part of your name needs to be something unique, but another part of the name should include your most important keyword. For example, you know the company Ace Hardware is a hardware store, even if you’ve never heard of it before, because of their name. Without the word “hardware”, though, most people would have no clue as to what kind of business it was. They would probably think it was a tennis company, instead.

Many companies will include this info in a sub-title or a tagline, but it is generally best to be placed right in the title itself.

2.   Is my name easy to remember? Most names should be short and to the point so that potential customers can easily remember it when they need to. Washington Mutual eventually started going by WaMu because they were struggling with this problem. While their official name still remained Washington Mutual, they wanted to come up with something that most people would be able to more easily bring to memory. Therefore, they came up with WaMu.

3.   Is my name easy to spell? When you’ve come up with a pretty good idea of what name you want to use for your company, start asking people to spell it for you and see if they have any difficulty. Most likely your company URL will be the same as your name so people will need to know how to spell it. One company actually used their tricky name to create a brilliant marketing campaign. Schlotzsky's: Funny Name, Serious Sandwich.

4.   Is anybody else using my name? The last thing you want is to build a successful company only to get sued for copyright infringement. In 2008, an up and coming pop artist, named Santogold, had to recently change her name when another artist from the 70’s, also named Santogold, sued her for making money while using his name. Regardless of the fact that the 2008 Santogold became much more successful, he was first, so he had already staked his claim. She finally ended up changing her stage name to Santigold, instead.

5.   Is the URL for my name available? Most likely, unless your name is extremely unique, someone out there has already purchased the domain for it. Many of these domains can be purchased from the owner unless they are already being used by another company. It is preferable to find a name that hasn’t been bought out yet, but this isn’t always possible. Just be creative and don’t think of names that are too generic. Also, it is helpful to use a domain lookup tool, such as http://www.whois.net/ to see what is or is not available.

Once you do find a unique domain for your company, don’t just stop there. Go out and sign up for profiles on all the major social networking sites with your company name before it gets “hijacked” by someone else. This is happening increasingly often on Twitter.

6.   How will my new marketing campaign go along with my name? Don’t think of a name first without already having a pretty solid idea of how you will use that name in your marketing. It’s better to handle both steps at once, instead of one at a time. Here is a great example of a company that took a seemingly bland name and used their marketing campaign to turn it into a great name. The company I’m referring to is Geico. Hardly anyone knew who Geico was before they started using a gecko in all their commercials. Now people think gecko and they think Geico. That name association is crucial when branding a startup.

In closing, here’s a recap of questions to ask yourself before settling on a company name:

·   Does my name align with my product?

·   Is my name easy to remember?

·   Is my name easy to spell?

·   Is anybody else using my name?

·   Is the URL for my name available?

Next week I’ll be posting about logos and how to select a solid graphic to go along with the company name you’ve chosen.