The key to success in business

For beginners, I will explain that the best names for a brand are words that are capacious, easy to pronounce, and memorable because they have a high mnemonic value. And the mnemonic value often develops in to a monetary value.


A separate mnemonic sign is a word, symbol, or sound designed to evoke certain associations. If the brand name has a certain mnemonic value, then it will increase the attendance, sales volume, and overall profitability of your business. The greater the mnemonic value of the name, the greater the profit. There are many reasons for this.

First: The Internet overloads us with information, and the volume of this information continues to grow. Today, people simply don’t have time to scroll through search results to find what they need. Of course, Internet search engines will always be popular. But most people will most often ignore irrelevant search results. Curiously, many even try to guess the name of the site they are interested in by entering the intended address directly into the address bar, without resorting to the help of search engines. (I wonder how often you do this? I, here, do this all the time.

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Internet data

One way or another, when composing a search query, people will use words and phrases that they remember or select based on logical considerations. And only then, if necessary, they will change the query to a more generalized one, and begin to wade through the wilds of search results pages to no avail?

And now think about it: how much easier would it be if a person entered a name already known to him into the search bar? How much more relevant results would there be? I think much, much more.

As an example, you can consider popular search queries or news that appear on the main pages of social networks. When some important news appears, something entertaining or popular happens, the Internet is immediately filled with people looking for information about these events. Such popular search queries often include brands and their names.


You have to come up with not just a good name for your brand, but also one that will be imprinted in the hearts and minds of people, your potential customers. This is the power of mnemonics. However, the choice of suitable names is very limited, so I give five basic tips for choosing a name for a brand. Try to stick to them as much as possible. So, here’s my “big five”:

  1. Informative
  2. Writing
  3. Length
  4. Euphony
  5. Versatility

Informative

To begin with, come up with a name that will reflect the main qualities or nature of the product, business, or website. Informative names have many advantages, including, in addition to easy memorability, also a certain credit of people’s trust.

Research shows that informative names describing a product or service, revealing their essence and advantages of use, can very quickly increase demand, strengthen brand confidence, increase sales, and, of course, convince everyone of the quality of this brand.

Research

Look at the following names of American brands. You may notice that most of them reflect the essence or advantage of a product or service. For example, take “Jiffy Lube”, this name indicates the possibility of a quick oil change; “Band-Aid” tells us that this is a bandage that you can include in your first aid kit. Duracell focuses on the reliability and duration of battery life.

Informative names can be useful when choosing a name for your site. How? Everything is simple here: if a site with such a name already exists and, accordingly, you can no longer use the same one, then you can take as a name not the name of your brand itself, but its main idea or essence. For example, you want to find a financial planner. In this case, will you choose a website nafep.com (by the way, actually existing) or would you prefer, say, InvestRight.com which reflects the very essence of this service?

Writing

The next rule is to make the brand name easy to pronounce and easy to write. If the exact spelling of the name of a service, product, or website needs to be further clarified to find them on the Internet, then consider that you have lost customers.

And it doesn’t matter if they use search engines or not, the main thing is that people can accurately and easily reproduce the name of your brand. For example, you should avoid numbers, difficult-to-pronounce words, or abbreviations. since your brand is in any case not as popular as the well-known IBM, AOL, CNN, BMW, or some others, then avoid abbreviations and initials at all costs, they will only be a hindrance in this case.

In short, make sure that the brand name is understandable on an intuitive level. You can choose not unique names, more common words can also be used, but in this case, avoid words that are likely to make a mistake when writing, otherwise, you may lose customers. The words should be as simple as possible. If a person makes a mistake in at least one letter, then at best he will go nowhere, and at worst to your competitor. On the other hand, if the abbreviation makes the brand name easy to pronounce, memorable, and short, then why not? Use it! This brings us to the next point.

Length

The shorter the name, the better it is. For example, what will you remember better and what will be easier to enter into the browser address bar: YetAnotherHierarchicallyOrganizedOracle.com or else Yahoo.com? Long names have a lower mnemonic value compared to short ones.

The same “Federal Express” was shortened to FedEx, because initially they carried out express delivery of parcels within the United States, but eventually switched to the whole world, and therefore shortened their name. Another example is Kentucky Fried Chicken, now known as KFC. I do not know the exact reason why they decided to shorten the name to an abbreviation, but I believe that this is due to the word “fried”, the slang meaning of which means a person under the influence of narcotic drugs.


But do not forget that when using abbreviations, you need to choose easy-to-pronounce and easy-to-remember options. It is best to take an ordinary, not abbreviated name, and when the brand is sufficiently promoted, shorten the name. Remember that the same IBM was original “International Business Machines”, and AOL is formed from “America Online”, etc.

Euphony

Use repetitive sounds in the brand name. This will allow you to achieve some melody and will be better perceived by the ear. In addition, as the well-known proverb says: “repetition is the mother of learning.”

Repeating elements of the name not only simplify its pronunciation but also allow such a word to “cling” to the minds of potential customers. Plus, research shows that a nice-sounding name increases the degree of trust in the brand. And if you also include a rhyme in the name, then you are guaranteed to attract people’s attention and win their favor. And the first thing that will come to mind is your brand, and this is the main purpose of a good name.

Do not forget also about alliteration (the coincidence of initial or beginning stressed syllables of consonants in words), for example, Coca-Cola, Krispy Kreme, and Google – these names are pleasant to the ear. Also, try to use bowed, or explosive, consonants (p, b, t, d, k, d), they add expressiveness to the name and are better remembered. According to brand naming expert Steve Rivkin: “From the point of view of linguistics, it makes sense to name a brand, starting the name with explosive consonants.”

Versatility

When choosing a name, the main thing is not to make a mistake and not to make it too unusual or understandable only to a narrow circle of people. This will bury your business. Do you remember I gave the names of companies that were then shortened or replaced with abbreviations? Rebranding is a very expensive practice, so if you want to avoid unnecessary expenses in the future, try to approach the choice of the name wisely in the very beginning. But sometimes it turns out that the names that sound good today may become completely useless tomorrow. In other words, don’t choose options tied to a certain period, a certain situation, or something else like recent events, other brands, or fleeting trends.

Ask yourself: if the current state of affairs changes (and it will change), will your brand remain in demand, or will it lose its commercial value? Will you have to change the name if you plan to expand your business?

A universal name should always retain its original qualities, be easily changeable (without the need for a complete renaming and without the risk of reducing the profitability of the brand) and have sufficient flexibility to adapt to the changes that will necessarily occur in the future with the emergence of new directions of development, production growth, the arrival of new partners, possible business extensions and the emergence of new markets. But when adding informativeness to the brand name, try not to use too banal options. A unique name, even with some loss of informativeness, can turn into a memorable and profitable brand.

Business meeting

Examples of such unique names include Google, Twitter, Hulu, and the like. But in some cases, for lack of other options, you can add uniqueness to the name in one of the following ways:

  • A combination of several words that give an idea of the essence of the brand, for example, (I have separated the names here with a hyphen just for example) Word-Press, Face-Book, Photo-Shop, Micro-Soft, etc.
  • Slightly modify the usual word, thus giving it uniqueness, for example, Kleenex (cleanliness), Windex (window washing), Sensodyne (paste for sensitive teeth), Natrel (natural milk), iPhone (smartphone), Aquafina (bottled water), etc.
  • You can come up with a name that will reflect the essence of the brand, but not so straightforwardly, for example, Ivory (expensive white soap), Godiva (special elite chocolate, which is “sinful”), Raid (insect repellent, effective as an attack of an army), JuicyFruit (chewing gum with fruit flavor), etc.

At the same time, try not to use words that are discordant, confusing, little-known, too long, words in which you can easily make a mistake, words that are difficult to remember, or those that no one will pay attention to at all.

An unsuccessful brand name can not only hinder the growth of your business but also undermine its credibility, reduce sales and drag you to the bottom.

Summarizing all of the above, make it easy for people to find you and subsequently cooperate with you. Your brand should be easily recognizable and blaze in the minds of your potential customers. The more often your brand is remembered, the more successful your business will be.

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