Branding Tip: Choose Your Name Wisely (Strategy)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing™. Today we are looking at brand naming conventions.

When I mention Apple, Nike, Google and Amazon, what comes to mind? Of course, you instantly conjure up thoughts of amazing products and services offered by these top-notch brands. The reason, these four companies are branding experts who know how to create stellar products and make sure you understand the benefits and keep their brands top of mind. They are branding 24/7/365 to ensure they remain global household names.

If these company hadn't spent so much energy and resources branding you might have actually first thought of: a piece of fruit (apple), a Greek goddess (Nike), the math value 10¹⁰⁰ (google), or a large river in South America (Amazon). This is proof that any name will work for a brand if you are willing to put sufficient branding and marketing muscle behind it.

 Once a Day Marketing™ is a descriptive name for what the company is all about: ensuring my clients understand how important it is to market every single day. I could have selected Glover Consulting or WahWahWhyWhy Enterprises but neither of those names dials customers in quickly to the services I offer. This type of naming convention makes branding a little easier for me, allowing me to spend more time servicing my clients rather than trying to generate an understanding of my brand.

I bring this up because a new coffee shop opened up in my neighborhood with what I believe is an absolutely atrocious brand name. It's hard to say, it's hard to spell and for me it's impossible to remember. In my opinion a challenging naming convention is going to make it difficult for this small business to become top of mind with customers who are already thinking Starbucks.

When you choose your brand name, give thought to how long the process will take to generate sufficient mindshare with your target audience. Whatever naming convention you use, if it's going to take a lot of work reminding customers what your name is and then the benefits it provides, it might not be the right direction to go.

Once a Day Marketing™ positions brands to become #1 in the minds of target customers. Visit our website at www.onceadaymarketing.com. Contact James Glover at (505) 501-1330 or email glover@onceadaymarketing.com. Listen to Ask Those Branding Guys™ every Monday at 11:00am (MDT) streaming live on SantaFe.com KVSF 101.5 FM.

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