When it comes to your brand, nothing is more important than the name (and all apologies to the Bard for hacking his line). We recently were evaluating a name for our own side business – online wedding planner software that helps engaged couples organize all their wedding details – and I was reminded yet again of a few critical steps in naming a brand.
1. It must be memorable – This means that people must be able to recall it (a step beyond recognition). We brainstormed and came up with about 6-8 names that we thought were memborable; among them were the names My Wedding Workbook, VowVoom and June White. Once we did this, we then conducted a recall test with our target audience to see who remembered what.
2. It should somehow relate to what you are doing or how you want to position your brand – The three names above have varying degrees of relation to planning a wedding. My Wedding Workbook is fairly direct. VowVoom relates to weddings/vows and connotes speed. June White could be a woman’s name or a time of year when white is worn and/or weddings are held. The point here is that it helps customers identify your product/service group if they can easily catagorize what you do.
3. It should be subjected to scrutiny by you and your prospects. We went through dozens of potential names before we decided on the 6-8 that our gut told us were good. Then we subjected them to our target audience (20-35 year old women) to see which ones they recall the best and which ones they liked the best. The result: My Wedding Workbook was the overwhelming favorite and was second best in recall, while VowVoom was the most heavily recalled but was third in preference. These two names were a toss-up for us internally, so our target audience helped us with the decision, which was (insert drumroll here) … My Wedding Workbook.
