A name that sticks! - Kaiilab blog.

*5 tips for choosing the perfect brand name*

5 tips on how to choose your business name

The first thing a consumer notices when it comes to a business is usually the name, deeming it one of the most important factors, but also one of the most challenging and exciting ones. For some business owners, the name is the first step and for others the name can come at a later stage, there are no rules, you can go wild, even with the name itself! If you have no idea what to name your business, have a faint idea or know it by heart, read the tips below and make sure to choose the right name, it sticks!

Discussed here are a couple of guidelines that can help you choose the perfect name for your brand, go through them and have a name that suits you, takes over the market and most importantly, rocks!

Table of Contents

Define Your Brand Identity and Persona

What does your brand stand for? Why does it exist? What does it do? What will it do in 5 years? What principles guide it? These are all major questions, but their answers are key to a successful name.

Take all your market research into consideration, mix it up with your business plan, USP, and with the mission, vision and values that you answered above, you have a pretty good idea of who you are as a business. Now what do you want your target audience to feel and understand when they think of you? Even if it sounds overwhelming at first, integrating your personality and brand identity into your name has proven quite successful and will help you more than you can imagine, especially with customer acquisition and brand awareness.

One example is Whole Foods Market, a name that is short, wholesome and descriptive. It sends the exact message the brand owner wants to send, hence attracting the brand’s target audience that they had in mind from the beginning .

Whole Foods Market logo

Creativity + brainstorming

There are limitless possibilities, and limitless names! Get creative and tap into as many of them as you can. You can conduct brainstorming sessions, with colleagues for the endless possibilities to rush in, these can include things such as mind mapping, word association, lists and brain dumping, even screaming things out loud can work sometimes.

Actually, around 72% of the top brand names are just made up words or acronyms (https://neilpatel.com/blog/business-name/) , so get creative and do not be afraid to put in some crazy!

Some of the invented brand names are actually huge ones, Google, Xerox and Pixar are all made up from scratch or from the roots of foreign/Latin words, but they were able to build exceptional brand equity with their names over the years.

Check availability

Apple Logo

Before settling on a name, make sure it is available, both trademark and domain wise. Using search engines, check that other businesses are not using the same name. Steve Jobs started out with Apple due to his love for The Beatles (their recording studio was named Apple), however upon the launch of iTunes store and the iPod, he found himself faced with a lawsuit. So make sure your name is yours and yours only!

As for domain availability, make sure the domain name you have chosen is available, they go out fast! Match your brand name with the domain name, as it will be a great future advantage for your business’s discoverability and visibility. Some tools that you can use to know if the domain name is in fact available or not and even come up with alternatives are : Godaddy, Instant Domain Search and Long Tail Pro.

Try To Avoid These Mistakes

As mentioned above a brand name is one of the first things, if not actually the first thing, consumers notice. Consequently, here are a few pointers to avoid:

Avoid hard to spell and hard to pronounce names, and yes we mean you BCBGMAXAZRIA! If your brand name is not easy to pronounce or can not be repeated 5 times in a row, then you should choose a simpler one. You want your name to spread around quickly and be easy to pronounce, so keep it simple, memorable and easy to say.
Avoid using a generic name or one that may be limiting in the future. A name thats too generic will not be unique or really give a sense of what you do, for example a company named “WeddingThings” can be for wedding gowns, wedding venues, or even wedding cakes. In addition, make sure to put your future business objectives in prospect. What if your refrigerator business “Vance Refrigeration” wants to expand into other kitchen pieces in the future? So try not to limit your name and business into just one product category or country/city and give room for growth. You are limitless!
Make sure your name is not accidentally offensive or sounds offensive when said out loud. To explain, try to put language barriers and culture differences into mind, especially if you are planning on going international in the future. Check that your chosen name does not mean something else that is offensive in another language or culture. One tool to check that is wordsafety.com. After making sure there are no issues, you are good to go!

Feedback & Testing

Now for the deal breaker! Feedback and testing is just as important as any other step in the process. Not only do you have to test it out in your circle by getting friends and family feedback before committing to a final decision, but you can also go the extra mile and do A/B testing ads and A/B landing pages with your top 2 names and see which performs better. Once the analytics prove which was more popular, you have got yourself a new name! And a proven successful one at that!

Kaii Lab? What’s that?

In conclusion, your name is your game (or at least a big part of it). These few steps will definitely be a helpful guide to pave the way for your brand name to shine, however we also recommend that you get personal and real, try to reflect who you really are in your name so consumers can be as passionate about your brand as you are. Kaii Lab is most definitely a good example of that, let us tell you how our name came to be.

Our name portrays “our reason for being” – literally! Kaii is firstly inspired by the Japanese word “Ikigai” merely translating into one’s reason for being, the thing that gives the person his sense of purpose, values and passion, which is what we’re all about. We are also based in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, which was also the second inspiration for the word Kaii as in Cai(ro). Additionally, we are experimental, adventurous and we do it all, hence the Lab in our Kaii Lab.

We love our name and we love how it represents us, we hope you find your “Ikigai” and your name soon!

Check it all out here: https://www.kaiilab.com/