5 Key Naming Insights For Savvy Digital Marketers

Ensure the names you create for your podcasts, ebooks, products…and just about anything else don’t impede your marketing success

Savvy Digital Marketers know that names (business names, blog names, podcast names, online group names) have concrete marketing consequences. The marginal effect of a bad name across key marketing goals like attracting eyeballs, encouraging buzz, facilitating word-of-mouth, and increasing top of mind awareness (TOMA) is real. If you don’t think that an awesome name that’s easy to say, spell, and remember can increase your referral rate by 3-5%, then you don’t really understand the human mind.

Check out these five insights on picking the right name for your website, online brand, mobile app, e-book or anything else shared by the team at naming platform Squadhelp.com:

1. Evocative names are most highly regarded

Online naming resources recommend catchy, unique, short and appealing names. Great advice - yet after helping nearly 8000 individuals find winning names, experts at Squadhelp have concluded that being evocative - a naming characteristic often overlooked or downplayed - is actually the most highly regarded naming characteristic.

A name should connect strongly with your target audience, and this can be accomplished in a variety of ways. It could bring up an idea in someone's mind that is relevant to brand messaging, or it could elicit an appropriate emotional reaction. Some names are evocative because they spur an on-point visualization.

2. Context is important, whichever way you play it

It’s easier to judge a name's potential when it's placed in context. Every day dozens of questions such as, What’s a great name for a Real Estate Agency? are posted on online forums. But a savvy digital marketer knows that a name should be unique to that which it names. It must fit the brand, positioning, and purpose.

For example, names with obscure references are not usually recommended; however, librarians at the University of California immediately got the meaning of the name of their online system, Melvyl - Melvil Dewey was the founder of the Dewey Decimal System.

A great question to ask yourself is, Do I want this brand to fit in or stand out? Context informs your answer. For instance, certain industries (e.g. financial services or law firms) have standard naming structures. If you wish to align with industry standards, you'll use the preexisting structures, so you fit in. If you want to stand outside the norms, you'll steer away from those customs, choosing to stand out with something edgier. Neither choice is right or wrong. Each simply has a different effect.

3. Make Your Name Easy

Great names are easy to say, spell, and remember. This foundational advice is often overlooked or forgotten. Being memorable lies at the very heart of naming. Savvy digital marketers eliminate ideas that are difficult to pronounce or spell their short list of potential names. Names like these will cause referral, word-of-mouth, and digital marketing problems.

Savvy Tip: When choosing a domain name, stay away from hyphens and numbers – these can be easily misunderstood when someone is dictating the name over the phone.

4. Availability is the most common naming hurdle

Squadhelp has found that URL availability is the biggest naming roadblock entrepreneurs face while developing a great name. Also, Savvy digital marketers know that the naming process is not only about branding. Naming also has major legal implications. Cease and desist letters are devastating--so do your due diligence and make sure your name doesn't infringe on established trademarks.

5. Linguistics implications must be considered

Savvy digital marketers certainly don't make this mistake, especially when working with businesses that start as or plan to be international: in the naming industry, there are many stories of companies whose name turned out to have an offensive meaning in another language. Even manufacturing giants like Nokia have messed up majorly in this department, their Lumia brand of cell phone a term for a, ahem, “lady of the night” in Spanish. Another rather unfortunate name belongs to the Ghanaian brand of cola, “Pee Cola”. (It translates to “very good cola” in Ghana). Awkward!

6. Names should appeal to a well-defined audience

Make a name that your target audience will love to use. When coming up with a name, don't try to appeal to everyone. It's likely you'll end up with a something too generic or “safe.”

If you've followed basic marketing best practices, then you've already identified a specific target audience. Savvy Digital Marketing apply this basic marketing best practice in their naming process to develop a name that appeals to their target audience. As we all know connecting with your target audience is the key to marketing success. People will engage with what they like, after all.

Marginal Successes or a Great Big Flop?

Use these tips when you tasked with naming just about anything to improve your digital marketing results. A good name will make at least a marginal difference across many areas that are critical to your marketing success--and never forget that a bad name can easily lead to a marketing flop. What would Uber be today, if it’s marketing team had chosen the name Kalanick Transportation?

Thanks to Grant for sharing his advice and opinions in this post. Grant Polachek is the Director of Marketing at Squadhelp--transforming the way names, logos, and taglines are developed by combining an affordable agency-level brainstorming process with the unmatched creativity of “the crowd.” His book How to Develop the Perfect Name for Just About Anything is available to SmartInsights readers for free.