Biznik - Business Networking

Contact Us


Duct Tape Marketing

Duct Tape Book

Free Social Media for Business ebook

Social Media for Small Business
John Jantsch Marketing Coach
About John Jantsch

Recent Posts

Entire Archive

  • Categories

  • Categories
    • Mon Oct 20, 2008

    What’s In a Name These Days?

    Share

    The name of a business is an essential marketing decision and certainly should be considered in that vein.

    Conventional wisdom, from a marketing point of view, is that a name should evoke either a telling description or some essence of the brand. I guess at the very least it shouldn’t confuse or be wasted. Jantsch Communications, Inc is less of a marketing based name then, say, Duct Tape Marketing.

    Today however, there are some other considerations that must be built into the business naming process.

    1) Is the name or a reasonable substitute available as a domain name?
    2) Does the name contain search engine friendly keywords?

    With search becoming one of the primary ways that small business products and services are discovered, some thought must be given to maximizing a company name with that name’s search value in mind.

    Many of the local directories such as Google Maps give high marks to search terms in company names. So, while it might be more creative to come up with an emotive name like Google, for instance, it might be much more practical to name your business Tucson Small Business Search Engine Specialist – or something of that nature.

    The trick these days is to strike the right balance of creativity, descriptive qualities, uniqueness and SEO when naming your company.

    Like this post? Share it with others
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • LinkedIn
    • del.icio.us
    • Sphinn
    • Google Bookmarks
    • StumbleUpon
    • Digg

    Posted by: John Jantsch on Oct 20, 08 | 8:08 am
    Category: Branding | Tags: ,

    Comments
    « | Home | »
    • I would like to add to your considerations: "Is it a name that an reasonable/interesting email address can be created off of?" Too many people are still using yahoo, hotmail or other free accounts for their "business" email address - and not taking advantage of branding themselves - why promote yahoo when you can promote YOUR domain name? Even if one doesn't have a site they can by the name and get an email address set up off it to keep their name in people's minds.

      I would love feedback - my business name is dotcalm, and my domain/hosting site is dotcalmdomains. My business is all about "stress-free design" - customers are kept "calm" when I discuss websites and print design with them; I handle the technology ("dot") part of the project.
      I use "stressfreedesign.com" as my domain as I also own "dotcalm.ws" but it's hard for people to understand it (calm sounds like com and ws is a completely foreign extension to most people).
      I was really slammed a few months ago on a site - the guy said he didn't get it and was very blunt about why he thought is was terrible. Most people I speak with tend to think it's quite clever... what's your opinion?

      Thanks!
      V-
    • John Jantsch
      @V - yes, email is a part of the branding a good domain name.

      With regard to your dilemma - the name dotcalm has a couple challenges - most of which you've already identified, that makes it tough. It's like a clever riddle, when people get, it's great, when they don't it's confusing. You won't get the chance to explain it to most so simple is better.

      Secondly, you don't seem to own dotcalm.com, which is yet another issue, someone else owns the name you would be spending a lot of time driving home!

      I would work with Stress Free Design as a name as it is a great SEO name, tells what you do and you own the domain. You can use "We turn dotcom into dot'calm'" as a slogan perhaps.
    • I have listen to your advice on this subject before and I am in total agreement. The single most important marketing item when you go into business and it may be the one item that we spend the littlest time and dollars on.

      I like your idea of incorporating locality into the subject. Few of us ever become WalMart or for that matter Duct Tape Marketing. The e-mail address is a valid point.

      Gotta go and do some domain searches!
    • Great thoughts John,
      One way to work out the power of a name is to go into a retail store, look at the badge on a person and call them by their name. You will see them light up.
      Names are incredibly important because they represent the essence of who you are.
      I believe the same for a business.
      So often we know WHAT we do but how about WHO we are.
      That's all about a name and the feeling it gives you.
      Having got the name of our business wrong before I know the differece between a bad one and a good one.
      I'm glad the days of having to explain over and over are now gone (Plus the costs in supporting the bad name!!)
    • jay
      John -- freakishly timely. We (my partners and I) had several at-times-heated discussions about what to name our startup (A HREF="www.peaktwo.com">PeakTwo. Ultimately, it was a distillation of the market niche we're targeting, helping companies push their performance to a "new level" when they hit major performance benchmarks. It felt like it shouldn't have been that much work, but it was, and it's proving to be worth the trouble.
    • Hi,

      We are in the late stages of developing our online booking service for small businesses - which do you think works best - www.OfficeDiary.com or www.OpenYourDiary.com?

      rgds/alex
    • John,

      I can't agree with you more about this topic. I'm constantly amazed at how much time people put into thinking up the name of their company without taking domain availability or purchase in their plans. It's worth noting that just because the name you want might be taken in the .com, it never hurts to contact the registrant to determine if they are willing to sell. Make an offer - the perfect name is worth a premium, particularly when that perfect name is descriptive of the business.

      Property.com sold to Foreclosure.com for many millions of dollars. Why? Because they knew that a. there's traffic going to that name, valuable traffic that will convert to paying customers and leads. 2. It is THE domain name for the sector. It immediately imparts authority. our readers don't have to spend millions to find the perfect name for their business, but they should be prepared to go after the name that makes sense. Use a broker if needed, but at least try.

      If I can be of assistance in anyway, please feel free to contact me.
    • Naming is always such a personal and emotional endeavor (whether it's your new company, your new pet, your new baby, etc.). Some years ago, I worked with a company on a product branding project - it took a number of months, lots of money, some excellent graphic designers, and more to get to the name the team felt would work. Then, we presented to the President - he hated it. But we produced some new creative (under a week), and he learned to love it (the product became the company's best seller). In today's business environment, I like to develop a brand that, yes, is searchable (strong keyword/s), relates to the business and is marketable (not all identities are).
    • I've started several businesses over the last couple of years and after some initial brainstorming of names, went straight to the web to check domain name availability. I've there's not a .com, I don't want it. Is definitely getting harder to make this work but is an exciting exercise all the same.

      Haven't been concerned up to this point with keywords (clueless actually) but expect a steep learning curve as several online ventures will be starting in the coming months.

      Great insights!
    • Absolutely right on. Domain names are one of the "eight factors in choosing a name" I list in my fifth book, Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World. Some of the others apply more on the offline side, and they should be factored in too: expandability, personalization, alphabetical placement, descriptiveness, cleverness, trademarkability. Each of these are appropriate in some business or product names and not appropriate in others (I explain more in the book)
    • Ooops, I missed one: tone.
    • If you're picking your business name together with the domain name, you should also consider how easy it will be for people to properly spell it to get to your website if they hear the name somewhere (e.g. radio commercial). I hear this mistake all the time on the radio in my car: "visit us at some name you could never spell properly .com".
    • Sadly, I've had to eliminate many great business names based on domain availability alone. Not a fan of domain squatters!
    • I never knew Google map gave company names with related search terms more weighing?Have you tried and tested this?
    • R
      Jonathan - at one time, you could have claimed land in the US for free (hundreds of years ago), but that doesn't mean current landowners are "squatters". Sounds like a bitter statement to stigmatize Web masters because they have cool names, and you don't. And many have at least enough appreciation to spend a few hundred or thousand bucks on a name if it is worth it (I do). Get over it already - 1995 has come and gone, and there's no use crying about it.
    • The right name is ever so important, especially when starting up. Incorporating keywords that will direct targeted traffic to your website into your trading name is key. Then the promotion of your keyword rich trading / domain name comes into play. Off line tactics like simple branded t-shirts, keyrings, lanyards, caps and other corporate and promo gift items handed out at the right events, to the right target audience will get your URL typed into web browsers, amongst other things. Both online and offline promotion should ideally be occurring.
    • I can't agree more about checking domain name availability before choosing a business name. However, having a name such as "Tucson Small Business Search Engine Specialist" may only be a good idea if you only plan on being a local company and don't care about viral marketing. In my opinion, this is often small thinking for entrepreneurs who should be thinking big.

      One thing your idea left out is the idea of "stickiness" in a business name. Yes, your business name should be descriptive. But it should also be easy to remember and something that people are likely to spread to their friends via viral marketing. "Tucson Small Business Search Engine Specialist" isn't likely to be remembered or talked about much. A descriptive name with that as the tag line would be much more appropriate for most small businesses.

      Best,
      Jared
    • The name of an online business is a huge attractor to a site. It is like a first impression and can make a break a person even going to the site.
    • John: Yes, the Internet makes naming a little more complicated, particularly if you're relying on it for leads and sells. But I must disagree with your "long tail" approach to naming a business. For any business, on-line or not, descriptive names are the most generic and therefore the least memorable and unique. It's difficult enough to remember a three-word name in the first place, and people will assign your name to a competitor with a similar name just as often as they will assign your name to the competitor.

      I suggest finding or inventing a name that evokes an "aha" reaction upon first contact for your business name. This will also translate to your web site. But if you're looking for SEO traffic, I suggest two web sites, one with your company name (i.e. www.signaturestrategies.com) and one with your major keyword (i.e. www.businessnamingbasics.com) and link them together as I have.

      Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.
    • grassrootsmarketing
      Thank yor for this article, and all comments. I'm studying on SEO in marketing class, and yours information is so useful for me!
    • Just wondering what people thought of a name I was thinking about with my partner.

      L & J Creative Web Solutions

      This is a design and hosting company which I would eventually like to include web programming (custom one-off web apps vs. standard websites).

      Our domains is

      landjcreative.com

      What is your take?
    blog comments powered by Disqus


    Popular Searches


    Small Business Marketing Magazines


    Free - No strings attached - Business and Marketing Magazine Subscriptions

    Target Marketing
    CRM
    Internet Retailer
    eWeek
    Electronic Publisher
    Print Media and more


    Creative Commons License
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
    Attribution-NonCommercial
    -NoDerivs 2.5 License    .
    Subscribe



    Subscribe to the Duct Tape Podcast
    subscribe via iTunes

    Duct Tape Marketing System

    Duct Tape Marketing System

    Duct Tape System - Complete small business marketing system in 14 workbooks and 4 audio CDs.


    Marketing Plan Pro powered by Duct Tape Marketing

    Marketing Plan Pro

    The Duct Tape Marketing System now comes as Marketing Planning Software. We teamed up with Palo Alto Software, the makers of Business Plan Pro, to bring you the most powerful small business marketing plan tool going. More info here . . .


    Referral Flood by John Jantsch

    Referral Flood by John Jantsch

    Referral Flood - How to create a flood of new business without spending one dime on advertising - by John Jantsch

    Subscribe to my weekly newsletter

    First Name * Last Name * Email *

    Connect Socially


    Small Business Products

    Coaching Services

    Workshops/Speaking

    Blog

    Articles

    Community

    Classifieds

    Resources