What’s my name, #$%&*?

Naming.  Doesn’t matter what you’re naming – your product, your business, your website or heck, even your child (which happens to be my current project), your choice is important.  Below you’ll find a flock of ideas, strategies, and tools to make your name discovery a little easier.

Through researching and writing this article, I tried to make name discovery a point-by-point affair.  I’ve also noticed that most, if not all of the articles and reports I’ve read over the years do the same.  Start here, end there, do this and don’t do that.  Lemme tell you though, it’s not nearly that cut and dry.  The process of naming is anything but linear. 

There is NO chronological set of events that promise to lead you to naming perfection.
There is NO set of naming principles you must adhere to.

Sure, there are certain guidelines and ideas it’s good to keep in mind, but I promise you, there’s an exception to every rule.  (Case in point: successfully branded, wildly popular and by all standards bad, names abound.)

The process of naming also has its idiosyncrasies.  Sometimes you’ll set out to name a new product and the perfect name will be hanging there,  right out in front of you, just waiting to be snatched out of thin air.  Other times, you’ll mull for days, agonizing over the details of your product, entering in hundreds or thousands of options to your registrar with nothing sounding “just” right. 

So, given the interesting and often inconsistent nature of naming, I’ve decided to divide this article into “considerations”.  That is, instead of giving you a chronological chart of action points from which you’ll undoubtedly stray, or assigning you a set of naming commandments that are anything but set in stone, I’ve outlined a collection of methods, ideas and strategies that you should simply consider.  (You’ll find the more basic ideas in the beginning with more meaty stuff following.)  So, let’s get the fast ones out of the way first…

Consider this: The basic stuff.

1.  Be easy to pronounce and spell.

2.  Make it memorable.

3.  Don’t pigeonhole yourself (Being to specific in the naming of your company or product (example: Dave’s 256k Flash Drives Inc. or Portland Flooring Inc.) can hinder growth later.)

4.  Go easy on the numbers.

5.  Don’t use names that could have a negative connotation in other languages (Baka Software Inc. sounds ok in the US, but won’t fly in Japan).

6.  Stay away from negative connotations. 

7.  Make sure your name doesn’t alienate any group (race, religion, etc)

8.  Search for existing trademarks on potential names.

9.  Make sure the domain is either available or purchasable in the aftermarket.  Use your favorite registrar OR use a bulk domain checker (I’ve outlined one below).

Consider this: Domain availability. 

Domain availability is possibly the biggest hang-up to ever happen to naming.  Sure, you can come up with great potential names, but can you come up with great potential domains that are available? 

I won’t spend much time on this because it’s pretty simple.  If you’re creating a name for a product or business that will require a .com, be patient, keep trying and you’ll start to get a feel for names that are more likely to be available than others.  I’ve also listed some tools below that will help immensely with this.

Consider this: Focused brainstorming.

Every book out there prescribes brainstorming.  However, instead of just sitting back and trying to come up with ANY words that describes your business, focus your brainstorming to answering a set of questions.  Answer each by making as long of a list or words and phrases as you possibly can.  Remember, the longer and more abstract your list, the better off you’ll be.  So go wild…

- What does your product do?
- What does your industry do, what’s its purpose?
- What is your product’s benefit to the consumer?
- What will happen for them?
- What will they get?
- What are the “ingredients” that go into your product or service?
- How are you different from the competition?
- What makes you unique?
- What’s the lingo in your industry?  What are the expressions that are unique to your offering and business?
…add your own as you see fit.

Consider this: Synonym search.

It’s pretty simple, really.  Take each and every one of the words you brainstormed above and plug them into a thesaurus like Thesaurus.com.  Run through each entry, keeping the words you like, trashing the ones you don’t.  Put these into a new list, paying attention to name possibilites.

Consider this: Word combining + a cool name combining tool.

After you’ve done some focused brainstorming and/or a synonym search, try word combining.  Pop ALL of your words into a word combiner like My Tool, tweak it’s settings to reflect what you want it to show and combine.  Depending on how many words you put into the system, you may get a massive list returned to you.  To weed through them quickly, you can then hit the button at the bottom and check each domain for availability.

Consider this: Name and word lists to get your juices flowing. 

Plenty of great product, company and website names have their roots in other, irrelevant names.  Look up “list of ______” in google and you’ll get more than you can handle. 

Geologic periods
Fruit or food names
Types of dynosaurs
Kinds of rocks
Latin or greek roots
Place names
Historical figure names
Zoological names
Botanical names
Math or Engineering terms
Astronomical terms
Animal, fish or bug names

Think about this abstractly also.  If your product is new and unique, what foods or plants have fresh connotations? Etc.

Consider this: Punning and plays on words.

I just tried a new beer recently specifically because of its name.  It was called Tricerahops, a double IPA made by Ninkasi Brewery.  Quite a beer, incidentally.  But check out how you can create a name like that.  Cruise your focused brainstorm and synonym lists for words that describe/define your product.  In this beer example, we might find hops – one of the main ingredients in beer.  Then, we can look through lists of animals, foods, places, etc and see if we get any good combinations, where the words fit seamlessly.  In this case, they chose a dinosaur name “Triceratops” and simply changed one letter.  Here’s an even easier way of doing it…

Consider this: Groovy word tool:

Use this tool More Words and search for any words that contain ____ .  You can search for anything – search for words that contain ‘top’, or words that have a double ‘e’.  Virtually any sound or letter combo you want to find in a word, this site will do it for you.

Consider this: Meaningful or not?
(example:  Daves Rocket Repair Inc. has meaning, Simble Inc. does not)

Some say creating a name with built-in meaning is a must – new companies or products need to seem familiar and safe.  Others say non-meaningful names are the best – the name is completely yours, free of meaning (which you can then define), plus, newly coined word names connote innovation.

The jury, as they say, is out.  Some things to keep in mind though:

Newly coined words CAN convey meaning.  The most championed of these may be Acura, which was formed from the morpheme “Acu” and finishing with suffix “ra”.  Acu as a root connotes accuracy or precision, which fits nicely for a luxury car line.

The creator of the Acura name (Ira Bachrach of NameLabs) is purported to have a list of thousands of combinable morphemes.  I, as or yet, have not found such a list.  If you happen to run across one, I’d love to see it .

Consider this: A truly killer naming tool:

Word Lab and specifically this page – Word Lab Tools.
This website I consider to be one of the single most powerful naming tools out there. With an absolutely massive list of company names, a morpheme name creator, name builder, and so on, this site is the juggernaut of idea generators.  Every time I’m naming something new, I use this site.

Consider this Metaphorical naming [powerful stuff]

I call it metaphorical or lateral naming, but no matter what you call it, it’s a branch from the focused brainstorm and often, the coolest names come from this method.  It’ll take a more creative, abstract frame of mind, so whatever you need to do to break out of your linear comfort zone, do it.

So, after you’ve changed into your tie dye and stared at your Led Zeppelin poster for a while, grab your focused brainstorm.  Here we’re going to center on the question – “What does your product, business or industry DO”.  You’re going to sequentially take each of the words and phrases you came up with, and come up with OTHER things in life that do these things too.

Let me repeat (or rewrite, as it were) that.  You’re going to take what your business does, and come up with other things in life that do the same thing.  Make a list of everything you come up with.  Here are some examples:

I have a software company and our newest product’s function is to copy files (pretty high tech, I know).  So I ask, “What else in life copies things?” 
A copier – too logical.
A cell – might work, but a little ‘out there’.
A mime – A HA!
Why not call the new software product – Mime.

Here’s another:

My marketing company helps its clients voices get heard above the competition.  So, what else gets voices heard or makes things louder? 
A bullhorn.
A volume dial.
An Amplifier – A HA!
Why not call the company Amplify Interactive (happens to be a real company here in Portland).  Volume Media wouldn’t be bad either.

Consider this: Misspellings.

Misspellings of commonly used words can get you in familiarity’s proverbial backdoor.  Example – netflix.com.  It’s familiar, short and you instantly know what they do.  Though, if looking for an available domain, you’ll have to use some fancy combinations because common misspellings are already registered.

Consider this: Industry lingo.

Each industry has its lingo and you may have noticed that many taglines come from this, or more distinctly, those words and expressions that are used by your consumers. 

For example, I’ve just developed the perfect fish hook.  It never, and I mean NEVER lets a fish go.  A common expression in fishing when you feel a fish take your bait is “Fish on”.  This great expression combined with something else, might make a nice tagline for my fail-safe hook.  How about – Fish on … never off.

Consider this: Ask your friends, but…

Ask your friends’ opinions, but take them with a grain of salt.  First of all, your pool of test subjects is probably pretty small, leaving your results (ratio of yays to nays) with little accuracy.  Secondly, consider whether your friend is in your target market.  If they’re not, they may not ‘get’ a name which might be perfect for your market.  Finally, people in general side with what’s familiar.  Finding your website, seeing an advertisement or having a friend suggest your product can have the unique ability of making your product’s name sound good.  The name or names you ask your friends to grade won’t have the benefit of this.

Consider this: How is the competition named?  What are the trends?

I’ve made the mistake (like an idiot, I might add) of not checking my competition first and creating a name, only to find out my name is JUST like a competitor’s.  Time wasted.  Now, my general rule is to find out how my competitors are naming themselves and simply be different.  Stepping out of the box is always a bit of a gamble, so make sure you’re different in what will be seen as a positive way. 

Consider this: Name rhyming.

Rhymed names are memorable and can work, as long as they’re not too cute or overboard.  Rhyme Zone is fantastic for finding words that rhyme.  More Words can also be good for this.

rent a car bulgariaConsider this: Web 2.0 name generators

I’ll be honest, they’re generally crap.  I’ve used this one – Web 2.0 Name Generator, but found that, for the most part, they return relatively useless gibberish.  If you have a few extra minutes though, try popping some of your synonyms into the interface and seeing what it comes up with.  At the very least it might give you some ideas and get your wheels turning.

Consider this: Don’t put TOO much stock in your name.

They’re certainly important, but naming can also be over-emphasized.  There are plenty of highly successful businesses and products out there with bad names.  So, take your naming, like your friends’ opinions, with a grain of salt.  And, as with everything, the more you stress about obtaining perfection, the less likely you’ll come up with that killer name that seamlessly fits your offering.

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11 Questions EVERY Marketer Needs to Ask (online segmentation and targeting)

Everyone puts their online marketing plans together in a different way.  Some have a checklist, some look at other plans and replicate, some wing it.  I ask questions. 

I’ve found that asking questions allows me to focus my brainstorms and instead of putting me into a ‘do this and this and this’ frame of mind, it allows me to explore and delve deep into the possibilites that make sense for the particular product/service I’m working on.  Asking focused questions opens potential doors and leaves my mind’s options open, rather than specifically defining its path.  Sure, when you get down to it, it’s semantics.  But hey, it works better than any other process I’ve found.  Who am I to argue?

I have a specific set of questions that I ask when developing any new marketing plan.  These questions have been amassed over the years when I found something in particular helped, there was an idea I routinely needed to keep in mind, or just thought it was a good concept to consider.  As the list has gotten longer, I’ve divided it into categories:

- pricing
- segmentation and targeting
- product/positioning/differentiation
- branding and message creation
- sales and pushing the purchase
- message delivery
- PR
- customer relationship management

I’ve found that the difference between a successful marketing campaign and an unsuccessful one, is sometimes very small.  Some missed piece or an overlooked detail.  Using this site as a platform, I’ve decided to share my ‘marketing questions’ with you. 

——— 

Undressing Your Market 

Since I’m a fan of going out of sequence, I’m first going to focus on online segmentation and targeting.  To run through the basics really quick, the idea behind segmentation is to figure out who your product’s audience is and who it can be.  You can divide a market by demographic (income, gender, etc), psychographic (beliefs), socio-cultural (class, relation to others) and location.  You want to figure out exactly WHO could potentially be interested in purchasing your product.  The more defined your segmentation (getting into their heads, undressing them and figuring out what they want), the more defined, and potentially succesful, your marketing campaign will be. 

Your overall message and marketing campaign will be based on how you determine and examine your target market.

Why Is Segmenting Important Online? 

 In a word, segmentation and targeting is HUGELY important in the online environment.  It’s no different than offline.  How you segment your market determines how you’ll craft the message your audience will see, what websites you advertise on, what medium you’ll use to deliver your message, who you should partner with for a joint venture and what approach your marketing strategy will take.  Literally EVERYTHING starts with segmentation and because a marketing strategy builds on itself, missed steps and cut corners in the beginning can kill a campaign and product.

Best Bets

There’s a big push in the last few years to focus marketing efforts on small segments of the population.  The belief here is that the better you segment and target, the more marketing resources you’ll save and the more influential your message will be.  This allows small brands to effectively make a big splash with small segments and big brands to create multiple messages (for the same product) that appeal to many different segments.

Of course, the philosophy here is to define what your ‘best bet’ is.  The answer to the question of “Who’s most likely to purchase our product?”, will be your money segment.  Putting marketing dollars here will give the most likely returns.  However, actually figuring out which segment you’ll go after, is a question of your targeting.

Bullseye Targeting 

How you decide to “address” your segment(s) is defined by targeting.  You’ve heard the term “mass marketing”, right?  This is simply a targeting strategy.  There are generally 3 ways to target a market. 

- the shotgun approach (otherwise known as mass marketing) in which the business delivers their product’s message to everyone, regardless of demographic, etc.
- singular message and segment, where 1 specific segment is chosen to exclusively deliver a message to (hopefully, the biz has chosen the segment most likely to purchase their product).
- multiple messages, multiple segments, in which the business (usually with a hefty marketing budget) creates a set of specific messages for different segments.  An example of this might be if Pepsi decides to market Mountain Dew with mountain bike commercials to outdoor sports fanatics, a caffeine message to gamers and a counter-culture message to 20-somethings who are unhappy with the current administration.

So basically, segmentation and targeting go hand-in-hand.  The population you’re going to market to is defined and your strategy for targeting them with your message is initiated.  It can get as scientific as the business wants and has a budget for.  Fortune 500 companies spend some serious coin finding out who is and who could be interested in their products.  Smaller companies that don’t operate on these budgets can do a pretty bang up job with some simple brainstorming sessions.

Getting Drunk on Market Research

If you can afford it, market research is something that’s easy to spend a LOT of money on.  But, how much do those extra dollars help?  I think of market research like wine.  Big companies can afford a $200 bottle.  Small companies can squeek out a respectable $50 bottle.  Sure, the $200 bottle might be better, but is it really worth the extra $150?  There’s a lot you can deduce through sole observation and some of the most intriguing, innovative and influential marketing campaigns have come from the grey matter of one guy. 

So, how’s the small company segment and target its market?  Try asking some questions:

The Questions

1. Who’s most interested?  What does your product do and who’s most likely to be interested in your product or service?  Pinpoint an initial ‘most interested’ group.

2. WHO are they?  What are their characteristics?  Who are they?  Think in terms of:
income, age, sex, geographics, income, class, interests, dislikes, habits, desires, beliefs, fears

3. Where’s the inequity?  Which of these characteristics is applicable to the product you offer?  In other words, which desire, fear or interest from the question above is ‘fed’ by your product?

4. Who else is…  You’ve already pinpointed an initial group that you think likely to be interested in your product and the characteristic that makes them interested.  Here comes the big question: What other groups exhibit the same trait or characteristic that could make them likely buyers too?

(example:  Fanta, the orange softdrink, started a marketing campaign a little while ago targeting the hispanic community.  They successfully broadened their share of the market simply by first identifying a new group of potential users and then crafting a message specifically for them).

OR another way to think of it is…

Subgrouping: You’ve established that a certain group of people will be interested in your product.  What are the subgroups of this group?  (example:  You’re selling a weight loss product.  Of course, the most interested group will be people who want to lose weight.  However, this is a massive market with many different, definable groups within it.  There are overweight 50-something men who are getting ready to retire, middle aged women who want to look like they did at 20, overweight teenagers who want to get a date, etc.  You can go on and on and on.  Each of these groups are VERY different than the others, would require a different message be delivered to them and through a different medium.  Are there any )

5. Best bets.  Are any of these groups a better bet than others?  Does your product’s ethos ‘fit’ with any particular group?

6. One or multiple messages, one or multiple segments? Can you fit your product to multiple groups? Should the message (marketing) they receive differ between them?

7. Holes in the competition.  Who is NOT being targeted by competitors that may be interested in your product/service? 

8. Separating the wheat from the chaff.  How can you separate the buyers from the non-buyers? (For example, if you have a product that appeals to a certain ‘type’ of rugby player, can you somehow separate the interested parties from the uninterested by behavior?)

9. Would-be buyers.  Is there an audience that could be buyers, but are not?  Who are they?  Why are they not buying your offering?  How can you either change the product/service or its position to garner this audience? (based on behavior, demographic, interest, media exposure, etc)

10. Layers of interest.  Most products have multiple layers of interest.  For example, say you own a theatre (plays, not movies).  Each play will appeal to people who like plays – obviously.  So, those interested in plays will be one target market.  However, each play is about something.  One play is about tennis.  Another play is about living in the city.  Another is about aliens.  Each and every one of these plays will appeal not only to people who like plays, but also to people who like it’s specific subject matter.  So the question is, what other layers of interest might your product have and who ELSE might be interested in it?

11. Eyeball Parties: Where do my target audience’s eyeballs gather? What common events, activities, websites, reading materials, interests, etc, do they participate in? (this will be considered in much greater detail with message creation and delivery, but should be thought about now also)

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