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How a Poor Name Can Lower the Value of your Brand

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. When starting a business, one of the most important components is building and maintaining your ‘brand’. A key component of your brand is your name. Choosing the right name can be the difference between life and death in the business context. The following guest post comes courtesy of Squadhelp.com and is entitled, How a Poor Name Can Lower the Value of your Brand.

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When you are brainstorming a name for your brand-new startup, you might notice that certain people you run into will tell you not to worry about the name you select for your business. They will say to you that a startup name lacks any tangible value because they believe that names are just frills. They will tell you it is not worth investing your time and resources into, but they would be wrong. In actuality, research shows that easy, memorable names outperform non-captivating and lackluster names on the stock market by 33% or more.

A Poor Name Won’t Set a Solid Brand Foundation

In today’s fast-paced market, first impressions matter more than ever before. Generally, your brand name will be the first thing that a possible client or customer will learn about your brand. You brand encompasses many aspects of your business including your logo, beliefs, values and name.

The name is basically the foundation and the identity of your new company. If the name is too weak, it will not be able to support the weight of your brand and will hold your business back from growth. You ideally want to choose a name that sets the stage for your success.

Fail to Capture Audiences

Your target audience is very likely overwhelmed by the vast number of options available in today’s modern market. It’s very likely that your business offers special services or products, but without a great name that captures the attention of your audience, you might lose customers. If your name does not get their attention right away, they will move on to the next business without checking out the options your startup offers.

A name should create a strong connection between your business and your target market. Ideally, it should give them something to hold on to and remember about your brand.

Drive Audiences Away

Although making your brand name attractive is very important, you need double check that it does not drive any potential customers or clients away. Difficult, boring, or offensive names risk alienating a large segment of your customer base. Make sure that you don’t select a company name that is cringey or awkward, as something like that will likely drive customers away and send people the wrong message.

A great example of this would be a salon with the name Curl Up & Dye. Although this name is clearly descriptive and witty, but it could accidentally send the wrong message to any potential customers about the quality of services that the salon offers. The name heavily relies on the audience’s sense of humor, but you risk losing potential clients that do not find the funny brand amusing.

Audience testing is a quick and simple way to make sure that your startup name will do well with your chosen target audience.

A Forgettable Name = A Forgettable Brand

Even if a customer really wants to remember your brand name, if it is boring or too perplexing to pronounce and spell, they will likely not remember it. When your target demographic cannot remember your name even when they want to, it is a bad sign for your business.

A memorable name will ensure that your brand is something that your customers will never forget. Double check that your brand name does not fall by the wayside by brainstorming a catchy, memorable name that will capture your target audience’s attention. Peruse some of these winning company name suggestions to give yourself a better idea of what type of names catch your attention the most.

Lose Referrals

In the end, your brand name needs to be appealing and memorable enough that it establishes your brand and sets you up for success in the future. If you cannot create a solid foundation for your company with a great name, you will not only lose out on any potential clients but also the potential referrals you would have gotten from those clients.

Conclusion

Each and every tiny aspect of your brand adds up in the end, and if your name can help you get some extra of press coverage or a couple more chains of referrals from customers, it makes all the difference. A brand name really has the power to impact your business success.

When you are coming up with a business name, make sure you remember that a brand name is way more than just a word. It establishes the foundation for your business, and it can be a very useful tool making your business successful.

Grant Polachek is the Director of Marketing at Inc 500 company Squadhelp.com, the worlds #1 naming platform, with nearly 20,000 customers from the smallest startups across the globe to the largest corporations including Nestle, Philips, Hilton, Pepsi, and AutoNation. Get inspired by exploring these creative business names.

Why Storytelling Is Your Most Valuable Asset

Buffer

“From our very first years, humans are designed to be almost magnetically drawn to a well crafted story.”

Buffer

Three focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy and Money, Business and Entrepreneurship, and Blogging/Writing. A key to growing your business is growing your brand and telling a story that resonates with your customers. This in large part helps them to connect to your product and service. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Why Storytelling Is Your Most Valuable Asset.

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Image licenced via Pexels.

From the legendary John Lewis Christmas ad defining the season to iconic Pepsi promos with music superstars, to public safety announcements that drive real behaviour change and the cinematic elegance of Chanel’s fragrance campaigns, advertising can have a huge impact on our lives. But aside from recognisable brands, the thread that all of these advertising strategies have in common? A compelling story to tell.

From our very first years, humans are designed to be almost magnetically drawn to a well crafted story. Folk wisdom, life lessons and valuable knowledge have been passed down the generations since the dawn of time in this manner. Engaging, emotional, and holding the listener completely spellbound, the sheer magic of telling a story can shape our behaviour – and successful brands know this. But why is a good story so compelling that it should act as the key to every content marketing strategy?

A Universal Experience

Advertising has come a long way since the soap box days of listing the features and benefits of a product and hoping people listen. Basing marketing efforts on a great story is a far better approach, as it relates the product or service to emotions within the customer, and that can be far more powerful a connection than the fleeting drivers of price or even product innovation. When people see a glimpse of themselves in a brand, they become loyal, and customer loyalty is the marketing holy grail.

The Hallmark of A Brand

From titans of a auto world like Audi to the illustrious heritage of luxury brands like Valentino, storytelling is a huge differentiator in a crowded global marketplace. Getting your message across and the brand values that you stand for can be really hard with all the cognitive noise and rival brands, but crafting a great narrative is a shortcut to standing out and is something that has the power to stick with people and even shape culture- just look at Coca Cola and their impact on the colour of Santa’s clothes!

The Human Touch

When it comes to mega-brands like Starbucks or Apple, they operate on such a large scale that there is a very real danger of being perceived as completely out of touch and abstract to the person on the street. Storytelling is the magic that bridges this gap so effectively and allows their customers to buy into the brand ethos. All businesses are set up to solve a problem with their product or service offer. The human element that storytelling weavers into this allows customers that share the same problems to see how they could be solved with the solution the company is offering. The power of case studies, especially in the business to business world, never seems to wane. People want to see themselves reflected in the mirror of the story. They can then begin to associate themselves with the brand and it’s values and form a connection.

If this can apply to coffee shops and other nice, optional luxuries, just imagine how well this can work with services and brands that speak to us all. As you can see from Heritage Reforestation Inc reviews, being able to communicate the most important and necessary stories correctly doesn’t have to dilute your message, it will expand the worth of the narrative and permit more people to access it.

The Soft Approach

Today’s consumers are hyper aware of being sold to, so any campaign that comes across as too blatantly ‘salesy’ is likely not to go down so well. In fact, taking too pushy or aggressive or a tone can have an extremely negative effect. It’s a far better approach to simply share an experience or a set of values and leave the decision up to the judgement of the customer.

Why Have A Company Uniform?

Some of the key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy, Wealth Building, Business and Entrepreneurship. Many businesses and services involve the use of uniforms as a form of branding and image. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Why Have A Company Uniform?

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Image Source

Company uniforms can have a number of benefits. Here are just a few reasons to consider adopting a uniform for your business.

It can make you look more professional

Uniforms can ensure that you and all your staff keep up a professional appearance. Whilst some companies like to introduce a dress code, it’s often easy to bend the rules – the line between smart and casual can easily be blurred. With a dress code there’s little leeway to do this and you can have more control over the level of formality.

It promotes equality

By making your employees dress the same way, you can help to build a sense of equality and unity. Fashion after all can sometimes create a social hierarchy with people judging each other based on dress sense. Having a uniform forces everyone to be on the same level creating a greater sense of equality.

It can save employees money

By having to wear a uniform, employees won’t feel as pressured to dress differently each day and therefore won’t feel the need to keep buying as many clothes. This could save your employees money in some cases. When supplying a uniform, make sure that it is free for your employees – you should only ever charge money if somebody keeps losing part of their uniform.

You can use it to promote your brand

A uniform can be a good form of branding in some cases. You can look into making your own shirt with a company logo on it. Other options could include branded overalls, branded blazers or branded aprons. Branding will help to build awareness of your company and add to your overall brand consistency. It could even be a form of advertising, helping to bring in new business.

It can help clients identify staff

If everyone is dressing in casual clothes, it can sometimes be difficult for clients to identify who is a staff member and who isn’t. A uniform makes it easier to immediately tell who is staff and who is a customer. You can also use varying colours or designs to single out management staff so that customers who want to speak to someone higher know who to talk to.

It can be used to enforce health and safety

In some jobs, a uniform could also be used to help enforce health and safety. The most obvious example of this is the construction trade in which hard hats, hi-vis jackets and gloves all help to protect staff members from harm. Uniforms can have a similar function in other roles – in medical and cooking roles, short sleeves are now often favoured because they don’t get in the way. Consider ways in which you could integrate health and safety into your uniform.

If you take a look at workers compensation laws, you will see that PPE is something that is discussed a lot. A lack of PPE is one of the main reasons for injuries and subsequent compensation claims. Of course, if a worker has failed to use PPE in the way they are directed to, the fault would then fall onto their shoulders. Nevertheless, it is critical to understand how uniform plays a key role in terms of health and safety.