In this post, I thought I would talk about the best ways to find a name for a business, product or service that will stick in the minds of prospect in your marketplace.

Your ability to come up with a name that sticks in the subconscious of everyone who comes across your business is one of the most effective techniques that you can use to develop an competitive edge in an often overcrowded marketplace.

The mistake that new business owners make is that they often try to come up with names that are:

• Funny
• Cute
• Outrageous

… in an attempt to try to be memorable.

The issue here isn’t so much about being memorable though, the real key is to come up with a name that is almost impossible to forget.

So, how can you go about creating a name that is difficult to forget?

Well…

It all starts with understanding something about the way human beings perecive words and sounds.

Let me explain…

When a person sees the name of your product or business, the visual image that eventually gets to their brain is processed in sounds before the lettering or words are even acknowledged.

So, when you decide to come up with a name, you need to be thinking in terms of the sonic impact that the words of your business, product or service will have on the person experiencing your brand.

And…

What you can do to positively influence the way that your business name is perceived.

Three tools that you can use to influence the perception of the name that you have come up with are

• Rythm
• Repetition
• Alliteration

Let’s delve into these in more detail.

Using Rhythm

The stickiness aspect of the name that you use will be most heavily influenced by rhythm.

Since the dawn of time, human beings have been incredibly susceptible to rhythm.

It has been well-documented that the beating of something as simple as a cow-skinned drum, can send people into trance.

At a recent ‘Society for Neuroscience’ convention, one of the keynote speakers, Psychologist, Annet Shrimer stated that rhythmic sound can be used to coordinate the behavior of individuals and groups.

Fascinating!

The brain has many functions some of which include:

• Controlling biological process through your body
• A storehouse for consciousness
• …and many more

But..

What’s relevant to this discussion is two key jobs that the brain does:

• Helping you to navigate around your current environment by use of your senses
• Analyzing the information that comes into the brain by way of these sense to determine, what should be kept, in the short,medium or long-term and what should be thrown away

Think of the brain as your bodyguard,trying to keep you as mentally and physically safe as possible by analysing patterns in your environment.

So, how is all of this relevant to you and your online business?

Well…

There is a system in the brain that has a function responsible for retaining information known as the phonological loop.

This part of the brain acts as a buffer that chooses which sonic elements to store.

Any sound or composite series of sounds that has obvious patterns, makes the brain think…

“Hmmm I need to hold on to this to work out the nature of this pattern, determine its value and work out the best way to store it for the benefit of this body that I’m housed in”

The main information that the phonological loop processes are sounds and visual images.

So…

After you have come up with a name for your business, at some point this name will be introduced to people in your marketplace via speech or by visual means i.e words used in online adverts, your website, newspaper ads etc).

If your name use a series of syllables that have an obvious rhythmic sound to them, people’s brains will recognize the pattern and store your business name for a longer period of time than if there is no obvious pattern.

An example here would probably help….

Now imagine how this name would sound if played on a drum or a baseline

It has a pulsating nature to it.

This is what you should try to achivee with your business name if you want to give yourself a competitive edge.

Apologies, it’s hard to articulate in a blog post using typed-communication but if you can get your head around this concept the names that you will come up with in the future will be more memorable, apologies…

Unforgetable!

Using Rhyme

So, what exactly is rhyme?

It’s all about the repetition of sounds.

Let me give you an example of a company who has done this well?

We talked about them earlier…

So, what exactly is rhyme?

It’s all about the repetition of sounds.

Let me give you an example of a company who has done this well?

We talked about them earlier…

Genius.

Co Ca – can you spot the rhythm?

Co La – the rhyme element

It is the ‘Ahh’ sound at the end of each word that makes it more memorable.

To be honest this brand incorporates rhythm and rhyme into nearly every aspect of this brand name.

So, if you want to create an unforgettable name – embrace the art of rhyme.

If you are using multiple words, make the ends of the words have similar sounds.

If you are worried that your names might become cheesy – don’t.

In most cases the cheesier the better.

Using Alliteration

Alliteration is basically the use of similar sounds and the beginning of closely connected words or phrases

Using Coca Cola, as an example it is the ‘key’ sound used at the beginning of both the coca and cola parts.

In a similar fashion to rhyme, this tells the brain that there is a pattern that needs to be processed and analysed.

I’ve used it in naming this blog is the ‘ssssss’ sound and the beginning or sofa and salary.

Make sense?

In addition to Rhythm and Rhyme and Alliteration, there are other strategies that you can use to make your names stick in the brains of your prospects more.

One is to use names containing powerful Associations.

You see…

Some words in the English language have stronger emotionally, subconscious affects on people than others.

Let me give you an example that I use quite often:

• Fish
• Shark

When most people think of a fish they think of something swimming around in the sea or their dinner.

Now everyone knows that a shark is a fish but the word shark has more impactful and  emotional conotations such as:

• Danger
• Criminal – e.g loan shark
• Ruthlessness etc

Gt my point.

So if you can include names that have a strong emotional impact in the name of your product it will definitely be more memorable.

And finally….

The last tip that you can use to make your product/business name stick in the minds of your prospects, is to actually mention the benefit that they will get from using your product or interacting with your business.

An example of this can be seen in a product called…

Try and think of a few different names for your current business, product or service that you could use in your marketing that will incorporate:

• Rhythm
• Rhyme
• Alliteration
• Powerful Associations
• Obvious benefits

I hope you got some value from this and please don’t hesitate to leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts.

Till next time…