What’s in a name?
What’s in a name?
I put product name as one of the top four most important things to affect the success of your product. In case you are wondering what the other three are on my list in no particular order; product quality, the product solves a real problem, and marketing of the product. Look for those blogs coming soon!
Based on the name you pic
k people will make a personal association to their lives or you may end up not being memorable at all. Here are three things to consider when naming your product.
Make it memorable.
A case for reference, I will go back to my college days. In our group of friends there were multiple Jason’s and Tony’s. The Jason’s and Tony’s all had nicknames. These nicknames played an important role. First it gave each of a unique name that was solely our own and easily memorable. Second it was easy for our friends to identify which person they were talking to or referring. A final key to these nicknames was that they were easy to remember.
You are probably wondering, how does this tie to the task of naming your product? Trust me, there is a connection! You want your product name to memorable and unique. Be cautious in going with the first name that comes to mind. There is nothing wrong with keeping that name in the running, but also refer to the nickname scenario above. You may be with that name for a long time, choose wisely. Product names should be timeless, not fads unless your goal is to produce the next fidget spinner or pet rock. Even in these cases their names have risen to iconic status.
Make it meaningful.
At this point you may be wondering about our company name, Two Sparrows, which is part of our product brand. My wife and I both like nature and wanted a logo that had deeper meaning than the image. Sparrows symbolize creativity, productivity, and protection, all of which are important to us in our personal lives. The two is for, your guessed it, the two people in our company, my wife Nancy and I.
Make sure others like it, too.
After you have a list of product names that you like, test them out on your friends and family. To really put the names to the test try them out on people skeptical of the product that you are working on. Use social media to reach a large audience. To capture the feedback you may want to set up a survey on a service such as SurveyMonkey.com. Before finalizing on a product name ensure that you perform a product search to ensure that your new best name is not already taken. You may also want to contract with a professional firm that can perform an in-depth search with respect to registered and non-registered trademarks.
Below are some additional resources. We used portions of each of these resources when developing the name for our products and our company.
https://www.fastcompany.com/1819418/8-principles-product-naming
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/techniques-naming-company-21029.html
If you need help coming up with product names, check out the link below to assist you to get the ideas flowing.
At the end of the day, remember to have fun with the process. There are so many challenging steps in the product developing process, take time out to recognize what you are accomplishing!
I hope that you have found some of this information to be helpful. If you did or know someone who could benefit from this post, please share it!
If you have any further questions, contact me. I would be happy to review this topic in more detail.
If you think others could benefit from this post, please share it! Thank you – you rock!
Best,
Jason