Dead Good Content founder Mark Williams (left) with sisters and brother, Stanley Park, Liverpool, 1976 (clothes models’ own)
Coming up with a good business name remains one of the most enjoyable start-up tasks. I was reminded of that recently, while launching new small-business content agency, Dead Good Content.
Pleasurable as it is, it can be tough and much is at stake. If you get it right, your business name becomes a deadly marketing weapon that distinguishes you from your competitors, tells the world who you are and helps you to attract and retain customers. But get it wrong and it can really hold you back.
“You can always change a businesses name, but it’s better – and cheaper – to get it right at the start”
“Backrub” keywords?
Kabir Chibber, in his BBC News piece, The dark art of choosing a company name, likens new businesses to newborns. “And just like children, the wrong name can scar for life,” he warns. “Imagine if Google had been called BackRub, as in its first incarnation,” he reveals. Imagine indeed.
Before changing name in 1958 to Sony (which is far easier to say), for 12 years the business had been called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo. Global sporting heavyweight Nike (pronounced Ni-key – derived from the Greek goddess of victory) started life as Blue Ribbon Sports.
eBay used to be called AuctionWeb and PayPal was Confinity when launched in 1998. Amazon supremo, Jeff Bezos, considered Awake, Bookmail, Browse and Cadabra as business names, but registered Relentless.com before settling on Amazon. You can always change a businesses name, but it’s better – and cheaper – to get it right at the start.
Legal restrictions
There are legal restrictions when naming a business. According to government website Gov.uk: “Your name can’t be exactly the same as another registered company’s name.” You can search the Companies House register to find out if your preferred choice is already taken.
And your name: “Can’t contain a ‘sensitive’ word or expression unless you get permission; or suggest a connection with government or local authorities; or include a word that could cause offence.” Companies House provides detailed guidance on legal restrictions when naming a business.
Only limited companies can use the word “limited” in their name, and you can’t suggest national importance (eg British), patronage (eg Royal), special status (eg Association) or function (eg Trust) if it’s not true.
“Linking yourself too closely to a geographic location can limit your ambitions, as can using your own name. And don’t make your business name so obscure that customers will never know what it means”
Mistakes to avoid
Phil Davis, in his entrepreneur.com piece – 8 Mistakes To Avoid When Naming Your Business – likens a business name to a building’s cornerstone. “If it’s off, even just a bit, the rest of the building is off, and the misalignment becomes amplified,” he opines. Asking too many people for their opinions is a bad idea, he says, while making sure those you speak to have a creative outlook, otherwise “your name will end up too literal and descriptive”.
Davis isn’t fond of one-word business names that result from putting part of an adjective in front of a noun (eg “QualiWidgets”), nor words that don’t provide distinction or personality. Linking yourself too closely to a geographic location can limit your ambitions, he warns, as can using your own name. Avoid clichés (eg “Summit, Apex, and so on”), he advises, and don’t “make your business name so obscure that customers will never know what it means”.
Deliberately misspelling your business name to secure a URL isn’t wise, he says, because people won’t find you when entering the correct spelling into Google. And if you pick the wrong name, change it, Davis says, because the problem won’t “magically resolve itself”.
Short and sweet
In his www.123-reg.co.uk blog, 6 top tips for choosing a business name, Tim Fuell reinforces the idea that simplicity is best when naming a business. “Long-winded names are unlikely to become big-hitters,” he argues. “Apple, Dell, Google, Amazon, etc. Short, sharp and simple wins every time. It’s more memorable, easier to write or type and simpler to engage with,” he explains.
When considering business names, think about how easy your preferred options are to say and spell over the phone, particularly when speaking to people in other countries (you also need to consider whether your business name could cause amusement or offence in other languages). Choosing unusual words and spellings can backfire.
Boring is bad
Amusing names work well for some businesses, but they can be a terrible idea for others, as they can make you look unprofessional. You could pick a word that has no apparent meaning, a tactic that worked well for many successful businesses, including Kodak, IKEA and others.
Writing for Forbes.com, Richard Harroch cautions against coming up with business names that are hard to spell. Before making your final choice, he recommends carrying out online research, to see whether you can get the URL you want. Although “boring is bad”, he doesn’t believe in choosing something that’s too “out there”, pick something likely to resonate with target customers.
““Boss” or “sound” hadn’t quite entered the Scouse lexicon back then, great things were “dead good””
Dead Good Content?
So, how did I come up with Dead Good Content, the name of my new small-business content agency? I had the name about 12 months before starting up. Everyone I mentioned it to told me they liked the name (unless they were just being polite).
Quality has always been vital to everything I’ve done professionally and I wanted that to come across loud and clear in my new business name, but not in a predictable or pretentious way. I wanted something more authentic, more down-to-earth – much more “me”.
So, I thought back to my childhood, as I often do, and asked how I would have described it growing up in Liverpool in the 1970s. “Boss” or “sound” hadn’t quite entered the Scouse lexicon back then, great things were “dead good”. “Content” was added so there would be little doubt about what we do. For the moment, I’m pretty pleased with Dead Good Content. Will it prove to be a wise choice? Time will tell…
• With 15 years’ experience as a leading writer of small-business content, Mark Williams is the founder of Dead Good Content, which specialises in producing cost-effective bespoke and readymade content for accountancy firms and other organisations that want to market their services to small businesses.
