Any company looking to reel in new customers or clients can benefit from a few brainstorming sessions before settling on a product or company name. Here are six tips for picking names that stand out:

Avoid odd-ball words

Kooky company or product names like Google and Amazon's Kindle can grab attention. However, most businesses that try this strategy end up picking zany, nonsensical names and spending substantial time and money explaining what the company or the product does, says Brenda Bence, founder of Brand Development Associates, a personal and corporate branding consultancy in Chicago. Instead, small businesses, which tend to have fewer resources than bigger firms, should stick to common concepts, she says. "This way, business owners can spend more time working for customers rather than working to explain things," says Bence.

Use business or product descriptors

Names should correspond to what a product or company does, says McFadden. For instance, after consulting with a winery owner who samples assorted vines from outside vineyards to create new wines, McFadden and his partner Elly Hartshorn suggested the wine maker adopt the name Field Recordings Winery. "We wanted to answer the question: Why would someone buy this wine?" says Hartshorn. "Someone would buy this wine because [the wine maker] is the insider. He has hand-selected vines and made connections that few others can mimic," she says.

Veer away from limiting language

Naming a company or a product after what it does will cut down on having to explain more later, but businesses should be wary of pinning themselves into too narrow a niche, says Bence. For instance, a company that caters mainly to other businesses, but not solely to them, is limiting itself by inserting "B2B," which stands for business-to-business, in its name, she says. "This is only a good idea if you're really, really sure that your company is going to focus solely on businesses," she says.

Mind your audience

To select a company or product name that resonates with specific consumers, cater to their values, says Hartshorn. To determine what those values are, home in on the small details of their subcultures, she says. "Making labels that hit [potential customers] subtly -- as though they were an inside joke -- can often capture people's attention," she says.

Match price points

Your company or product name should also correlate to the price points you're aiming at, says Paige Arnof-Fenn, founder of Mavens & Moguls, a marketing consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. Higher-priced items often bear more sophisticated names and packaging, while less-costly items tend to be more playful and lighthearted, she says.

Be memorable

"Even at higher price points, however, don't be afraid to be different," says McFadden. Naming products or companies so that no one gets offended is outdated, he says. Arnof-Fenn calls names that follow this practice "boring wall paper." She adds, "In this day and age, customers have to be able to remember it and spell it to break through the clutter."

 

AND MORE ADVICE FROM PAM CLARK...

Make it easy to spell and remember!

How many business cards are not there when you need one? How many of you remember the idea but not the exact name? How many friends of yours are top spellers, or worse, terrible ones?

All this is why you need an easy to remember - and spell - web name. It can greatly increase your business.

I have a customer who wanted to get known in his city. He picked his city's name and his business skill right after that. We did all the search engine optimization and that helped some, but it still did not yield the amount of business he wanted. Then he decided to put posters all around his city with his web name on it. Because it was so logical and simple, he started getting lots of hits! Some of it was from his competition getting worried!

But the good news is it worked because he had an easy to remember web site domain name. All people needed to see was the name and they knew what his business was about. It was no problem to remember or spell it because everyone knew how to spell the city's name and his business expertise!

Business picked up and the investment in the website greatly paid off and will even later - because it was a good name that people could spell and remember.

Think like a potential customer looking for your service on Google. They are looking for what is in your name and the search engines are looking for the key words that describe it. Part of our service includes enabling your website with key words. We can pick some good ones, and we know how to optimize, but you are the one who will pick those things you cater to, and the names people will remember and refer you by.

Let us do a complete website package for you. A nice website gives your business great credibility, especially when it is professionally done. Check with us if you need to wait on design work but want to secure your special name while it is still available.

Remember, it's the WORLD WIDE web competing for these millions of names!