How to choose a brand name that is impossible to ignore
There are a lot of great chats about naming your startup, so I thought I’d speak to how I came up with the name for my company since I do naming all the time - I own a branding agency!
Name: https://ignorenomore.agency/
I have pages of name ideas to reference when I’m naming a client’s company, but when it came to naming my company I had a hard time!
Eventually, I wrote down what my goal for the agency was in conversational terms, "to build brands that were impossible to ignore".
I decided to write it in conversational terms because my branding style is fun, colorful, and very eye-catching.
Eventually, I wrote down what my goal for the agency was in conversational terms, "to build brands that were impossible to ignore".
I decided to write it in conversational terms because my branding style is fun, colorful, and very eye-catching.
And one of the hallmarks of my copywriting is that it’s:
- exceptionally relatable
- usually casual
- free of jargon
- tailored to the reader
- easy to understand
As soon as I saw the alliteration in the phrase "impossible to ignore" I decided to play with it a bit and fell into "ignore no more". It rhymed just enough to get stuck in people's heads, and the phrase was unusual and recognizable.
Names that stick often have 2/5 distinctions:
- have an inside joke (real or imagined, think Spanx or Singing Carrots)
- have a strong letter in them (high value Scrabble letters - Q,K,X,Z,Y,etc..)
- have a strong sound (alliteration, digraph - combination of two letters like “oo” or “sh”)
- have a strong verb that demands emotion or action - ignore, stop, fight, fury, power, run, etc
- have an promise of some sort - no, yes, always, never
Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t think a name has to speak directly to what the product/service does. But it should speak to the core desire your product provides or the core fear it helps customers avoid.
When you hit emotion + recognizability it makes people mentally rank you at the top in your vertical. It's brain SEO.
In my case, the whole point of branding and marketing is to stand out, to be “unignorable”. So even though “branding” or “marketing” isn’t in the name, it still speaks to my customer’s core desire to stand out.
And it has alliteration and a strong verb + promise - double I’s, "Ignore", and "no".
Did a quick google search (of course).
Any keywords to do with "saaS", "startup", "branding", or "agency" around the phrase were wide open (there is an app with the same name, but zero relation so i didn't think people would get confused).
TBH - a friend pointed out the app. I searched specifically for "name + keyword" and missed the app the first go-round.
Then the domain search.
While “ignore no more dot com” was taken “ignore no more dot agency” wasn’t. And I knew with that domain the kind of company I was would be much more obvious.
I considered the grammatically correct "ignored no more" but stuck with the present tense version. Present tense shows action and past tense subconsciously feels old, even if it’s technically correct.
Now I get DM's from people at least 1x a week saying how much they love my company name/site copy, so it really sells my services perfectly!
(Thank you @AustinParker for asking me to turn my comment into a post!)
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Great article!
I think one important thing to keep in mind:
Don't get stuck choosing a brand name before you even have a project. In the beginning, I think it's better to choose something simple, searchable, relatable to your product/service.
I spent countless hours in the past on Logos, Brand names ... etc. I think you can always rebrand if it becomes big enough in the future and go with a branding agency like yours :)
For any project I'm starting up, I am just adding names to a note while I am building, or while they come to mind. And then choose when the release date comes closer.
This is a great tip I'll follow next time.
I totally agree with @justGoscha!
Personally, I think good or strong brand is distinct end-to-end experience which is difficult to get elsewhere. Regarding the name, people will put efforts into remembering or pronouncing your name if you left a deep memorable footprint in their mind and heart.
The only thing you should care about while building a brand is standard you set each time customer transact with you while having a plus version to score for them whenever they are ready for it.
Frankly, I agree with your rebranding point when it comes to names! And I have a running 7-page doc of company names that's 5+ years old.
Also touching on your point @pntrivedy, I believe branding is the experience a visitor has with your company, starting with your:
If those 3 things all connect with the core desires of the customer, your brand is unforgettable, even if the name is off.
A great name definitely helps tie it all together though!
All very good points, post and comments as well. Being many DOs already pointed out, I might add one DON’Ts:
YES.
One of my earlier companies was called "OutWhere" and while people loved the name (and often remembered it!) spelling it was a nightmare.
It was a camping and outdoor goods company too, so people's first guess was "outwear" which was wayyyy too expensive to correct with search ads.
Short names are better. Think in Google, apple, Twitter, etc. They are easy to remember names
Shorter are defo easy to remember, longer ones have to be easy to pronounce like giddyup.io i like that name.
One word names are great for that, but I think we might run out of words eventually!
From my experience, three words is the max, especially as a phrase.
Love the story and a Brain SEO concept specifically. Took notes =)
Thank you Sergey! Please let me know if you have any questions.
Your company name is one of the most creative and delightful I've seen in a long time. Just sent you an email. :)
Have you connected with @deadlysyntax? He's building a music learning platform for drumming.
I like your brand name. It is really catchy and it tickles reader's mind and get their attention immediately.
Thank you, Fatih! It definitely makes me smile when I type in my own URL.
What a nice text. I love it! Thank you!
you are so very welcome Tudor!
Very nice post, thank you for your astute opinion. I learned a lot from your post.
Thanks! So glad it was helpful!
Excellent points, and yes, coming up with a name for your own project is not easy. What are your thoughts about the name of my website, https://sekho.com.pk/ ? Let me know what you think.
thanks!
I think the combo of the "k" and the "h" make it stick, but this could be hard to spell for native English speakers (we assume "sek" is spelled "sec" or seck" IMO). Speaking as an American.
But I think it could definitely work! I'd need to know more about the company to give a complete answer.
I would switch the domain to a (dot) io or (dot) web or (dot) [product/co type]. It conveys greater trust (and size of startup) than a country-specific domain.
What does "sekho" mean?
Unrelated to the name, what does the product do?
I'd also buy ignorednomore.agency domain if I were you. It's easy to make that mistake if one doesn't remember the exact name :)
Great advice! I'm using this to come up with my next venture's domain name. Thank you!
Good point! Thanks.
You're very welcome! Glad it was helpful.
Great tips @sophia_oneal
Will definitely use them when brainstorming the name or my unicorn 🦄😄
I just replaced simple and short names with a letter that is off. Ex. Foil - Foyl . Dribbble etc
Thanks Oleg!
yes! Unicorn incoming 🦄✨
That system definition works, as can rhyming or piggybacking especially when your product is built as part of an ecosystem, like Potion for Notion or FlowNinja for Webflow. (I saw Foyl is a companion to Fortnight)
The easier it is to remember the harder it will be to ignore and forget it ;)
Exactly!
Very good points and yes it's pretty hard to think of a name for our own projects.
Thanks Eli!
Yep, I thought it would be easy and then I was doing that blank stare at my laptop for 2 weeks.
We just picked "UpDog" for our analytics tool so we could have the joy of people asking us "what's updog?" lol https://www.updog.marketing
Michael, the idea of UpDog, the website, the interactions, just WOW.
You guys did a great job!
Sending you an email. :)
Great info, thanks for sharing!
Thank you Jay!
What do you think about my website name digitalentrepreneurnation.com i know its long but has a cool acronym D.E.N let me know your thoughts
Hi Donald!
That URL is very long and because there are no breaks it's hard to know what the words are.
The name itself could work.
I wouldn't base the name off of the acronym. Den is not a common word - so people might not know what it means. It is also a homophone to "Din" which is not a good connotation.
Very well explained
Thank you! :)
"...have a strong letter in them (high value Scrabble letters - Q,K,X,Z,Y,etc..)" so CrazyQR.com would be an amazing brand name then?
I like it!
I would add a noun at the end that hints at:
So maybe (throwing things out here)
Tell me more about your project and I'll help you with the name. :)
An app to generate QR Codes and pages with custom data and data capture forms, etc.
Okay cool, what's the top reason people would want to use your tool?
Do they want to avoid losing money?
Do they want to stop wasting time?
Do they want to not be ignorant of what's happening with their QR codes?
And what stage is this project? Is the app already built, do you already have customers/feedback?
---
Since you're product covers quite a few things, having the name be as simple as CrazyQRCodes might be fine.
And if the dot com version is taken, see if there's a dot io or dot growth option available
One user case is this. Let's say an insurance company wants to allow easy verification of their customers. They can add a qr-code to the certificates linked to a page with customer data and use their custom domain to keep their brand in tact. Anyone can scan the qr code and verify the legitimacy of the certificate.
That's a very interesting (and specific!) use case!
I would definitely say stick to the more generic "CrazyQRCodes" name, with the "dot ---" being descriptive - app, tool, io, etc.
Looks like a really cool product, when's the launch?
Thanks for the advice. I will consider those ;) That is just one case. Another would be restaurants wanting feedback. They let guests scan their qr and get to a landing page where they can write a comment or review, suggestion, etc. The app will allow for customization based on the user case. Heck even covid-19 vaccination status check could play.
I am looking to launch in the coming month's time.
Please keep me updated on the launch!
And best of luck Pablo. :)
Much thanks Sophia ;)
First, tell your story. What's your brand's story, you, and why are you doing it?
When you have that, the name pop-ups.
I'm not talking about what you do, talking about the story, the thing that makes you dream and tell everyone about.
YES! When the story comes through it shows.
I ask founders to tell their story with this framework:
Often, I ask them to use voice-to-text so they don't self-edit so much.
By the time they've gone through that, their brand story usually writes itself.
Love your lifestyle founder newsletter BTW and just subscribed to your Reddit one too. :)
I read your comment and now this post. It's really informative. Thanks for sharing.
And, I would love to connect with you on Twitter. Twitter link is invalid which is on your profile. :)
Hi Atul, my pleasure and thank you!
Just followed you on Twitter, thank you for the catch! I changed my handle a couple months ago.
Thanks! :)
This comment was deleted 2 years ago.
Hmm, have you considered looking into Immediate SEO?
If this is a term that's already floating around in your world, this could be a VERY easy SEO trick.
And if that's the case, then that is the best possible choice for a name, not to mention it hits 3 /5 other distinctions:
And happy to help you out further if you have more questions!