Starting a business is more challenging that every before I think. Recently a business partner of mine setup a new drop ship business for us to try and get off the ground. Whilst I was quite excited by this, I wasnt when I was told what the name was going to be!
The reason for this is that the name he had selected was similiar to a competitors, and whilst this in itself is quite clever (trading of an existing major player in a market), it poses some difficulties from a marketing perspective.
For one, the name was far too long for an online business. Ironmongery Warehouse Direct is 3 long words. Typing a website address in for this company would not be easy for someone that knows it and can spell well, let alone someone thats unfamiliar!
Secondly, email addresses. As this is a B2C business, we need to make sure its got very easy and customer friendly contact details. So what would we have as our generic contact email address?
Info@irongmonerywarehousedirect.com?
customerservices@irongmongerywarehousedirect.com?
You get the idea.
Then, theres the Google search implications. If you type in Ironmongery Warehouse Direct, you get a mixture of results currently including companies house (for the limited company), but also competitors that are similiarly named.
Based on this, we thought perhaps we should change the name to use the acronym IWD, but, googling IWD returns “International Womens Day” – another epic fail from a marketing perspective!
The domains were also not available, making this a no go option.
Therefore, when looking to start a new business, following these few steps to ensure you can at least try and get something that works:
1. make a list of all possible company names
2. check the domain is available
3. if the domain is available, google the name to see what currently comes up for the name
Some tips for naming your new company
- Keep it short (especially if its an online business)
- easy to spell and pronounce
- check the domains are available and that someone else doesnt other a different domain with the same name that could create confusion (e.g you have got john.co.uk but someone else owns john.com and its also a website about the name john)
