Think about this. What if you happen to have been to strip away every little thing out of your model, abandoning its single most seen element? What would you’ve?
No, it’s not your emblem. It’s your identify.
In fact, a model is much more than your identify (or your emblem). At its essence, your model is what prospects and shoppers suppose and say about you. It’s your repute magnified by your visibility. And it’s the factor (or issues) folks affiliate together with your agency of their minds.
However to unleash these associations requires a set off. And for many companies there is only one set off. You guessed it—your identify.
Your identify is a proxy to your agency and every little thing your enterprise represents within the minds of your audiences.
As a logo of every little thing you symbolize, then, it carries a variety of weight. But many companies give their identify little or no love or thought.
Why is that? And the way can a reputation have an effect on a agency’s fortunes?
These are the questions I wish to reply at this time.
Why Your Title Issues
Give it some thought. You’ll be able to’t have a enterprise and not using a identify. With out a identify, folks can’t take into consideration or speak about you. You’d haven’t any referrals. No enterprise. No future.
In fact each agency has a reputation. However some names are higher than others.
What does a foul identify appear to be? I don’t wish to embarrass anybody, so let me provide you with a number of fictional examples*:
An accounting or regulation agency:
Delgado, Roderick, Cannon, Nguyen & Munoz
A consulting agency:
SHM Associates
A know-how agency:
The Digital Transformation Group
What’s incorrect with these names? All of it boils all the way down to the way in which folks’s minds work. Individuals don’t like complexity. They’re drawn to easy ideas and phrases. In a world cluttered with 1000’s of companies and advertising and marketing messages, folks can even have bother recalling names. So any assist we can provide them could make an enormous distinction.
Within the case of the agency Delgado, Roderick, Cannon, Nguyen & Munoz, no person goes to recollect this lengthy string of associate names. Purchasers and prospects do what any of us would do: they lop off every little thing after the primary identify. They name it Delgado. Individuals will simplify each time. It’d as effectively be a regulation of physics. I’ll name it the Legislation of Discount.
In a scenario like this, a agency can be good to comply with the lead set by their shoppers. Change the identify—or register a fictitious identify (also referred to as a “dba”)—to a single associate’s identify. It doesn’t must be the primary one within the string, although that is perhaps the best to your shoppers to acknowledge. You may, as an alternative, go for probably the most attention-grabbing identify within the listing.
If all the named companions have retired or died, shortening the identify could be simple. Many companies have taken this route, and it makes a ton of sense. A multi-word identify is complicated and troublesome to recollect. A brief identify, then again, matches readily into folks’s crowded minds.
What about SHM Associates?
Initially, let’s take a second to understand what’s occurred right here already. Clearly, the Legislation of Discount has been at work. That SHM stood for one thing at one time. Perhaps it was a string of names. Perhaps three descriptive phrases. In some unspecified time in the future, folks stopped calling the agency by its full identify, collapsing it like an accordion right into a compact initialism. Earlier than lengthy, the agency began calling itself that, too.
However there’s an issue with initialisms. They’re laborious to maintain straight. “Was it SHM or SMH?” This may result in some embarrassing mixups. And when events sort the URL into their net browser, a transposed letter can cease them of their tracks. Lead movement suffers. Initialisms are additionally boring and simple to confuse with similar-looking names. (What number of three-letter rivals are you able to consider?) There’s nothing about SHM that’s memorable or attention-grabbing.
Then there’s that “Associates” dangling on the tip like a unfastened muffler. It too will fall away and everybody will name the corporate SHM. Appendages—normally added to make a agency sound extra substantial—simply detract from a reputation and are virtually universally ignored.
Lastly, let’s think about The Digital Transformation Group.
At first blush, you may suppose it is a good identify. In any case, it says precisely what the group does. However there’s an issue. Let’s name it The Legislation of the Generic.
Descriptive names are generic. Whereas they do an excellent job of describing the enterprise they’re in, they do a really poor job of distinguishing themselves from the ocean of different generic names within the market. As a result of they describe, in addition they are usually lengthy. Once more, that makes them much less attention-grabbing and more durable to recollect.
And bear in mind what inevitably occurs to lengthy names? Yep. The Legislation of Discount kicks in. Earlier than lengthy, The Digital Transformation Group will turn out to be TDTG or, as a result of it’s shorter, DTG. That descriptive identify has simply turn out to be an inscrutable initialism.
There’s another excuse generic names are normally a poor alternative. They don’t age effectively. Likelihood is, the phrases “digital transformation” will really feel dated in a number of years as some newer, extra swanky time period takes its place. Additionally, companies evolve. Names aren’t so versatile. Many companies that outgrow their generic, descriptive names flip them into initialisms to keep away from complicated their shoppers and prospects.
Subsequent Steps
Take a tough have a look at your agency’s identify. Is it quick, memorable and simple to pronounce? Is it effectively differentiated out of your rivals? Or does it fall into one of many classes above?
It’s by no means too late to vary your identify, and plenty of companies undergo the method with nice success. The payoff? Improved model retention, tighter differentiation and higher model loyalty. Not dangerous for a alternative phrase or two!
In the event you’d wish to be taught extra in regards to the varieties of names a agency can have and the way to decide on an excellent one, take a look at this quick weblog publish.
Completely satisfied Advertising!
