It’s all about the name.
When you’re building your business, products, services, or programs, the name can make a direct impact on your brand and bank account.
Nowhere in marketing do you get as much “bang for your buck” than choosing a name. Yet, too many coaches overlook the importance of getting it right.
Today We’re Diving Into:
- How to create a name that’s impossible for your customers to forget
- The importance of sound when choosing your name
- What to avoid & include in your name
- A few of my favorite name examples to get inspiration from
Create A Name That’s Impossible For Customers To Forget
Most of the things we remember, we didn’t consciously set down to remember. If you’ve tried to create something memorable in the past, you probably focused on logic, cuteness, and things that you like.
Instead, look at it as a marketing challenge: focus on creating a name that directly grabs the customer’s attention and subconsciously impacts their brain and emotional system so they can’t forget it.
Here, I’ll share some tips and tricks when it comes to crafting a name that’s impossible to forget.
The Mind Remembers Name By SOUND, Not By Sight
This is a really important insight I learned from Jack Trout, one of the co-authors of Positioning, and Roy Williams, the creator of the Wizard of Ads books.
Names are sounds before they are printed words — so focus on the SOUND primarily.
When choosing a name, most people focus on the look and logic. It turns out that repetitive and rhythmic sounds are the ones that really stick inside of the mind — so use them! Specifically, use alliteration, rhyme, and various types of rhythm.
Avoid “Cute” or “Funny” Names
Spending money is serious business – and most people don’t want to laugh when they’re doing it. If you look at the top companies in the world, the ones that make A LOT of money and dominate their markets, they rarely have cute or funny names – so avoid them.
Use Names That Promise Results, Benefits, And/Or Solutions
Along with making a name that sounds good, we want to use names that promise some kind of result, benefit, and/or solution, if possible.
If we’re not going to say what it is, we at least want an association so the mind can connect the name with what you’re selling. There are exceptions to this, such as: Xerox, Fedex, and Kodak.
Create a name that promises a BENEFIT by going back to your customers’ fears, frustrations, wants, and aspirations. Look at what your customers are saying and choose words from those lists that promise a benefit, solution, or result.
Rhythm Makes Names Much More “Sticky” In The Mind
We have a system called the “phonological loop” that acts as an auditory buffer. When you hear a sound, it goes into your mind, bounces around in your brain for a while before deciding, “Is this something I record or throw out?” If something keeps bouncing around inside there, it’s much more likely to get committed to long-term, chemical memory. If it doesn’t bounce around, it just goes in one ear and out the other, and we move on to the next thing.
If you can use repetitive and rhythmic sounds to keep your name bouncing around LONGER, then they’re more likely to be committed to the long-term memory. We’ll get to a few examples in a moment but first, let’s look at what you should use and include when creating a name.
Use And Include:
Alliteration — the same sound at the beginning of two words.
Rhyme — the same sound at the end of two or more words.
Rhythm — words that have some kind of repetitive meter to it.
Power Associations — connections to what the name is in the first place.
A Few Of My Favorite Name Examples
Coca Cola — Notice the alliteration with the two ‘c’s at the beginning. There’s also rhyme at the end — ola. It also says what it is. It’s no surprise that Coca Cola is the dominate cola, and probably will be forever. It’s just got the better name. You can’t forget it.
3 Day Blinds — The sound of this one isn’t quite perfect. It doesn’t have exact alliteration, but it does have a powerful promise that impacts part of the decision making process — speed.
YouTube — If you’ve seen the logo, it’s a little picture of a television. Tube is what people use to refer to the television, “Let’s watch the tube.” ‘Youtube’ has nice rhythm. You know how to say it. Everyone says it the same way.
Bed, Bath ∓ Beyond — Notice the strong alliteration – b-b-b. Notice the rhyme, Bed Bath & Beyond.
There are many other examples of names out there that use repetitive sounds, promises of benefit, associations, results, etc. Start keeping your eye out for them. You’ll find that most names are horrible and don’t work in business because they’re not memorable enough.
Names That I’ve Created
I’ve used these very insights and tips to name a few of my own successful businesses and programs.
Double Your Dating — This was my first online marketing business. The name took me probably a month or so, maybe even longer, of work to come up with. Notice it has alliteration with the two d’s. It has a nice rhythm. It also goes along nicely with the pen name I created and write under when I give dating advice, David DeAngelo. David DeAngelo, Double Your Dating. It’s very easy to remember.
Self-Made Wealth — This a program I created on money and wealth.This has a nice balance to it, and a nice rhyme: Self-Made Wealth. It’s got good rhythm and is easy to commit to memory. It has everything that I would want in the name all implied in the words – wealth that you make yourself.
Wake Up Productive — Another name I created, for a time management and productivity program. For this one, you have to say it a few times before you hear the repetitive sounds in the rhythm. When people go through this kind of program, they want to learn the material, wake up in the future, and automatically be productive. That’s why I chose this name. By the end of the program, you will literally wake up productive.
Choosing the perfect name is just one essential component of becoming a successful virtual coach. If you’d like help crafting your name, and taking the next steps to build your business, sign up for my webinar, How To Become A Virtual Coach.
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In the training you’ll also learn:
- The step-by-step plan to getting started (especially if you’re new to coaching) – even if you’re completely “unknown” and even if you have no list!
- Why coaching is one of the most opportunistic professions in the world to go into and could be for generations to come.
- How to find your perfect clients and instantly build trust with them, so they start coming to you and already know they want to work with you.
- Discover what the #1 Skill of High-Paid Coaches is, and what the “sweet spot” is for pricing — and how it could allow you to help a lot more people AND earn an income several times higher than the average coach.
- I’ll show you a proven and VERY counterintuitive approach to get 5-10x more clients than regular coaches.
- Only long-time coaches can charge a lot, right? Wrong! I’ll show you a simple positioning tactic that you can use to start charging over $200 per hour (or more) right out of the gate with your coaching business.
- All of the technical things can be overwhelming. Email software, setting up webinars, and landing page creation can leave you not knowing where to begin. You only actually need a couple simple tools to get started…discover what you need, even if you’re a total tech newbie.
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