A good name can make or break your business.
The name of your business is more often than not the first thing anyone will see or hear when finding out about your brand.
Important things you want your name to do:
Reflect your business
Be authentic
Resonate with your potential customer
Be memorable
A bad name can hold you back, so don’t be afraid of asking for outside opinions when you are playing around with different ideas.
Some common themes we see are that people choose a name that is personal or inside to them, or use their own name (i.e. Claire’s Cosmetics). There is no issue doing this if it is unique, but more often than not, it isn’t.
Some common errors, as a team that have helped many people start their own business or rebrand themselves, we have seen are:
The name is not available on the companies registrar
The domain name is taken
It is already trademarked for a similar industry
There are many businesses (in or outside of their industry) that use similar names
It has an obscure spelling
The number one place your audience is going to be looking for your business is through online search engines (i.e. Google).
Obscure spelling
IF your business name is not unique or hard to spell, people are not likely to find you when searching your direct business name.
Unoriginal name
Maybe your business name is easy to spell, but if it is unoriginal, that means there are 20 other businesses that are unrelated to you showing up before you.
The domain name is taken
The absolute worst mistake you can make is falling in love with a name that does not have an available domain.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Smith Construction’s domain cannot be smith-construction-nz.co.nz.
How do you expect people to remember how to email you or search for your website, with so many dash’s and dots?
Registering & Trademarking names
Even if you are just starting a small business, which you don't expect to grow, we highly recommend going through the process of registering & trademarking your brand. It is about protecting your brand - and gives you legal legs to stand on if someone else starts a competing business under your brand name
Before choosing your name, check the below:
It is available on the New Zealand Companies Register?
Is the domain name available?
Is it trademarked?
It is available on social media?
You can do this on One Check:
