Ok so I've come up with a half dozen brand names for a product that I'm developed, and I want to find a method to pick the best one. Of course I can ask friends and family, but beyond that are there any ways to run it by many people quickly and cheaply? Any ideas are really welcomed!
Ask HN: How do I pick the best brand name?
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Re: Ask HN: How do I pick the best brand name?
#2Write it down. Does it look nice?
Is it easy to type?
Is the spelling obvious?
Is it easy to pronounce?
Does it explain something?
Does it sound similar to something else? If so, is this a good thing?
Re: Ask HN: How do I pick the best brand name?
#3Write it down. Does it look nice? Is it easy to type? Is the spelling obvious? Is it easy to pronounce? Does it explain something? Does it sound similar to something else? If so, is this a good thing?
Also, does it have a good domain name free, and a domain name that fits your market? If your market is old ladies, you may want to avoid choosing a ".io" address.
Re: Ask HN: How do I pick the best brand name?
#4Write it down. Does it look nice? Is it easy to type? Is the spelling obvious? Is it easy to pronounce? Does it explain something? Does it sound similar to something else? If so, is this a good thing?
Also, does it have a good domain name free, and a domain name that fits your market? If your market is old ladies, you may want to avoid choosing a ".io" address.
Domain. Yes. Forgot the obvious one. :)
Re: Ask HN: How do I pick the best brand name?
#5Write it down. Does it look nice? Is it easy to type? Is the spelling obvious? Is it easy to pronounce? Does it explain something? Does it sound similar to something else? If so, is this a good thing?
Also, does it have a good domain name free, and a domain name that fits your market? If your market is old ladies, you may want to avoid choosing a ".io" address.
Also, try Googling the name to see what shows up right now (kind of similar to it sounding like something else) and check if the most obvious twitter handle is available or not.
Re: Ask HN: How do I pick the best brand name?
#6Make sure there are no live trademarks associated with the name. Also, go for a natural sounding made up name and avoid combining common dictionary words, it's more defensible that way. Use the wordoid tool for this purpose.
Re: Ask HN: How do I pick the best brand name?
#7I guess what I'm wondering is if I follow those suggestions and I end up with maybe 3 candidates, how do I select between the 3? The obvious answer is to ask friends and family and then ask facebook friends. Beyond that though, was wondering if there might be another way of picking a winner.
Also: 1. Thanks for your comments people - genuinely appreciated 2. Wordoid is awesome! Never seen it before, but its a lot of fun! Will certainly play around with it 3. Yeah, I'm ruling out anything that doesn't have a free .com domain name (twitter handle gets bonus marks!)
Re: Ask HN: How do I pick the best brand name?
#8I guess what I'm wondering is if I follow those suggestions and I end up with maybe 3 candidates, how do I select between the 3? The obvious answer is to ask friends and family and then ask facebook friends. Beyond that though, was wondering if there might be another way of picking a winner. Also: 1. Thanks for your comments people - genuinely appreciated 2. Wordoid is awesome! Never seen it before, but its a lot of…
One thing you could do is lock down the brands you've chosen (all social media services, Gmail acct, domain + privacy with a deep discount promo code, etc) and put up temp pages (i.e., Launchrock). Then soft promote them (PPC, build links, Facebook, etc) and see which one resonates better with your target market. Don't spend too much money/time on this though unless it's for a project where you can recoup your costs/investment. Keep in mind though that people typically associate more with what's actually behind the brand - quality/consistent blogging, engaging conversation on Twitter, insightful presentations, video, events, etc. - and that's where you'll find the traction/following that will eventually build your chosen brand.
Re: Ask HN: How do I pick the best brand name?
#9I used Amazon Mechanical Turk to run a multiple choice survey. That got me several hundred opinions in a day or so. (Make sure you have the domain reserved first, just in case.)
It is fairly easy, even if you haven't done it before.
Re: Ask HN: How do I pick the best brand name?
#10This is an amazing blog about naming http://www.thenameinspector.com/