Naming your business is an exciting part of building your new brand. Start by brainstorming and come up with as many ideas as you can. Once you’ve exhausted your ideas, you can start to narrow down it down to your favorites. When it starts getting challenging to decide on your own, test a couple of business names with a PickFu poll to see which is more popular with an audience of people.
That’s exactly what the business owner in this PickFu poll did. The pollster is building an integrated medicine clinic in the town of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and wants to know which business name would be more appealing.
Option A was Restoration Healthcare and Option B was Coeur d’Health. Option B, of course, was a play on words based on the town Coeur d’Alene.
Which business name won?
The results were somewhat close. Option A received 30 out of 50 votes, meaning it won with 60%. Clearly, both business names have something positive going for them. So let’s take a closer look at the written feedback.
A local connection draws in customers
Option B still received 20 votes and several respondents mentioned they liked the play on words in Coeur d’Health.
“I decided to pick Option B as my answer because the name relates to the geographic location of the office, and I think the people would really enjoy that and they would go there based on that reason alone. While I think that Option A is still a nice choice, there’s a sort of familiarity with Option B,” one gentleman explained well.
If you’re building a local business, look for an opportunity to name the business with a local reference. It may not work without being too much of a pun, but it’s worth some brainstorming.
Know your target audience
Respondents chose Option A for a few different reasons. One woman felt Option B sounded too fancy, explaining that “[Option] B makes me not even want to read the title because it will be out of my price range. [Option] A looks more friendly.”
Another woman preferred Option A because of its simplicity. “For the Midwest, this is a straightforward name. Nothing fancy needed for that area of the country,” she wrote.
Yet another woman pointed out the potential complication of naming a business based on location. “This sounds more professional. I also think it is less location-specific, which is good because if the company moved or expanded, it would not need rebranding.”
All of these written explanations from respondents are good reminders to have an understanding of your target audience before choosing a name. Consider creating customer avatars to understand your target market before narrowing down potential business names. And when you run your PickFu test, consider using geographic targeting, such as the Pacific or Rocky Mountain region of the U.S., or by suburban or rural communities.
Key takeaways
When choosing a business name, it always comes down to knowing your audience. A location or cultural tie-in may work well, but what works with one set of customers may not work with another.
Fortunately, you can always run a PickFu poll if you’re not sure what names will work or not. A quick split test will give you plenty of insight and help you choose the best possible name for your new business.
