How to Name a Product?

Product Design
How to Name a Product?
Article by Jelena Relić
Last Updated: April 02, 2023

There’s an art to naming a product you might not have expected. Your merchandise may be the first time a customer will encounter your brand, which makes the first impression even more pivotal. What better way to make that impression than your product’s name?

At first sight, whether it’s off the shelves of a store or an ad on their social media feed, the name’s job is to catch the eye of your target audience and represent the value it brings to the customer at purchase.

Learn the essentials of how to name a product: the basic strategy, the role of a name, things to consider, and steps in naming your product.

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How to Name a Product: The Basics

It all begins with your business and your brand. Taking the steps to boost your business and craft a brand makes the steps moving forward data-driven and influenced by customer experience. At the start of it all, you encountered a gap, a problem that needed solving, and this prompted you to work for and develop a solution.

Your brand guides your identity and presentation, as well as your offerings and how they will be marketed in the future.

3 Steps to Name a Product

While there’s no one way to develop a product name, you can be sure to start with a good story. Let yourself be guided by your brand identity, your product design and your objectives for the business and its services. What personality do you present yourself with and how can this come through your merchandise?

Below are some exercises and steps to help you craft a product name:

1. Collaborate and Brainstorm

Come up with an idea or word bank comprising the many different ways you define your merchandise. What message would you like to communicate with it? This is the time to be your most creative and inventive. Consult every book and peer, and research as much as possible to see what you can come up with.

2. Keep Your Brand in Mind

Think of your product as an extension of your branding. It must embody the personality and characteristics of your branding while functioning to fulfill your business objectives.

3. Conduct Market Studies

What has been done before, what is being done, and what is likely to be done in the near future? Which of these has been successful or are expected to be? You’ll learn these and more by doing market research. Gather how the audience receives your brand and its offers, and let this data guide your business decisions moving forward.

The benefit of developing a product is that you can learn throughout the process. Perhaps the most valuable information you can gather is the product insight from your customers. Besides gaining an understanding from consumer feedback, it also connects your business with what they need and want.

The Role of your Product’s Name

Your product plays a critical role in representing your business and your brand. It’s the solution you’re presenting to address your customers’ needs. Within a word or two, you must be able to communicate its use, its value, and its advantage over your competitors. A slogan and a tagline can help the cause, but it all starts with the product name.

It goes hand-in-hand with your brand’s name – think of Apple, its MacBook, iPhone, and iPad; Samsung, and the Note and the Galaxy; Microsoft and Windows OS; Google and its Pixel and Chrome. The products are nearly synonymous with the brands that created them, and customers know they can depend on the merchandise thanks to the promises the businesses have made and fulfilled in the past.

While this is a challenge for newer brands, since they have yet to prove themselves and their items, it’s not an impossible feat. This is where crafting a brand, establishing a foundation, and delivering quality through your merchandise come into play. Additionally, your brand’s unique voice comes through your product name and how you create content to market and advertise them.

The Value of your Product’s Name

Your product name is one of the main cornerstones of your business. Packing all the information it needs in a word is a big responsibility. It’s easy to assume that it’s a simple process to use a random name generator, pick one that sounds the closest to your product, and can stand out from the competition. We recommend starting from scratch and establishing its fundamental substance.

How does your product name serve your brand?

  • Capture Attention and Imagination – How does your item fit into your customer’s daily routine or lifestyle? In the first few minutes of your potential customer seeing what you have to offer, you have only seconds to deliver the idea of your product’s part in making their life better. In part, it should meet a practical and aspirational desire.
  • Present the Benefit in Investing – The first task of any product is to make a customer’s life easier. Whether it’s for functional or aesthetic purposes, there has to be something in it for the people. It also should meet your customers halfway. Consider how simple, complex, or premium the item is meant to be.
  • Communicate the Product’s Function – While it isn’t necessary to be entirely on the nose about what your product is used for, imagine overhearing a conversation where it’s mentioned in passing. Whoever may encounter it and hear the name, it’s an opportunity to introduce what it’s for and why it’s worth looking into.
  • Stand Out Among its Peers – Lucky is the product to be the first of its kind to serve a specific need. Short of simply being a catchier name than your competitors, the name should be just as efficient as your offer’s benefit to the customer in encapsulating why it’s the favorable option. At present, businesses and services are being developed at such a rapid pace that chances are you’re going to have competition in your industry.

Product Naming Strategy

No matter the size of your business, it’s always a good idea to consult the naming experts and learn what they have to say. For naming, you can contact business or product development specialists, marketing experts, and copywriting professionals. With some research and testing, your naming choices can be as informed as possible.

A helpful way to think about it may be to imagine your merchandise on your website, and how it would be listed as your potential customer finds it. Part of designing a website with eCommerce product pages considers how the items are to be listed and how to present them to the public. Along with this, keeping updated with eCommerce trends and developing the latest Magento eCommerce features is vital in staying competitive.

Tips to Successfully Name a Product

Take this chance to be as playful and experimental as possible with what you know about words and names. You never know when or where inspiration will strike, so have a pen and paper on-hand and ready to go. For brainstorming sessions, below are some tips to get a creative jolt:

  • Create a whole new word.
  • Be inspired by descriptive words.
  • Move syllables around.
  • Blend words.
  • Use a completely unrelated word.
  • Make an acronym using initials.
  • Shift and adjust spellings.
  • When in doubt, use the founder’s name.

Things to Consider Before Naming a Product

Before jumping straight into it, consider the following points as you come up with potential names for your new product.

Make It Readable, Memorable, and Easy to Use

As mentioned earlier, you can picture your product and its name once it’s listed on your website or posted on social media. This gives you an idea of how your consumers will encounter it and use it from day to day. When it’s mentioned in conversation, can they pronounce it well? Whoever hears it in passing, can they spell it well enough and look for it online to produce relevant search results? Can they approach a store salesperson who will immediately recognize the name?

Make It Meaningful

Apart from being easy to remember, the name should mean something. There’s a story to tell with your item, and this makes it relatable to your audience. This can also be where you base your marketing strategy and how you advocate for its value.

Make It Flexible

Think about how the name will change and evolve depending on the platform it’s listed on, and throughout the years it’s available. While we can’t be 100% certain how it will stand the test of time, be aware of how universal or usable it is for its contemporary time. Be sure to account for translations and how its name will sound in other languages if and when it becomes available in other countries.

Coming up with a name for your product isn’t easy, but the good news is that it’s a process that’s been tried and tested by many entrepreneurs before you. Don’t hesitate to reach out to the experts, and be prepared to do as much research as possible.

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