When you think of a naming agency, you might think of a wacky crew of creative people playing with words all day. While drumming up ideas is one step of the NameStormers process, there is so much more to company naming than most would imagine — in fact, there’s more to it than most other agencies bother to explore. NameStormers boldly ventures beyond brainstorming. Our process is designed to ensure that the name ideas we deliver are viable and unique and that they help position our clients to achieve exponential success.
Our approach isn’t some wishy-washy magic formula that we’re hesitant to share. It’s a proven, seven-step process that we’ve spent more than 30 years perfecting. Should you choose to work with NameStormers on your company naming or product naming project, here’s what to expect.
1. We Get to Know You
You can’t do a good job naming a company you don’t know. Name generators and many other naming agencies only gather the surface-level facts, but we delve deeper. What do you want your name to do? Where does your company fit among your competitors? What brand personality are you aiming for? Who is your target? When we discover what is unique about your company, we can riff on that to create a name that means something rather than a name that would fit any company in your industry.
2. We Get Creative
This is the fun part! We use the context you’ve given us to tease out ideas and see what clicks. Even suggestions that don’t seem to have much potential can lead to something amazing, which is why we don’t believe there’s any such thing as a bad idea.
3. We Dig into the Details
Time to get down to business! Other agencies would cull the best ideas, send them your way, and check you off their list. But our NameStormers team zeroes in on the promising names and puts them through a vetting process that weeds out options that aren’t “safe” to use. We perform a preliminary trademark screening using tools that trademark lawyers use, checking for US and Canadian trademark issues and common-law usage.
We also provide the option of a more comprehensive screening process to check for global trademark issues in relevant territories as well as offensive or vulgar meanings in other languages.
4. We Present the Names to You
At this point, we pitch the viable names to you. But that doesn’t mean we’re throwing in the towel. If you’re not sold on any of the names, we keep working.
5. We Tweak and Improve
If you feel positive about a few of the names but feel like they’re not quite “there” yet, we can workshop them. If you don’t see exciting potential in any of the names, we will jump right back to brainstorming and take new ideas through screening again — without charging you any extra fees. We’ll do this as many times as it takes. During this phase, we also take your favorite names through a standardized Customer Evaluation Study to get a sense of whether we’re heading in the right direction.
6. We Provide Additional Optional Name Research
At this phase, we give you the option to test your top names with a much larger audience. We don’t ask vague questions that get vague answers; instead, we come in strong with questions that are designed to provide specific, valuable insight. This goes so much deeper than “Which name do you like best?” to ask questions like “Which name is most memorable?” and “Which name is most compatible with the brand?” Key results will be delivered to you in a report with our recommendations.
7. We Watch the Name Work It’s Magic!
Over the years, we’ve seen countless businesses and products achieve great success under the banner of a name we helped them create. For more tips from our NameStorming experts, download our ebook The Method and Process of Creating a Great Name. You’ll get insider advice on avoiding naming pitfalls and bolstering your team’s creativity, and, most importantly, you will be one step closer to a name that wows and excites.