What’s in a name? When it comes to your planned community, everything. If it strikes the right chord with your customers’ own home-owning aspirations, it can be the thing that drives them to engage with your brand directly.
A community’s name is the first touchpoint your customers have with your brand. Ideally, it creates an emotional resonance that can intrigue them to learn more, whether it evokes feelings of serenity and peace, a familiar locale, a quality like high-class or modernity, or a combination of all of these.
In this three-part blog series, we guide you through some factors to consider when branding and marketing your community, and it all starts with creating a great name.
Does it describe your brand accurately?
A good name should encapsulate your community’s key brand attributes or amenities in a succinct, memorable word or two. There are many factors to strategically consider. Is a key selling point your community’s location? Is it in a natural setting? Close to a popular urban hot spot with upscale shopping and dining, or to a famous landmark or part of town? Are the homes you plan to offer high-end, or built in a particular style?
For example, Jeff Bezos’s original vision for Amazon was for it to be the world’s largest bookstore. Taking the size and scope into account, he landed on “Amazon” as a reference to the world’s largest river. But as Amazon evolved into an e-commerce and digital streaming giant, the name took on other meanings. The arrow in the logo pointing from the ‘a’ to ‘z’ implies the breadth of their offerings, as well as how close it is to the word “amaze.” The name was versatile and future-looking enough to let Amazon grow into what it is today.
Can it stand the test of time?
It’s hard to believe Google’s original name was BackRub, but it’s true. At the time, the name was a wordplay on the “back links” used to analyze how important a website was. Luckily, in 1997, co-founder Larry Page had the foresight to see that BackRub was not the most engaging name for the fledgling brand. His team at Stanford eventually came up with “googol,” which is the digit 1 followed by 100 zeroes, implying just how large the search engine’s capabilities were. During a domain name search to make sure it wasn’t taken, they accidentally typed in “google.com” instead of “googol.com,” and Page realized Google was the better name, so it stuck. The iconic name is famous for many things: simplicity, memorability, whimsy and a nod to its mind-boggling size — all brand attributes that have made Google one of the biggest brands on the planet. In fact, it’s so indelible, it has become part of our cultural lexicon to “just Google it” — resounding proof how a great name can have huge sticking power.
Put in the research time.
Doing thorough investigatory work is essential for a naming strategy. Do trademark and Google searches to make sure the name or names aren’t already taken or overly popular. Avoid accidental references to a distasteful double meaning with an Urban Dictionary sweep as an extra precaution. And know your competition and locale — are there any communities in the area that sound similar? Are there local words that you should avoid that might turn customers off? Even when you land on the perfect name and everything else checks out, focus group testing is a smart idea to confirm it’s as perfect as you think it is. Getting real-time feedback directly from your demographic will give you a good idea whether the name is engaging and memorable to customers and ultimately help sell your community.
Branding your planned community begins with a great name. It’s an integral part of the story around which all your marketing efforts should build. And it’s not as simple as it sounds; crafting a smart naming strategy is imperative to ensuring it will resound with customers, set the right emotional tone and stand the test of time.
Need help creating an optimal naming strategy for your future community? Let’s talk. Reach out to Barbara at barbara@wickmarketing.com or (512) 479-9834.
