Starting a new business can be an overwhelming task let alone thinking about the company\u2019s brand.\u00a0You know what products or services you want to sell, you have secured a location (brick and mortar or virtual) and you have come up with a \u201ccatchy\u201d name. Now what about the brand?<\/p>\n
Creating a successful brand is like building a house, you need a solid foundation. It all starts with the business name. Is the name memorable? Is it legally available? What are your domain options? How will the name be displayed? All of these need to be considered before a logo is\u00a0designed and a brand can develop.<\/p>\n
For a small business just starting out I recommend that the name you choose be memorable and convey what your business does.\u00a0Having a short and concise name will make for a better website URL, email address and will be\u00a0easier to read on print materials, plus\u00a0making it easier to remember.<\/p>\n
Once you have chosen a name you will need to register it with the state. This is important. You will need to do this for tax purposes\u00a0and by registering with the state you legally have the rights to the name preventing someone else from doing business with that same name – or one similar – within the registered\u00a0state.\u00a0Because you have a name registered with a particular state does not prevent someone else from using that name in another state.<\/p>\n
With the use of websites and social media, we also recommend registering the name as\u00a0a federal trademark.<\/p>\n
We had a client\u00a0register with the state of New Hampshire only to find out that a company in New Jersey with\u00a0the same\u00a0name had\u00a0federally trademarked the business name\u00a0preventing our client\u00a0from using it.\u00a0It was a disappointing setback for our client, but beneficial in the end because they learned the lesson and they chose a name that had not yet been used elsewhere.<\/p>\n
If you plan on having a franchise or selling branded merchandise, you should\u00a0definitely trademark your business\u00a0name.<\/p>\n
When\u00a0choosing a business name we recommend looking at what domains are available using your possible\u00a0business name. A\u00a0short business name is easy to remember and will reduce the risk of people incorrectly typing the URL.<\/p>\n
Once the business name has been registered you can proceed with the logo design. Clear, impactful, and purposeful logo design will be the topic of our next post.<\/p>\n
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Starting a new business can be an overwhelming task let alone thinking about the company\u2019s brand.\u00a0You know what products or services you want to sell, you have secured a location (brick and mortar or virtual) and you have come up with a \u201ccatchy\u201d name. Now what about the brand? Creating a successful brand is like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n