B2B Company Names Need to Work Hard
In B2B, the company’s name is one of the first things a prospective customer sees or hears.
In developing B2B names, the company should convey its purpose and distinctiveness to customers without requiring explanation. A name that meets these goals drives value.
3 Examples of Strong B2B Names
A great example of developing B2B names is the highly successful renaming of B2B company Ingredion from Corn Products Company. The name Ingredion suggests a breadth of ingredient solutions to help its B2B customers.
Los Angeles developingbased Pitch Genius specializes in creating investor decks and makes the bold claim that 42% of their clients get funded. The name Pitch Genius promises the B2B customer a great pitch deck, done by experts who are funding geniuses.
SEO firm First Page Sage takes a similar approach to touting its expertise or sagacity to land the client’s content marketing on the first page.
Developing B2B Names in 2020
This December, the Insight to Action team was engaged to assist a new LA-based food company in developing B2B names. The company will offer products in several different categories, including frozen seafood, superfoods, powders and gels, nutrition bars, and more.
There were several important considerations for the desired name including:
- product lines
- target B2B customers
- company benefits
- corporate personality
B2B Names: Product Lines
The company is committed to offering several different product categories, so it needs to avoid a corporate name that is too category-specific and overly limiting. The individual products may end up with more category-specific names.
The product lines share a number of common commitments that suggest platforms for B2B brand names:
- Healthy, i.e., products that are generally considered healthy
- Value-added, e.g., portion control, handheld, etc.
- Great tasting
Target Customer for B2B Names
The target customer for the B2B name is a decision maker at a supermarket foods retailer. Longer term, the company also expects to target foodservice decision makers. Given the COVID impact on foodservice, the current focus is supermarket foods retailers.
Company Benefits and Personality
The company will offer benefits to the customers beyond the products, including:
- Customization for smaller-sized orders
- Higher margins and attractive pricing, because several of the middlemen will be eliminated
Again, if the company name can communicate the benefits, that is helpful.
The company is seeking a name that supports a desired corporate brand personality of being forward thinking, on or ahead of trend, and responsive to B2B customers’ needs.
B2B Names Approach
The Insight to Action and client team were briefed on the company’s capabilities, partners, and initial product lines. After the briefing, we moved into a focused ideation brainstorming meeting leveraging proven approaches. The goal was to generate a number of naming alternatives. Exercises included benefit baiting, baggage dumping, identifying a famous person for personality and forced connection or word blends.
As we’ve written about before, there are a number of criteria in addition to appeal, and relevance for the benefits to use in evaluating names, such as pronounceability and legal availability.
The company CEO is moving forward with reviewing the top performing naming ideas, with a plan to launch the company in first quarter 2021.
Want to get going on a hard working B2B or B2C name? Contact the experts at Insight to Action. Or visit our naming resources page for more resources.
