Your Brand Name

Your Brand Name
One of the most important marketing assets that you have is the name of your online store. Give it careful consideration. You should pick a name that’s easy to remember yet distinct from other similar names on the Internet. Closely related to the issue of picking a name is choosing a suitable domain name. The domain name is the part of your Web site address that appears after “www.” For example, the domain name for the Office Depot is officedepot.com and the domain name for Eddie Bauer is eddiebauer.com. Office Depot’s Web site is at www.officedepot.com and Eddie Bauer’s Web site can be found at www.eddiebauer.com.
To avoid confusing your customers, you will want to have a domain name that is as close as possible to your organization’s name. This will also make it easier for customers to find your Web site. For example, customers looking for Eddie Bauer’s Web site would probably start by typing www.eddiebauer.com into their Web browsers. In addition to being close to your business name, your chosen domain name should be short, easy for your customers to remember, and intuitive.
Finally, keep in mind that you don’t have to have “www” in your Web address. Some organizations have chosen to drop it entirely, e.g. CBS promotes itself simply as CBS.com.
In addition, you can, with the help of the technical folks who support your site, sometimes use words or characters in front of your actual domain name, and get an extra “identity hook” that might be unique enough to draw attention to your site. One such example of this is the Web site Beer.com, which gained some attention during the 2000 Olympics. It ran an ad that used the address mmm.beer.com – indeed, during the commercial, the graphic showed the “www” flipping over to become “mmm,” as the announcer mimicked the “mmmm” or “tastes good” sound. There was a huge increase in traffic to the site.
It’s important that both your brand name and your Web site address be as distinctive as possible to avoid confusion with other similar companies selling on the Internet. There are tens of thousands of merchants on the Internet all vying for attention, making it difficult for online merchants with similar names to get noticed. Even if the domain name you want is available, you should find out if similar names currently used by online stores might compete with yours. Many online merchants have found it necessary to change their names because their names were being confused with other similar names on the Internet.
When trying to come up with a name for your online store, consider getting a group of friends or colleagues together to brainstorm with you. Alternatively, you could hire a market research firm to hold focus groups with consumers.

Issues to Consider When Choosing a Name for Your Online Store
● Can you get a Web site address (i.e., domain name) for that name?
● Is the name too long?
● Is the name easy to pronounce?
● Are there other Web sites or online stores with similar-sounding or similar-looking brand names or domain names?
● Is your name unique or distinctive enough?
● Is your name memorable and does it make an impression?
● Is the name consistent with the image you want to project?

If you really want to have a domain name that someone else has already registered, you could approach the owner and see if he/she is interested in selling the domain name to you. Many companies register domain names but never activate them. Even a company that is using a
domain name may consider selling it to you for the right price.
Finally, if you believe that someone else has registered a domain name that infringes on a trademark that you own, you can pursue legal action against the owner of the domain name in question.
Alternatively, an appeals process exists for domain names, and it might be possible for you to launch an appeal to see if the other party can be forced to give up the name. To learn about this option, visit a domain name registrar, and read about the international domain name appeals process. You can also visit the ICANN Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy site at www.icann.org/udrp/udrp.htm for more information.
Which raises an important point – it might be a good defensive maneuver for you to register as many domain names as possible early on, related to your store name, your product names, or other words and phrases that, when used as a domain name, might help drive traffic to your store.

How to Get a Domain Name
To get a domain name, you can go to any one of the accredited domain name registers on the Internet, including Register.com (www.register.com). You can get a complete list of accredited domain name registrars on the InterNIC Web site at www.internic.com. The list can be viewed alphabetically or by geographical location.
You don’t need to have a Web site in order to register a domain name and most registrars will hold your domain name for you until you are ready to activate it on your online store. Many browserbased storefront solutions allow you to set up a domain name for your online store when you are setting up your account. This removes the need for you to go directly to a domain name registrar.
Once you have registered a domain name, you want to make sure that no one is registering similar names, or taking out a trademark similar to your name. To automatically track your name, consider using a service like NameProtect (www.nameprotect.com). One of NameProtect’s services will constantly monitor new US trademark applications and domain name registrations for you and flag any applications/registrations that are identical or very similar to your domain name. It’s a great way to keep informed of any potential threats to your brand name. This service will also help you identify companies that may be trying to register your domain name as a trademark. This is a potentially serious situation as you could lose your domain name if a trademark similar to your brand name is granted to someone else.