How Do You Know When It's Time To Change Your Company's Name?

Before starting Local Marketing, Inc., I had a lot of notions about what’s important in creating and running a business. I was perhaps idealistic in thinking that as long as you had a track record proving you did what you did well, nothing else would matter. But there are plenty of factors that will affect your business; one of them is your company’s name.

Having the perfect name might not seem like the highest priority, but I’ve found that it can make a huge difference. Even the most innovative ideas in the world need strong branding and marketing to go along with them. For B2B services, a solid name that effectively communicates what you do is vital. Like most entrepreneurial lessons, this is one I learned the hard way.

Finding A Gap In The Entrepreneurial Market

We founded Meta Media, Inc. in 2006. We saw a gap in the market, so to speak; Fortune 500 companies had plenty of marketing firms competing for their business, and there were a lot of automated tools dedicated to helping small business owners. But there was hardly anyone servicing the mid-size companies—companies with between $2 million and $200 million in revenue.

With digital technologies, platforms and practices changing rapidly, mid-level companies—legal groups, medical practices, local restaurant groups—needed help keeping up. For example, a podiatry group from Atlanta didn’t need the kind of widespread marketing services that would have its name show up in a Google search for planter fasciitis treatment in Phoenix, yet it still wanted to be known as the leading practice in its own region. These mid-level companies had no idea where to start when it comes to online marketing, branding, and client acquisition. We saw an opportunity.

We decided to form an agency providing the kinds of services usually saved for big corporations. We went after local businesses that needed specialized attention, focusing our marketing campaigns on specific local areas. On a micro level, the name Meta Media conveyed some of what we had to offer, but SEO, SEM, social media, etc.—services associated with the terms “meta” and “media”—were all just parts of what we could do for local businesses. Convincing a few clients that we were the best at local marketing turned out to be a tricky process.

A Brand Upgrade For The Business

A few years into Meta Media, I was meeting with a potential client, a franchise group in grave need of more customers for each of its locations. While I knew we could improve search rankings and client acquisition rates within a 20 mile radius through our full service marketing, this company was convinced that it needed to use us for only a portion of their marketing plan. The company insisted on going with a different company for search engine optimization. The CEO was convinced that he had found the perfect company for SEO and that no one else could do a better job in that area. His reasoning? The company had the term SEO in its name.

At this point, I realized we needed some rebranding. Whether or not that company offered the best in SEO services, its named conveyed the perception that it did. I believed we offered the best local marketing services around, including SEO, but what businesses would know that from our name? We needed a name that would brand us as the leader in local marketing. As soon as I got home that night, I did some research and found that the name Local Marketing, Inc. remained unclaimed. I bought our current domain—www.localmarketinginc.com—the very next day.

The Impact Of Changing The Company Name

The name change definitely had a positive impact. Starting out, we didn’t realize how many business owners would be searching specifically for local marketing services—whether or not they knew that’s what they were looking for—so we didn’t place that much importance on what we called ourselves.

Little did we know that the name change alone would generate a remarkable number of potential client leads. We noticed an immediate upsurge in respect received in sales meetings and calls with potential clients. We keep the name Meta Media, Inc. in existence, as it still generates a fair amount of our business, but I don’t believe the company would be where it is today if I hadn’t asked that customer why he didn’t want to use our SEO services.

Source: Forbes