In the digital era, executives are discovering that there is more at stake in selecting the right name for a company, product or service than in the pre-Internet era, but the path to follow is often laden with new rules that can make the task at hand more treacherous, say Wharton and other experts.
Driving the charge are shifts in technology and consumer habits. The ubiquitous presence of internet domain names and web addresses, or URLs, social media and the prevalent use of smartphones and tablets with their smaller screens call for new rules on how a company, product or service should select its name, marketing experts say.
Unique URLs that are easy to remember and build on the company’s name, mission or brand tend to drive potential customers and partners to the organization’s website, where information can be provided about the firm or where its products and services can be sold.
Domain names of seven characters or less, excluding the dot.com or other suffix, tended to yield higher traffic. Visitors to a website would decrease by 7% if the domain name was expanded to 10 characters, Ulrich says. Basically, that translates into a 2% reduction in traffic for each additional character beyond the sweet spot of seven characters or less.
Read MoreThe tiny screens of mobile devices also make name selection more challenging. According to research firm Gartner, 1.5 billion smartphones are expected to be sold worldwide this year, up 7% from the previous year. That means companies will likely want customers to read their name easily and quickly on those small screens, experts say...
