Creating your Soap Making "Brand Name"

Here is another excerpt from the new ebook Soap Making for Profit, explaining all about giving your new business a name...

Branding

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You need to devote a great deal of thought to selecting your company brand; this is used to describe your product range and can also be your company name.

It is the thing that will identify you and your products to your customers and it should bring to mind the flavor of your products, or in the very least be memorable enough to ensure your customers know who you are, what you do and where to find you.

As an example, think of McDonalds™, the mere mention of the name and you know exactly what product range it represents, the shape of the logo, the tag line they use to promote their latest advertising campaign and probably also where to find your local restaurant too.

It can be difficult in the beginning when you haven’t really found your market niche, to be able to think of a brand that will permanently represent your business, but there are ways to transition and update your brand, so don’t worry that the choice will be set in stone.

Start by trying to describe things that will apply to all of your products. When I think of handmade goods, it brings the word ‘Village’ immediately to mind, if your unique business angle is ‘aromatherapy’ soap products you could add that, if you intend to focus on ‘beauty’ soaps, use that instead.

You could also include your locality, so for example if you live reasonably close to a village, you could incorporate the name of the village too, so taking a completely fictitious village name (my apologies if anyone reading this actually lives there) I have come up with: Bramley Village Aromatherapy Soaps; or even Bramley Village Traditional Beauty Soap; or Bramley Village Handmade Beauty Soap.

Now the above describes the products well, but it makes the choice of a company name easier, so in the same order you could have: Bramley Village Aromatherapy; Bramley Village Traditional Cosmetics; Bramley Village Handmade Beauty Products.

Once you have a few titles in mind try an internet search, I used “company registration” and discovered that in the UK “Bramley Village Cosmetics Limited” is available for use. There are a number of companies offering to carry out the registration for your company and a number of them are willing to do so for less than £50 ($100). In the US the price to have your trademark registered is around $120 – I searched for “Trade Mark Registration”.
The point worth noting is that once you have decided on a company name and checked that there is no one else trading under the same name, reserving the trade mark will prevent your name being taken. Initially this may not be of concern to you, but once you begin to build a customer base that know and love your products, it can be quite damaging for your business if another company suddenly appears with your name and you are forced to stop trading under it.

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Gary Everson is the Soap Business Guru. In his new e-book: “Soap Making for Profit” he describes in clear, step by step terms how to turn an enjoyable and creative hobby into a profitable business.