The Name Game: Tips for Your New T-Shirt Business

Congratulations…you’ve taken the plunge into entrepreneurial waters and have chosen to enter into the creative and profitable screen printing business! You’ve had in depth analysis of your specific needs and goals with your business consultant at Printa Systems and have chosen your screen printing equipment, your hands on training is scheduled and are you’re setting up space for your operation. 

What’s next...a great company name!

Now is the time to set your sales and marketing plan in action. First order of business if you haven’t already decided upon one, your business needs a name. Some real time and thought are required in deciding upon your business name. When choosing your name you want to make it short, easy to remember, clear what products and services you offer and attention grabbing. 

Here are tips to guide you coming up with a good screen printing and promotional product business name:

• Your business name should make clear what your business does without being too limiting. Although you may be starting out offering only screen printed apparel, you may offer pad printed promotional products, vinyl cutting or sublimation later on. Opt for a name that describes what you do but gives you room for growth, such as Shauna’s Specialty Printing or Big Bang Promotions. Your business name is a way for customers to get to know you, your services and products. Names such as these do not limit a customer’s idea of what products you offer and will not limit you if you want to expand your product selection or services in the future.

• This is a fun industry so you should have fun with naming your new company! Be creative, but avoid forced alliteration in your business name. Catchy names can be great, but may lack clarity and limit your customer base. Your initial customer base may be solely to rock bands and music industry but you don’t want to your company name to exclude potential business with your local small companies, schools and civic events.

• Your business name doesn’t need to be cute or rhyme, in fact, these things may dissuade some potential clients. I remember one young company whose tongue in cheek spin on an expletive for their company name sounded catchy and was funny to some but was very offensive to many of their prospects and killed their chance at being taken seriously.  

• Choose a name that sounds good is easy to spell, easy to say and easy to remember.

• Once you have your name selection narrowed down, you’ll want make sure you can get the domain registry. NameChk.com is a tool that can save hours of research time. Plug in your potential names into the search box and it will check almost 100 different online networks and communities, giving you instant feedback on username availability. You can also check domain registries, such as Go Daddy, Register.com and DomainRegistry.com, that will allow you to check availability and secure your URL.

• Make sure you can trademark the name. It's worth it to check USPTO.gov -- or a new site called Trademarkia.com -- before settling on a name.

Printa Systems has been working with entrepreneurs for two decades providing start up solutions in the decorated apparel and promotional product industry and manufacture screen printing, pad printing, dye-sublimation and heat transfer systems. Our mission is your success! 

Please call us today to get started. 800-601-6240.