We wanted to see how much interest we could create in a business, based on name alone.
First of all, apologies in advance to anyone who thought this business was real. We will send you an Eight Wives Bakery sticker for getting your hopes up.
Naming the Business
As an agency, we help a lot of businesses come up with a name for their company. These businesses range from dentist offices to eCommerce startups, and everything in between. When we look at naming a company, we like to follow as many of our own rules as possible. These rules are:
- Choose a name that correlates with what you do.
- Choose a name that is memorable.
- Choose a name that is easy to spell.
- Choose a name that you like.
After reviewing these rules, we decided to put them to the test. We followed all of them, but we added a cherry on top.
We created a business called Eight Wives Bakery.
The Story
Eight Wives Bakery would be a new bakery that would open in Saratoga Springs, Utah on September 15th, 2018 (hey that’s tomorrow). So, we went to work and created the following:
- A versatile logo
- A catchphrase
- A website
- Content to fill the website
- Graphics, images, and a story for the website and advertising (stock photos)
- Graphics explaining our location
Announcing the Business
We tried not to waste too much time so we limited the entire exercise to 5 hours of work, including all advertising. We were curious to see how much traffic we could create based on a name that follows our rules. And so we launched the website on January 27th, 2017.
We also didn’t tell anybody because we wanted to get a laugh when our local friends brought this up in conversation, which was a great feeling.
To get name recognition and seed the idea, we spent $40 on targeted Facebook Ads to stir up some traffic and hopefully get the word out enough to start spreading the word. The ad was simple just announcing our new bakery and when it would open, about 9 months down the road. We used two different images in the ad to see which would perform better.
The Results
To be honest, we weren’t quite sure what to expect from our ~$40 advertising spend, but we couldn’t have been happier with the results and responses we received. Our minimal advertising spends produced results which far exceeded our expectations. See some of the statistics below and read some of our favorite responses we received.
1473
9060
14.4
Takeaways
We couldn’t have been happier with the results of our advertising spend and feel that our naming rules, when followed, can help launch your business and make your brand easy to remember, especially if you are willing to have some fun.
The Fun, Unexpected Results
We had a plethora of opportunities presented to us from other companies and opportunities to partnership that we absolutely would’ve taken part of if we were really going to launch the business, these included:
- Opportunities to put up advertisements in the local high school gymnasium.
- A prominent news source reached out and wanted an interview for an article, this was extremely hard to turn down.
- Over 5 insurance agents wanting to partner with us.
- Chances to be a part of giveaways on food blogs and Instagram accounts, a great way to grow a local business.
- Face painting vendors wanting to help with the launch.
Sorry for those that wanted a job! If you start a bakery in Saratoga Springs, we will provide a free website and branding.
In addition to these opportunities, we had some funny inquiries and comments that we would love to share.
Oh, and to the City manager of Saratoga Springs, sorry that you had to call us. See some of our favorite exchanges below:
