How to Name Your Offer or Program (Something Not Stupid, ft ChatGPT)

Brand Voice

Your offer name’s job is NOT to clearly communicate what the program’s about.

That’s your Messaging’s job.

So don’t get caught up in the folks telling you “bE cLeAr, NoT cUtE.”

Cause it’s absolute bullsh*t.

I’ve seen coaches name their program something clear like “Budgeting Basics,” but then they realize they want their name to be a fun name! So they look for another b word or synonym…

Like Budget Babes… or, Beyond Basic Budgeting – but it’s BBB for short!

Neither of those are great.

(We’ll workshop those in a sec.)

Your offer name’s job is BRAND BUILDING.

Let it do its job.

Your supporting Messaging gives the context and clarity your ideal client will need. Plus, nobody joins a program from a name-basis only.

They read the sales page, your emails, social posts, etc.

A buyer’s journey can start from anywhere, but it never ends after simply hearing the name. (Unless it’s called Budget Babes, heh heh.)

In no world will your ideal client stumble upon your offer name all by its lonesome.

A clever offer name will contribute to brand building and serve as the launching pad to creating a whole universe around your offer.

You can build a theme around your program, taking inspiration from the title to rename other elements like frameworks or replace boring jargon like “course portal.”

Giving yourself permission to let your freak flag fly with your offer makes it feel more like YOU. And when you feel like you’ve created something you actually like, you’ll be able to show up for your offer easier.

I’m talking BDE.

Let’s bring some of that BDE to our #bossbabes-vibe budgeting program.

Step 1: Define the Brand

I’m picturing this personal finance coach as super girly – maybe a lil squirrely and super cool with going overboard with anything extra. Her visual branding is packed with the queen crown and unicorn emojis.

She’s got a little bit of a potty mouth on her too, and wears animal print bicycle shorts when she lifts 4x a week at the gym. You picturing her yet?

Step 2: Set Naming Rules

I have some personal preferences when I think about the offer name I want, such as:

  • Keeping it to 2 words.
  • Staying hella on-brand.
  • Running with a theme to spill into the whole program.

Feel free to copy these, but I’m personally anti-abbreviations if we can just have a kick-ass name to begin with. It needs to be catchy and simple.

Step 3: Brain Dump Keywords

As I think about our sparkly, finance gym rat, I’m coming up with some words I associate with her brand and maybe some theme ideas too. Off-the-cuff, let’s brain dump:

  • Sparkles / Glitter
  • Mystical
  • Muscles / Sweat?
  • Rich B*tch
  • Diva / Princess / Queen

These are borderline cringey, but you gotta trust the process!

Step 4: Use Your Brain (or AI, duh)

At this point, you can feed this info to ChatGPT and let it help you with some names.

Lots of coaches tell me they can’t get great results by using AI for coming up with these ideas, but it’s because you skipped the steps above.

Here’s exactly what I fed ChatGPT:

”I’m creating a fake name for a budgeting course. Let’s pretend I’m a personal finance coach. Super girly, a little squirrely (think ADHD), cool with over-the-top sparkles and pink, my pretend brand is PACKED with princess/unicorn emojis and I’ve got a little bit of a potty mouth.

The original idea was Beyond Budgeting Basics or Budget Babes, but these are so generic and boring. What are some other course names? Maybe we can run with a mystical theme, like unicorns and sh*t.

It gave me some bland, girlboss-y ideas with long subtitles.

So I requested 10 more ideas, more tongue-in-cheek and keeping it to 2 words. (Cause I forgot to specify what we did in Step 3, oops.)

It gave me these:

  1. Sparkle Savings
  2. Money Magic
  3. Wealth Whimsy
  4. Rich Rainbows
  5. Glamour Gains
  6. Unicorn Uprising
  7. Sassy Stash
  8. Diva Dollars
  9. Pixie Pockets
  10. Glitter Gold

I wouldn’t ship any of these, but I have some ideas hit me as I combine different words in my head.

I want to make sure it’s on-brand with the offer’s promise too, so I won’t use “Savings” for example. Her course is about personal budgeting, which is more than just savings.

Love the idea of using “Gains” in a financial and muscle way. (You can tell I’m a total gym go-er, can’t ya)

My brainstorm…

  • Glitter & Gold
  • Sparkle Stash
  • Glamour & Gains OH! Glitter & Gains?
  • Mystic Money
  • F*ck Boring Budgets (I broke my 2 word rule, but I had a laugh)
  • Rich B*tch (This is going to be so overused)
  • Sparkle Stash
  • Booty Bank
  • Cash is Queen (Instead of king… get it?)
  • Cash Crown

Step 5: Sh*t or Get Off the Pot

Make a decision. When I named Copy Rider, I wasn’t sure at first.

I picked the name and just played around. What could the visuals look like? What sort of theme can I build around this? What other naming conventions can be inspired by this sorta play-on-words, moto theme?

In our personal finance coach example, my gut is tied between F*ck Boring Budgets and Cash is Queen.

After brainstorming what I could do with each, I’m committing to Cash is Queen.

Immediately, I want to create a mini-brand around the Queen chess piece and play on women empowerment.

“Cash is King” is the original saying, correlating a king and cash’s power and value, especially in a financial context.

We’d essentially brand the idea of women managing their money as a power move – but make it chess!

Can you see how a name can build your brand? Our coach would immediately have so many content ideas and energy for this offer during every launch.

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Humor Marketing Coach for creators, service providers, coaches and your mom.

And you SHOULD, which is why I use humor to help creators get their edge in tHe SpAcE.

Humor makes us human and helps us connect with others, which is the underlying foundation of brand building – and sales!

Humor is serious business, and how you can charm and disarm their way to profit and authority.

I’m Emelie—aka the head honcho

Everyone and their mother’s cousin’s guinea pig is trying to sTaNd OuT.

 I ain’t a guinea pig!

And with all these beige blob brands, it shouldn’t be that hard…

But you've been fed “cLeAr > cLeVer” marketing advice through a feeding tube since your business was born. It’s bullsh*t. And it doesn’t work.

You can be clear AND clever.