strategy How to Find Potential End Users?

Great thread, lot of valuable information

I tried to contact another domainer who's selling a similar domain, here's the response

"Not interested - please don't spam me again"

I was very polite I think and it was a short mail, well at least I don't deserve that rough answer. Well next time I'll use a professional e-mail addy..
.. at least he replied and it was my first try to sell a domain :O


edit:
is that a prof email addy:
[email protected] ?

Admittedly I use Gmail, which I need to sort out as per the suggestions above, but at least I've had nothing like that. I do however provide all my details, name, address, telephone numbers etc with a well worded brief letter.

Just had an inquiry come through. Somethings obviously working.

Great thread guys, a lot of valuable information. I will try to sell one of my domains this way and i ll let you know about the results in the future

Magazine and site/company idea

There appears to be no more of a mention on the magazine front?

Why not collectively, maybe a few, get a site together. This site will list domains forsale after the user have had an education page first.

With that said the only price you will pay to the site is a strict commission, once sold! No listing price and it will remain on the site until sold.

There can be a seach facility using keywords and such.

The other part of the site is some briliant telephone marketers that can sell. Here in the UK the best sales people are the old double glazing salespersons. These people will not be moved. I have a couple of contacts there with a little interest. SO for that option you pay a little more.

The 3rd option will be to get government funded developers, students in college who want to work in their field. The government in the UK pays most of their wages! They will develope the site for you at a fixed cost which say may be 20% over their costs! SO £200 per week + 20%?

Back to the site idea... This site would also have a subscriber base and we can all contribute articles about domaining and somethings for Joe Public to read. Now for the newsletter you might charge a small fee or you could get targeted advertising banners, but nothing too heavy! Again a subscription could be $39.95 per year just to cover costs and some profit.

Rob at http://searchdomainsforsale.com/ has a nice start but it needs a little work and organisation. Sorry Rob I am a test manager but still an excellent effort and very informative! At least you are out there doing something about it!

This is my 2nd post so these are just ideas as I have only read 2-3 threads including this one.

Thanks for looking

Great thread, I've read this thread fully will be using some ideas and tips very soon. One of the best threads I've read.

RWAC said:

Admittedly I use Gmail, which I need to sort out as per the suggestions above, but at least I've had nothing like that. I do however provide all my details, name, address, telephone numbers etc with a well worded brief letter.

Just had an inquiry come through. Somethings obviously working.

Click to expand...

You can add (up to 5 I believe) POP email accounts to your gmail account. In other words, you can set up your gmail account to accept and send mail from [email protected], in addition to [email protected].

I reg Liatti(dot)com because there is LiattiInsurance(dot).com
and LiveChatHouse(dot)com because .net and .de are living site.
Do they have potetntial buyer?

Sorry for being slightly OT, but is there any difference between potential buyers of domains? I mean, if there is difference between market branches? Is easier to sell domain connected to business, than one connected to pregnancy?

Anybody consider calling a business up over the phone as their primary method of selling to end users?

Like making sales calls?

Just sold my first domain to an end user. Big Event Planning company. They contacted me out of the blue via a parked page. Came at $5000 heard nothing for 4 days emailed back for there asking price. They said $1500 I said $2500 and came down to $2000....I tried to email end users and also other domain owners who own other extensions to my .com but no good..One even said they were a teacher and if I can "donate it" LOL

FSBO = For Sale By Owner
SE = Search Engine *usually

I agree

In my emails to potential end users, I cannot decide if I should do either of the follow....

1. Just list a price. But the con of this is that they might've been willing to pay more.
2. Just say it's "for sale". But then they may not reply due to the fact that they might fear you will ask an outrageous price and so don't even bother with it anyways.
3. List a price, and then "or best offer." Which...kind of sound odd, but I like it.

What does NamePros think?

MildSeven said:

In my emails to potential end users, I cannot decide if I should do either of the follow....

1. Just list a price. But the con of this is that they might've been willing to pay more.
2. Just say it's "for sale". But then they may not reply due to the fact that they might fear you will ask an outrageous price and so don't even bother with it anyways.
3. List a price, and then "or best offer." Which...kind of sound odd, but I like it.

What does NamePros think?

Click to expand...

I agree it's tricky. I try to avoid stating a price too, I like to say I'm "open to a reasonable offer within their budget" It's very personal and at the very least it usually gets me a response with what they can offer or if they have no interest.

I think the problem is so many people may read about domains selling for 1 million every few months in the papers etc that when endusers are contacted by a seller they think they're going to be asked for a ridiculously large amount and just ignore.

brobi said:

There appears to be no more of a mention on the magazine front?

Why not collectively, maybe a few, get a site together. This site will list domains forsale after the user have had an education page first.

Click to expand...

Hi,

Does anyone else think that this idea has merit? I have a domain name that is perfect for such as coop like site, and I am looking for a way to use this domain name. I think it would be possible to build a site that has excellent domain names that may be of real interest to end-users (as opposed to speculative names).

It is actually, something that I have been looking for myself, but I would need broad industry support to make the site worthwhile.

Rich

richrf said:

Hi,

Does anyone else think that this idea has merit? I have a domain name that is perfect for such as coop like site, and I am looking for a way to use this domain name. I think it would be possible to build a site that has excellent domain names that may be of real interest to end-users (as opposed to speculative names).

It is actually, something that I have been looking for myself, but I would need broad industry support to make the site worthwhile.

Rich

Click to expand...

This is similar to what I'm working on for GeoBroker.com - proactive sales and marketing targeted at end users. After the systems and processes are working well we will start taking consignments.

Mark

MarkP said:

This is similar to what I'm working on for GeoBroker.com - proactive sales and marketing targeted at end users. After the systems and processes are working well we will start taking consignments.

Mark

Click to expand...

Will you work on a commision or will you take an upfront fee (consignment)?

Straight commission only - I don't associate 'consignment' with an up front fee.

It looks like a good idea MarkP.

For Links.com, I was thinking about a bid directory for top positions, and then a general directory for of listings of good/excellent generic domains geared toward end-users. If there is a need for this type of site, I would build it, but only if there is broad support. I find that if there isn't broad community support for a site that fulfills a need, it is not worthwhile to build it.

Rich

richrf said:

Hi,

Does anyone else think that this idea has merit? I have a domain name that is perfect for such as coop like site, and I am looking for a way to use this domain name. I think it would be possible to build a site that has excellent domain names that may be of real interest to end-users (as opposed to speculative names).

It is actually, something that I have been looking for myself, but I would need broad industry support to make the site worthwhile.

Rich

Click to expand...

I had a post about this idea awhile back. It wasn't exactly a "coop" under a single site, but rather a large network of "coop" portfolio sites that populated their list of domains for sale from a central DB of all participants.


Domain coop

Whether its in the form I described or a single coop site, I definitely like the idea of putting the power into the hands of the people.

Studies to you

How much traffic?

What's your price range?

Are you looking for .coms, no numbers, no dashes...or are these ok?

What category interests you most?

-Ted

Great tips! Thanks!

What is your success rate with strictly outbound reach to end-users? Out of 100 people you reach out to, how many buy?

-Ted

excellent thread. I want to try setting up auctions at ebay as some have described. Can anyone who sells domains on ebay using these methods share with us what the $ amount of some of your higher sales were? The reason I ask is because in terms of aftermarket sales, i hear through the grapevine that ebay sales tend to be lower on average. So is that just a stereotype and does anyone actually sell domains there for $x,xxx + ?

also I had something else in mind which only one other person in this thread has mentioned. That is, how to target potential end-users that don't yet own websites. The questions I am wondering are, where to find them online (or, how to lead them to you,) and, what ways to target them offline?

I wish I found this place sooner instead of later

You guys have A LOT of great info! My head is spinning with Ideas. I found this place as a fluke! But I'm glad I found it.... I will be reading for hours ... Good thing cuz I'd like to pass the time sitting at this stupid help-desk.

AdoptableDomains said:

I personally have the first impression of many using gmail, hotmail, or yahoo mail for business, as unprofessional and tend to be suspicious. They tend to be thought of as disposable email addresses, and it could be seen as trying to hide behind a free email address. Personally, I think anyone who can't afford $70 a year for a domain and a hosting account for the email as possibly an amateur or a fly-by-night who may not be around long, or a potential scammer or spammer. Although many reputable people do use free email addresses, I think it pays to use a real identifiable address with the name of the business in the domain. If you don't have anything to hide, don't act like you might.

Click to expand...

you know cheers.
it was an obvious one i was overlooking.

sometimes, when i used to contact endusers, i used my own email or from my sales site.

its prob worth setting up a mailbox in your hosting for your best domains you are selling.
its also advertising the domain every time you send the email.

i mean if your selling 'example.com' :hehe:

if you get a mail from sales @example.com and the name 'example' is very relevant to your business, you may just sit up and listen
amongst other things of course
prob is cant do for all names



too much hassle

Generally, the whole "finding an end user" work is mostly an ordeal
While I'm very much in favor of it, if you start doing the math on it, i really start to question the entire idea.
The time investment into finding end users, filtering the right contact person, writing a custom email that's supposed to generate interest, wait for responses, start negotiations, wait for payments to be made...
If you calculate at $20/hr and subtract that to the projected sales price of your domain, i wonder how close you'd actually get to resale price to other domainers.
Don't get me wrong here, i'm not saying that end user sales are a "bad" thing or asks for more investment than warranted.
If you start watching your ROI though, what's the outcome for you?

M.