Do top company end users actually care about or know the importance of domain names?

Smart people do realize. That's the very basis of this whole industry.

Very well said. You settled the question emphatically.

if it's the greatest, then it will speak for itself

and benefits of owning will be obvious


imo...

Many are clueless.

A company can have Brand+Word+Word.com and you can call them and offer Brand.com and they will say, no thanks we already got our domain.

I have offered Brand.com to BrandUSA.com owner (not actual domains here and no, they don't use "Brand USA" when describing themselves, they use "Brand".) and he said no without even inquiring about price/details etc.

When I have done outbound marketing a common response has been I already have a domain name (even though the domain they have is reg fee quality). This also presents a challenge to the aftermarket for new TLDs. We have just added twelve million new TLD registrations mostly domainers and yet most end users still don't get why they should pay more than $25 for a domain name.

The domain name is part of your busines recognization; and it will always going to be. Bad name, good, reg fee or whatever. For some reason some company that can afford a long term profitable name, they just don't want to spend anything but reg fee. But for those companies that knows the world business behavior, would appreciate a great name and willing to spend more than just reg fee. Just my opinion. Cheer

Simple answer? No.This is based on the various conversations I have had with such executives both online and in person. Someone might have a different experience and therefore a different view about this however. Top executives dont necessarily know about marketing strategy or how online marketing fits into the overall marketing strategy of the company. They have people who worry about that. Depending on various factors, a company might retain an agency, use a consultancy on a pro bono ad hoc basis or have an in-house department to handle their web presence. All of these far removed from the suit at the top. So if you were to meet him and tell him you have a great domain that you think would benefit the company, he does not really know how this works, the most you can hope for is that he agrees to inform the right people under him who are in charge of marketing.

I had an engagement with a large company and had visibility of IT and professional service spending. IT consultants would be billed at $100-$200/hr and the charges for teams of these consultants would run five figures monthly. I saw a charge from Godaddy and looked at what was purchased - several newbie quality reg fee domains (the sort you might find in a drop list and would not even notice) one of which was a .Net. The .COM was for sale low $XXXX at BuyDomains. I tried speaking with some individuals in my area about the error of building on a .Net when you could buy the COM for what they spent on one IT consultant for a few days. My effort was in vain. But even with the .COMs it would not surprise me if they ended up spending six figures to build out projects on poor-quality reg fee domains.