guide Outbound process for beginners

rohitgoyal said:

Hi All,

A lot of people struggle with outbound or complain about having no sales via inbound or marketplace. Well domaining is not a get rich scheme and it takes lots of time , hard-work , capital and luck to succeed in the same.

Though everyone would love to have xxxxx sales however you cant have such big ticket sales without pouring thousands of dollars and wait for long time for the right end users to approach you. This post is for the beginner who wish to have regular xxx or low xxxx sales and keep their domaining journey going on.

3 words Geo/keyword domains has very low chances of getting sold via landing page or marketplace even if you hold them for years. Such domains can be sold via outbound easily however you have to follow the practice properly.

There are number of steps and factors in the same. I will try to list few of them here for your understanding.

Let me first share the basic..

1. Outbound is a volume game. It may happen that you wont receive any response for your first 20 domains and than your 21st domain may get sold.

2. Price is big factor . $200-$499 is a sweet spot for normal geo domains.

3. Searches and cpc matters in case of Geo/keyword domains and its easier to sell domains with good metrics.

4. Follow up matters a lot as it hardly happens that you would sell domain in your first mail itself.

5. Certain niche sells faster than other niches. Location and country matters a lot as well.

6. One need to have lots of patience and a proper schedule to succeed in outbound.

Now back to the outbound process:-

1. Find leads:- There are basically 5 ways to find lead for your domain.

a) Google.com :- You can find the list of existing companies which are presently ranking for your keyword.You can use semrush.com to get first 100 result of google.com if you wish to avoid manual work.

b) Google map/yellow-pages:- You would find names and details of the companies which are registered for that keyword in that region. For geo domains , google map works better than google.com. There are automated tools which can fetch the google map results .

c) ZFbot.com/Domainiq.com :- Both these tools provide you list of the domain which are related to your domain or have same keyword like yours.

d) Socal media:- LinkedIn etc can be great source for finding potential end user for your domain.

e) Advertisers:- It makes sense to contact the advertisers who are advertising for the keyword of your domain. You can find the list of the same from semrush.com.

2. Finding email id:- There are 3 ways to find email id for the leads you have collected from above sources.

a) Whois.com/whoxy.com :- After gdpr whois is no more openly available however you still find email ids in 20-30% cases as compared to earlier days as few registrars still shows whois detail. Whoxy.com is a portal from where you can fetch whois details in bulk.

b) Hunter.io/adapt.io :- Such paid tools are great way to find email id of potential leads. However be aware that even though they are paid tools but still email id accuracy would be 60-70% only.

c) Website:- Lastly you may directly visit the website and collect email id from there.

3. Sending mails:- This is a tricky step as it is very difficult to send mails these days. Free email id provider like gmail , yahoo etc have strict spam policy and most of your mail would land in the spam folder. Now you have 2 options:-

a) Free email providers:- You can create multiple email ids with free email providers like gmail , yahoo, outlook etc.

b) Logicboxes panel based registrar:- There are some registrar which uses logic-box panel and they provide 2 free email id along with every domain. You would have to set up email id there and use their server to send mail. It works like charm as i have tried Bigrock.com and nettigritty.com.

c) Own server:- You can set up your own smtp server and purchase multiple ip for sending mails. It is a complicated and expensive way so wont be suggested in the initial days.

4. Pricing & follow up:-

a) Pricing:- Pricing plays a very big role especially in case of geo domains and 3 words emd domains. If you price them in $200-500 range than you can easily sell them. If it was a hand registered domain or purchased from go-daddy closeout than its a great roi.

b) Followup :- Now follow up can further be divided into 2 parts:-

1. Initial mail:- Suppose you collected 50 leads of end users for a particular domain and you sent mail to them. You may have received 1-2 response and no response from other leads. You can send a follow up mail after 2-3 weeks as its highly possible that many of them may have missed your initial mail or were out of office. Though never send more than 2 follow ups or else you would be spamming in general. Further be very careful not to send mail again to the same person who has already responded "No".

2. Price inquiry:- You have sent 50 mails and have received 3-4 price inquiry. You have sent them the details regarding the domain as well as your asking price. You should follow up every week or 2 regarding their interest. Under normal circumstances it takes 4-5 follow ups to finally sell a domain. It would hardly happen than you send them price and they immediately closed the deal.

5. Closing the deal:- You again have 3 options in this.

a) Paypal:- You can send a paypal invoice to the client and they can make the payment via them. I personally transfer the domain first and than ask for payment. It has never happened with me that client didn't make payment though their were delays in couple of cases. When you first transfer the domain and than ask for payment than it create trust factor in the eyes of end-users and deal closes faster. This works best in case of xxx deals as your risk factor is low.

b) Escrow :- You can create escrow account and ask the client to complete the transaction via that. Be aware that creating account at escrow is a tedious process and many times deal gets cancelled as end users do not want to take so much of headache. Escrow is recommended in case of xxxx and xxxxx deals and not at all recommended for xxx deals.

c) Marketplace:- If your domain is registered with Godaddy than you can ask the client to directly purchase from there or via landing pages like undeveloped.com. It works very well as these marketplace have high trust factor among the general public.


Some personal suggestions based on my experience of outbound.

1. Registrar:- If your domain is with Godaddy than it is easier to sell them . Godaddy is world's largest registrar and due to their massive advertising campaign everyone is aware about them. Most of the end user have account with godaddy or they dont mind opening account at Godaddy. If your domain is with any other registrar tha always do outbound after 60 days transfer lock is over.

2. Response time:- xxx purchases are normally spontaneous decision and end users immediately pay the same. If you receive a offer or end user agrees to your price than try to close the deal instantly. If you delay than their is high possibility that end user may change their mind or look for alternative options.

3. Related domains:- If you have a singular version than always purchase plural version as well if available. Further in case of Geo domain if you are marketing .com domain than always acquire cctld version of the same to be on safe side.

4. Calling :- If you receive a price inquiry than always try to call up the client as the possibility of leads getting closed increases manifold in case of calls rather than on mail.

5. Promo offer:- If you are into hand registered game than keep a keen eye on promo offers offered by various registrar. If you can grab promo offers for .com at $3-4 range than its always a winning game.

6. Expireddomains.net:- Thousands of domains expire on daily basis and you can find lots of decent domains in daily drop list which can easily be sold in xxx range via outbound.

Last but not the least , there is a very thin line between marketing and spamming and majority of newbies dont understand the difference. Outbound is great to have regular sales and to keep the cash register rolling but most of the time we end up doing spamming. Even though i am into outbound but i am strictly against spamming.

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rohitgoyal said:

4. Yes I follow the same. Whenever client says no that I do enquire about reason for the same. If client says no after I share price than I mention.that price is negotiable and they can share their offer.. I have closed.many deals this way...

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NamesNewbie said:

@rohitgoyal This should come in handy when I next try my hand at outbound again.

However, I don't understand one thing. You talked about calling prospects, but being from India, isn't the accent a problem when calling people in the US or other western countries?

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saj110 said:

@rohitgoyal great post rohit, definitely useful for everyone. thank you so much for sharing

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NamesNewbie said:

@rohitgoyal This should come in handy when I next try my hand at outbound again.

However, I don't understand one thing. You talked about calling prospects, but being from India, isn't the accent a problem when calling people in the US or other western countries?

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rohitgoyal said:

Hi All,

Last but not the least , there is a very thin line between marketing and spamming and majority of newbies dont understand the difference.
Outbound is great to have regular sales and to keep the cash register rolling but most of the time we end up doing spamming.
Even though i am into outbound but i am strictly against spamming.

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biggie said:

Hi

as you say, the majority of newbies don't understand the difference, so perhaps you can elaborate on this "very thin line" that sits between marketing and spamming.

since "outbound" has become domainers' substitute keyword for sending unsolicited emails to unsuspecting victims-
then maybe it would help to clarify what appears to be a contrary statement, as in.....
how can one be against spamming, while engaged in outbound practices?

your post contains some good all in one info, that many newbies ask questions about on the regular, but I find that the final point, needs the most explanation.

Thanks

imo...

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MetBob said:

Such an important point about the difference between spamming and marketing. I would say that if your message is not specific to the company/organization that you are contacting, it is probably spam. It is far better to send 3 outbound messages that show you clearly understand both the field and the organization being contacted than it is to send 30 cookie cutter messages that simply say this is a great domain name that can enhance your business, etc. Also, a reasonable person should think what you are proposing makes sense in being of value to the company. If that is questionable, don't contact them! Use outbound effectively (and the OP helps a lot with that!) but sparingly! Just my humble opinion (as someone who does very little outbound)

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MetBob said:

You mention in the post the difference it meant when you hired a team, and the success that came after that. I was wondering, if you have time, if you could expand on the type of people/skills you looked for in your team hiring, and in particular did they have domain, outbound or both experience. It would also be interesting to know if you differentiate on your team, like do some handle certain topics or geographical regions, or any team member can potentially handle any domain name contact.

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Cdomains said:

Sending unsolicited sales emails could be considered spamming.

That being said, if you are sending highly targeted emails to prospects

that would benefit from owning the domain you are trying to sell

it is less likely to elicit a negative response and so it is less likely

to get you reported for spamming.


The key is to not try and sell sh*t domains to people who would never

want them in the first place.

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rohitgoyal said:

Well all my team members were fresher and they had no idea regarding outbound or domains. I have personally trained all of them. After working for almost a year in outbound , i have developed a process that my work runs mostly on auto mode and each team member know what exactly they have to do.

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Windoms said:

You know you can train them to have success on their own then just train new ones..

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rohitgoyal said:

You raised a valid point and i would share my point of view which may or may not be up-to your expectation.

1. Most of the newbies purchase crap domains and start sending mail for them. As a result it becomes spam as such domains cant be used by anyone.

2. Suppose i have ilawyer.com.. I will goto zfbot.com and i would search for domain with "lawyer" as keyword , now i would receive 10,000 result... I know couple of people who would send out mail to all 10,000 leads which is not the right way to go ahead.

3. I have given strict instruction to my team that if any person ever says "No" than the same person should never receive mail again from our end. We even send apology mail in response and assure them that they wont receive mail from our end again.

These are couple of pointers which we follow and there are few more measures which we take Every company is into marketing and you can even call google and facebook as spammers as they show you advertisements without taking permission from you. Hence i clearly mentioned that there is very thin line between marketing and spamming. Yes those who are into outbound can be termed spammers however difference lies in the precautionary measure they take so that general public or end users do not get harassed.

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Domains - Wanted said:

From all your posts here and before, it sounds like you have a team of the same people working for you. I do outbound myself plus have help from a couple of close relatives. I have been thinking of outsourcing beyond that, as you had done.

Which begs the question: how do you motivate your people to stay with you, instead of taking advantage of the training you gave them and striking out on their own?

While not an issue when dealing with high quality domains requiring substantial upfront financing and risk, you seem to concentrate on handregs (same as I do), with negligible initial cash outlay, however, where the ROI is the highest and consequently most demoralizing to staff

I assume part of the answer is a substantial bonus, commission on each closed sale. Anything else?

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Windoms said:

You know you can train them to have success on their own then just train new ones..

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Domains - Wanted said:

Sure. But good luck with your business if this is your HR strategy

This is unless you are planning on starting a (paid) domaining school on the back of a successful domaining business

I'm happy to share and give free advice to newcomers. However, costly (in terms of both time and money) comprehensive, hands on training, that's something else entirely.

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Haroon Basha said:

@rohitgoyal I salute you for your immense knowledge in domain industry. You are a domain knowledge University.Hats off to you Rohit,

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