.tv Approaching Endusers for your .tv names

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Hi Folks,

Just wondering how many of you are approaching endusers to sell your .tv names & how has the success been?

I have recently started approaching endusers for a few .tv names, got a few "how much", replied with a price but haven't heard back or had a reply email saying "thanks but too much/not interested". I have been pricing my names in what I consider to be a reasonable price for the enduser based on the name, either in the High $xxx to Low $x,xxx range. In the initial email I do also mention the benefits of .tv -

1. strong keyword domain name can help you rank higher in Google
2. easy for customers to remember if you do TV/Radio/Print/Online advertising

I would also be especially interested in hearing from the .tv veterans who have sold their .tv names to endusers in the past few years. How are you finding the market now with endusers compared to before?

 

[Ammudamus]

Good thread. It's important to understand that the acquiring of a name is one part of the process. The real art is in the negotiation and ability to liquidate/sell a name at a price that is not only a win for you in terms of return, but a win for the end user. It's all about creating a perception that is advantageous for both parties.

Personally, it's a number's game when reaching to end users. You can first look at variations (plural, hyphens, specific category) and reach out to those folks to see if it makes sense. Eventually, there will be a response rate. If you keep it at 100:1, you won't be disappointed when so few do reach out. It's important not to keep expectations high.

Secondly, I feel that you are the loser when throwing out a price. Now, I understand some folks say, well the end user is asking what we will take. Well, continue to probe. Find out what their plans would be and what their reach and breath into the market space is. Can you do some research on the Internet to find out more about the financial foundation and asset base? If you know they have deep pockets, you can play the game a little bit better. You also want to discuss the benefits of owning the name, but also the way it can create a viable business model. This is the key. Throwing some dictionary keyword is a hard position to enroll someone in purchasing the name.

There are many other elements you can look to extracting the most dollar for your name. Remember, the biggest trap is the hope and pray model. I hope I can get XX,XXX for a name. Here is the best example. An end user offers you $5,000 and you ask for $7,500. He tells you he's not interested and you have no back up. You now go back to him/her and salvage the deal. You have now shown an emotional opening and weakness in negotiation. Remember what the $5,000 can do. Can you offset renewals for another year, pay for development or acquire another great name? The idea is to use the least amount of capital with the highest amount of return in the least amount of time.

Make sense?

Thanks,
A

 

[garptrader]

.TV investors know it is easier to find a .TV than a comparable .Net and the .COM was likely registered perhaps 7-10 years ago. IMO the .TV should be priced below the .Net perhaps considerably so. In some cases the .Net registrant may have it underpriced but one should at least look at what alternatives a prospective buyer might have and price competitively. If you want to sell, you shouldn't try to milk every last penny out of the buyer.

I did some limited marketing of .TV domains for several weeks in latter 2009 - no sales. I was only contacting 20-25 end users per domain but did this with enough domains that I'll say current end user demand for .TV at least where I have my domains priced is lacking. Perhaps that could change in 2010. We'll see...

 

[anon22339]

I did some limited marketing of .TV domains for several weeks in latter 2009 - no sales. I was only contacting 20-25 end users per domain but did this with enough domains that I'll say current end user demand for .TV at least where I have my domains priced is lacking.

You also could have done a poor job of marketing. What marketing tactics did you use? How did you use them?

 

[Ammudamus]

Garp,
One would ask the question. If you are not seeing any exits on your names, why do you continue to purchase .TV names?

Best,
A

 

[garptrader]

Some value investors (including Buffett) were buying stocks during the late 2007-9 collapse in stocks with the thought that some day those stocks would trade much higher. Many stocks have bounced sharply off their lows about nine months ago. Of course if you bought certain financials you may have lost 95% of your investment.

 

[Ammudamus]

Garp,
Still doesn't answer the more macro question. How are you managing your portfolio risk? Seems like a lot of folks are hoping one day the market will do well and suddenly their .TV's will have a windfall. I know you mentioned some issues about developing and placement in engines for .TV. I will tell you after speaking to quite a few folks in the industry that there is no evidence that .TV does not place well in search engines like Google. The idea that .com is placed higher is obviously due to the fact that on a whole there are more .com sites indexed. I have seen some .TV sites place very well and are generating traffic with content rich sites.

Secondly, the idea of the registration prices are moot. .TV was at $50 at one point for registering a domain name for a year and it has come to almost half. At a certain point, you just have to factor in X for your invested dollars as a fixed cost unless you trim your portfolio.

In the case of Buffet, he was still exiting other investments to facilitate purchases with his initial capital outlay removed. In any case, each to his own. I just think looking at the extension from a domainer perspective is not a good way to manage one's success.

Best,
A

 

[garptrader]

Amm-Just curious -how are your managing your .TV portfolio - development, direct marketing, ...?

 

[Ammudamus]

Garp,
Great question. I have been fortunate to have had a few sales that have been allowing me to reinvest and pay for renewals for several years. I am now diving into other areas such as CPA, article marketing, development and other forms of building traffic to help generate passive income.

Best,
A

 

[htmlindex]

Some good comments here, especially by Ammudamus in the 2nd post.

Got a question, when you guys send out emails to endusers, do you send them out manually one by one meaning typing in the email address, copying the email subject/text, sending email, then repeating. Or do you have an email software program that can send each email individually where you can just add a bunch of email addresses & the program will send each email message one by one individually?

If you are using an email software program, let us know which ones please. I've been sending out emails individually by hand & it's very time consuming so am looking at ways to speed this up.

 

[Ammudamus]

Typically, I am doing manual inquiries to end users. Again, don't expect much since this is more of a numbers game.

Best,
A

 

[anon22339]

To be effective, I think each email needs to be customized to each end-user, to speak to the heart of how the .tv domain name could solve a specific problem for their organization or transform their business or marketing. It needs to be highly customized to be sincere and the end-users can really tell if you are being sincere or not in your email, believe it or not. All that research and writing takes effort, true, but if you can capture high $x,xxx or even $xx,xxx for your research and writing time, is it not worth it? 2 hours per email x 25 target end-users is 50 labor hours. Say you eventually sell the .tv domain name to the right end-user for $5,000 -- that's $100 per hour you earned. $10,000 would be $200 per hour. And so on. Neither of those rates are chump change.

 

[twomoon]

I'm mainly selling/trying to sell domains to endusers. I'm using simple "normal" template as for .com's and other names. I'm sending individual e-mails. My prices are very liberal (I'm investing only in regular renewal fee domains).
Mainly I'm focusing on European market, because Europeans mostly like .tv's. As for now, nobody asked me what is .tv and why should he buy it

So for me there is no difference is it .tv or .com.