question Do you Lose or Gain in Outbound Marketing?

[dande]

In every business, you lose some and gain some. But it seems that's not really the case with the domain outbound marketing. Most times, we tend to lose more than we gain.

So many potential buyers has been put off or caused to lose interests in domain names they should be chasing after. Human have the tendency to look down on things that is offered to them easily or cheaply.

I've lost potential buyers time and again that I'm deciding never to try it again. How about you?

 

[infosec3]

Okay, guys, the discussion has been great. I will be away from my computer for some time, but wish you all the best in your domain investing, regardless of whether you do outbound or just long-term investment. Both are working for me, but as @iKhalyfah said, maybe it's not for everybody.

 

[PreciousNickia]

I've sold lots of GEO domains through outbound. I have a website and professional email. I take the time to research and pick out decent names. I have numerous tried and tested templates. My pricing never exceeds $349, which I think is reasonable for any business owner. I've spoke with tons of end users on the phone. I have a system in place and would like to think I work very hard when I market my domains. The problem is GEO domains (unless they're really good or have traffic) do not provide a solution. That's what business owners want. That's the core of cold outreach. Local business owners do not want domains. They want customers. NYPlumbingService.com, PhoenixHVACContractor.com and DivorceLawyerVirginiaBeach.com will not bring more customers, no matter how hard I try to pitch them. If you want a cleaner name like MiamiPlumber.com, expect to pay minimum mid $$$ and test how easy it is to flip that.

I've had times where I made $1000 in one week, but made nothing the next month or 2. When you sell 3-5 in a week, you feel euphoric. You get pumped up which is understandable, but it's really not worth the effort. It does work but it's too sporadic. Time is valuable. The time you spend marketing 10 domains to sell 1 could've been used to do something more productive and worthwhile. It's not a good business model and only sustainable if you're doing it on a large scale a.k.a hard core spamming. That's why I'm slowly floating away from this model of domaining.

I'm not a person who gives up. I just value my time and I won't torture myself with outbound for a month without a sale, to make $700 the next month.

FYI - I'm only speaking for GEO domains. I've had better luck with category defining domains.

 

[dande]

Both are working for me, but as @iKhalyfah said, maybe it's not for everybody.

Maybe you'd consider sharing the magic wand. Because as far as I'm concerned, the easiest way to devalue a domain is to outbound it to end users, even to Domainers!

 

[iKhalyfah]

I've had times where I made $1000 in one week, but made nothing the next month or 2. When you sell 3-5 in a week, you feel euphoric. You get pumped up which is understandable, but it's really not worth the effort. It does work but it's too sporadic. Time is valuable. The time you spend marketing 10 domains to sell 1 could've been used to do something more productive and worthwhile. It's not a good business model and only sustainable if you're doing it on a large scale a.k.a hard core spamming. That's why I'm slowly floating away from this model of domaining.

I'm not a person who gives up. I just value my time and I won't torture myself with outbound for a month without a sale, to make $700 the next month.

YOU HAVE PERFECTLY DESCRIBED MY SITUATION TOO! Wow!

So true, make sales this month, the next nothing. Of course with inbound method of domaining the case is similar, but at least you are not expecting, and more importantly, you are not investing much time and gathering pressure and frustration on yourself, i mean, imagine making 12 outbound sales in a month, and the next you made nothing, you will definitely be frustrated.

I'm also designing my blueprint to gradually go away from outbounding, or at least not depend on like i do now.

 

[FolioTeam]

I voted "No, even with the Best Strategy".

I don't do outbound simply because I value my time. Outbound is never worth the effort I know most folks put into it and it's really not the type of activity that juggles well with a full-time job.

More importantly, outbound is one sure-fire way to devalue a domain, IMHO. Imagine trying to sell the recent $200,000 Shop.app via outbound.

 

[iKhalyfah]

Imagine trying to sell the recent $200,000 Shop.app via outbound.

Good point.

I don't do outbound simply because I value my time.

Your inbound-esque portfolio, most at brandable marketplaces like BB, SH? Or General marketplace like Afternic, Dan? Or your own lander? Thanks

 

[PreciousNickia]

More importantly, outbound is one sure-fire way to devalue a domain, IMHO. Imagine trying to sell the recent $200,000 Shop.app via outbound.

I understand what you're saying, but we're not talking about good domains that sell themselves. The reason why we do outbound is because we know that we hold hand registered GEO domains that will not sell without outbound. We aren't devaluing them when we outbound, but more so increasing the chances of a sale because otherwise they wouldn't sell.

 

[Minimie]

Interesting discussion over here,You guys should give the gist flowing. But on a serious note at least try to profer possible solution. Out binding was my real headache.For those that are successful with it I am sure you guys have one or two things right pls what's the secret? But I personally believe your letter have a greater influence to some extent..

 

[Rich]

Interesting discussion over here,You guys should give the gist flowing. But on a serious note at least try to profer possible solution. Out binding was my real headache.For those that are successful with it I am sure you guys have one or two things right pls what's the secret? But I personally believe your letter have a greater influence to some extent..

I think the solution is evident, buy domains that are sought after or sell themselves. Find your niche, like DNGear or Federer, xyz or hyphens. There is a lot of great content in the threads below if you want tips for pursuing end users.I don't generally right a whole paragraph when out-bounding, only on follow up if needed to educate potential buyer. "less [desperation] is more" https://www.namepros.com/threads/popular-domain-sales-content.1027781/ https://www.namepros.com/threads/how-to-find-potential-end-users.68798/ https://www.namepros.com/threads/end-user-email-samples-and-email-templates.853589/

 

[FolioTeam]

Good point.

Your inbound-esque portfolio, most at brandable marketplaces like BB, SH? Or General marketplace like Afternic, Dan? Or your own lander? Thanks

I don't like the exclusivity of BB, SH and co. But I do see the need for them.

I list with Afternic and Dan

 

[dande]

The reason why we do outbound is because we know that we hold hand registered GEO domains that will not sell without outbound. We aren't devaluing them when we outbound, but more so increasing the chances of a sale because otherwise they wouldn't sell

Well, as for me, I do outbound with really good names. Or should I say, I used to do outbound with really good name, cos I don't think I'll ever attempt it again.

 

[Samer]

I don't like the exclusivity of BB, SH and co. But I do see the need for them.

I list with Afternic and Dan

SH allow u list with Afternic if you pay $2 once.
SH auto submit premium Sedo no-cost to you

BB allows list Sedo under “seller preferences.”

Even “exclusive” kno “exclusively” can backfire
all need each other Squadhelp most innovative

 

[gilescoley]

The main thing to consider with this qestion is whether you are selling to other domainers/investors or to end-users.

Sitting on names without doing any outbound is not giong to work unless you have premium names or at least really good names. You wont be making regular sales to end-users if you just put up a "For Sale" sign or park the name, you have to actively look for end-users.

Now selling to domainers, thats a different ball game and you can sell names regularly if you have some decent names and put up a "For Sale" sign. The sales prices will never be near what end-user sales prices are but its still good to make sales and reinvest that cash into more names.

You dont get true reflection here because some might be talking about 10 domains sold to other domainers on NP or Godaddy for $50 or $100 each and others might be talking about 3 xx,xxx end-users sales.

You really need 2 threads for this..

1) Do you Lose or Gain in Outbound Marketing to end-users?
2) Do you Lose or Gain in Outbound Marketing to fellow domainers?

Just my opinion

 

[7363824]

SH allow u list with Afternic if you pay $2 once.
SH auto submit premium Sedo no-cost to you

BB allows list Sedo under “seller preferences.”

Even “exclusive” kno “exclusively” can backfire
all need each other Squadhelp most innovative

Last I checked BB sedo listing is though their Sedo account so you aren't paying the sedo commission you are still paying the BB commission.

SH slightly better but you shouldn't have to pay to be able to list elsewhere and you shouldn't be forced to use their landing pages to pay their extreme commission on sales from your own traffic.

Until there is a brandable marketplace that does it right, no exclusivity, no forcing you to use their landers I stay away from them.

 

[CamMK27]

Its my main method of selling. Outbound accounts for around 70% of my sales.

My inbound sales are the bigger sales in general but I get regular low to high x,xxx with outbound.

What kind of domains are you selling for low to high $x,xxx figures? Care to share your method/strategy in a separate thread possibly?

Thanks in advance.

 

[gilescoley]

What kind of domains are you selling for low to high $x,xxx figures? Care to share your method/strategy in a separate thread possibly?

Thanks in advance.

Most of my sales in tech names, holo, VR, AR, Drones, Robotics, Cloud etc...I do get into the tech name early, before they become mainstream and try get a bunch of the best names in the niche and just hold them until the tech has ripened. I have held some tech names (mainly cloud) for over 12 or 13 years before I sold them.

The #1 most important thing is to contact the right person at the company, the decision maker....

Check the company exec team on their website, Google, Bloomberg, Yahoo finance etc and find someone who can make the call on whether to buy the name (ie the business development manager, CEO etc). For example, If you Google "Cisco Executive team" for instance, it comes up with this - https://newsroom.cisco.com/exec-bios, so its not hard to find the right person. If you Google "Cisco Email format", it comes up with this - https://rocketreach.co/cisco-email-format_1063

So its not hard figure out the person's email either. I find LinkedIn a very useful resource for this and to find out the founder or CEO's name.

For smaller companies that may not be in Bloomberg or Yahoo Finance etc, sometimes you can google something like "company name CEO" or look on LinkedIn and then find the persons name and then work out the email from there. You can search a company on LinkedIn and then click "People" down the left hand side and it will show you a list of people who work there with their job titles.

This is just what works for me and can be tweaked to suit yourself

1) Email end-users with a short to-the-point email offering them your name

2) Only offer the name you want them to buy, dont spam them with "If you dont like that name, what about this other list of 500 names I have....."

3) Ensure you have a decision-maker in the company, DONT just use the WHOIS email, most of the time it will get ignored/deleted - Use LinkedIn, Bloomberg, yahoo Finance, Company site, Google etc to find out who the CEO, Business Development Manager is and contact them directly. You can also find the email by looking at their website or just google "@companyname.com" and you usually find someoneone from the company has their email in Google somewhere, then you have the email format.

4) Be patient, they dont always reply straight away (if at all) - Don't flood them with emails if they dont reply.

5) Be polite and professional at all times, thank them for their time if they aren't interested, you never know if they might need/want the name later on.

6) Use Escrow for sales, it provides them with a level of security when dealing with someone they dont know, especially if you have contacted them first.

7) Send an email after the Escrow transaction asking them if they have the name in their account, thank them for their time, wish them all the best in the future etc...Politeness and professionalism goes a long way in this industry, especially with the all the scammers online these days.

Hope that helps, good luck

 

[iKhalyfah]

you are guaranteed to sell 3 out of 10 names on average with decent returns

I tend to disagree with this.
I don't think you are GUARANTEED 30 sales out of a portfolio of 100 "decent" geos.
Yes , one may hit the figure or even pass it, but not GUARANTEED

 

[Tunababa8v]

I tend to disagree with this.
I don't think you are GUARANTEED 30 sales out of a portfolio of 100 "decent" geos.
Yes , one may hit the figure or even pass it, but not GUARANTEED

While you might be right that I might have overflogged the use of the word "guaranteed" , You still would want to agree that selling 30% of "exceptional geo+service domains is possible. We see people doing it here. This might depends on a lot of factor and hardwork being the utmost of these, though in geo outbounding there is a thin line between hardwork and spamming though. If I receive the same volume of mails I sent to endusers during outbounds, I would definitely marked it as spam.

Other factors also includes how long you are willing to keep the names as most outbounded names doesnt sell immediately you pitch them to buyers. I have had names that was purchased 7 months after outbounding it. I have had ones that sold in just 3 hours. At the end of a year, I noticed I have sold 30% of my outbounded names. This is a personal experience though. And to add, I started doing better when I used your sales letter

 

[iKhalyfah]

though in geo outbounding there is a thin line between hardwork and spamming though. If I receive the same volume of mails I sent to endusers during outbounds, I would definitely marked it as spam.

Thank you for mentioning that.

At the end of a year, I noticed I have sold 30% of my outbounded names.

I agree. I myself have sold over 30% of my geos, thou the calculation stands as at 9months. I agree people have a lot of success with outbound. From my records, i have made 600% of my investment on Geos, someone might call that a success. But then, like i stated earlier, BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN WORKING FOR ME DOESN'T MEAN OTHERS ARE DOING IT ENTIRELY WRONG. It shows geo outbound isn't actually the ideal strategy since generally, people have no success with it.

 

[iKhalyfah]

I have had names that was purchased 7 months after outbounding it. I have had ones that sold in just 3 hours.

I too. As at right now i have couple of names that i wasn't able to sell in few hours or days, but i still believe in few months they would be sold. Hopefully

 

[dande]

Most of my sales in tech names, holo, VR, AR, Drones, Robotics, Cloud etc...I do get into the tech name early, before they become mainstream and try get a bunch of the best names in the niche and just hold them until the tech has ripened. I have held some tech names (mainly cloud) for over 12 or 13 years before I sold them.

The #1 most important thing is to contact the right person at the company, the decision maker....

Check the company exec team on their website, Google, Bloomberg, Yahoo finance etc and find someone who can make the call on whether to buy the name (ie the business development manager, CEO etc). For example, If you Google "Cisco Executive team" for instance, it comes up with this - https://newsroom.cisco.com/exec-bios, so its not hard to find the right person. If you Google "Cisco Email format", it comes up with this - https://rocketreach.co/cisco-email-format_1063

So its not hard figure out the person's email either. I find LinkedIn a very useful resource for this and to find out the founder or CEO's name.

For smaller companies that may not be in Bloomberg or Yahoo Finance etc, sometimes you can google something like "company name CEO" or look on LinkedIn and then find the persons name and then work out the email from there. You can search a company on LinkedIn and then click "People" down the left hand side and it will show you a list of people who work there with their job titles.

This is just what works for me and can be tweaked to suit yourself

1) Email end-users with a short to-the-point email offering them your name

2) Only offer the name you want them to buy, dont spam them with "If you dont like that name, what about this other list of 500 names I have....."

3) Ensure you have a decision-maker in the company, DONT just use the WHOIS email, most of the time it will get ignored/deleted - Use LinkedIn, Bloomberg, yahoo Finance, Company site, Google etc to find out who the CEO, Business Development Manager is and contact them directly. You can also find the email by looking at their website or just google "@companyname.com" and you usually find someoneone from the company has their email in Google somewhere, then you have the email format.

4) Be patient, they dont always reply straight away (if at all) - Don't flood them with emails if they dont reply.

5) Be polite and professional at all times, thank them for their time if they aren't interested, you never know if they might need/want the name later on.

6) Use Escrow for sales, it provides them with a level of security when dealing with someone they dont know, especially if you have contacted them first.

7) Send an email after the Escrow transaction asking them if they have the name in their account, thank them for their time, wish them all the best in the future etc...Politeness and professionalism goes a long way in this industry, especially with the all the scammers online these days.

Hope that helps, good luck

I really learned new things from this. Thanks @gilescoley for this detailed explanation.

I've tried Linkdin direct messages to the right persons but all I got were either "Not Interested" or no reply.

 

[King]

Tried outbound in 2018, got about 4 ignores, 4 no thanks, & finally got an offer of 1000 but I wanted 3000, I then said sure, he then replied with a bunch of domains that were similar but cheaper... never heard from him again.

 

[Joe N]

There has been a lot of mention of geo names in this thread, but I've personally had a lot more success with exact match product and service .com names.

If you can reach out to a decision-maker in a company, with a name that matches a core service or product that they offer, you're providing them with the opportunity to build online authority and drive future customers to their site. That's huge to any CEO or exec that understands the value of domains.

I also completely disagree with the notion that you devalue your names by contacting buyers proactively. The key is to know your bottom-line price in advance and not budge from it. The worst thing that will happen is that you have another good name to hold long-term in your profile, and you've provided some good prospects with the knowledge that it's available.

 

[PreciousNickia]

There has been a lot of mention of geo names in this thread, but I've personally had a lot more success with exact match product and service .com names.

If you can reach out to a decision-maker in a company, with a name that matches a core service or product that they offer, you're providing them with the opportunity to build online authority and drive future customers to their site. That's huge to any CEO or exec that understands the value of domains.

I also completely disagree with the notion that you devalue your names by contacting buyers proactively. The key is to know your bottom-line price in advance and not budge from it. The worst thing that will happen is that you have another good name to hold long-term in your profile, and you've provided some good prospects with the knowledge that it's available.

Totally agree. I've had far better luck with contacting CEOs with exact match domains over local business owners with GEO domains... It was because of you and your sales that I actually started to look more into EMDs, so thank you for your contributions on this forum @infosec3 & @Federer motivated me to flip GEOs, so kudos to them as well.

 

[Akhuetie Oziegbe]

@iKhalyfah
I see what you mean. But the key is that if you develop the skill of picking names that end-users want and price them right, you will substantially increase the response rate. After you have done this for some time, you learn which keywords are hot sellers and which are not. For example, if I get my hands on a popular US city + Plumber, Locksmith or Photographer, believe me, those are quick sales.

You have to fully understand the flipping business and do it right to prevent wasting your time. My point is that you will only be wasting your time if you are doing it wrong.

I have BramptonPhotographer, AttleboroPlumber, AlleghenyPlumber( I even bought AlleghenyPlumbing too) and no sales now for about 7months, despite outbounding. So that's the point. It's neither here nor there!