strategy How to Find Potential End Users?

[shilmy]

Hi,

Do any of you has regularly sell your domain to end users? If so, do you mind share with me in this thread on how find potential end users for your domain?

Regards,
Sjarief

 

[matrigaldo]

Let's say i'm currently using one of my Gmail account to send out some end-user inquiries, how many emails i can send every day without having my account flagged as spammer?
Until now i never went over 10-15 emails per day, always tried to make some customization and not sending over the same email, spending few minutes / hours between them.

 

[Shadowh86]

i have aftermarket car parts domain. Should i contact every potential buyer that is in aftermarket car parts or every buyer that sells cars?

 

[Pattern]

Anybody got an answer for this?

Let's say i'm currently using one of my Gmail account to send out some end-user inquiries, how many emails i can send every day without having my account flagged as spammer?
Until now i never went over 10-15 emails per day, always tried to make some customization and not sending over the same email, spending few minutes / hours between them.

 

[Jeeps]

I think it's 500 but could be wrong...

 

[Kate]

If you have to ask, that means you are about to do something wrong.
You might have to reconsider your spamming marketing strategy.

 

[matrigaldo]

If you have to ask, that means you are about to do something wrong.
You might have to reconsider your spamming marketing strategy.

Not necessarly.
See, i'm not having this kind of issues since months, figured out some ways to make a good and profitable marketing strategy (using some paid and serious services), but i've always had this doubt.

 

[Josh R]

Ok. I would like a straight up answer from someone who knows what they are talking about.

Should you reach out to end-users or not? Simple enough question.

I have had so many people tell me that domains don't sell themselves anymore and you MUST go out and find potential end-users.

On the other hand I am hearing more and more of people saying NOT to reach out to end-users because it's SPAM.. I personally feel that if the person your emailing could legitimately benefit from your name then it's not really spam.

 

[Rick Ace]

A better question than "How to Find Potential End Users" would be "How to allow potential end users to find YOU". That is always a better approach. :P

 

[Kate]

Good names sell for themselves. If your names are good, end users will come to you. BUT you will have to be patient, even be prepared to hold and renew your names for several years. But you will be in a much better position, because the end user needs your domain, more than you need to sell.

If you "must" contact an end user, the name your are offering to them must be significantly better than what they are currently using. That sounds obvious, but I have seen domainers peddling atrocities. They make us look like fools and dreamers.

 

[Loko]

Good names sell for themselves. If your names are good, end users will come to you. BUT you will have to be patient, even be prepared to hold and renew your names for several years. But you will be in a much better position, because the end user needs your domain, more than you need to sell.

If you "must" contact an end user, the name your are offering to them must be significantly better than what they are currently using. That sounds obvious, but I have seen domainers peddling atrocities. They make us look like fools and dreamers.

I agree on this but if you only own a handful of good domains and have a few inquiries per year then you may be inclined to accelerate things a little bit by being proactive and contact endusers.

 

[matrigaldo]

Good names sell for themselves. If your names are good, end users will come to you. BUT you will have to be patient, even be prepared to hold and renew your names for several years. But you will be in a much better position, because the end user needs your domain, more than you need to sell.

If you "must" contact an end user, the name your are offering to them must be significantly better than what they are currently using. That sounds obvious, but I have seen domainers peddling atrocities. They make us look like fools and dreamers.

Well, i disagree. Not completely, because yes, very good names don't need any kind of marketing, but most of the time these good names attract domainers and investors more than end-users.
Sometimes a non-aggressive marketing campaign would be profitable. As told, few emails per day, not every day, to those companies or businesses with poor domain names or looooong one. It works especially for geo-targeted domain names imho.
Like, i don't know, think about [CITY]realty.com for example, where [CITY] is a big US city.
There are literally hundreds of real estate agency and businesses with poor domain like [CITY]realtybecauseyoulikeit.com or [CITY]etcetcetcrealty.com or [CITY]-realty-luxury-great.com.
They work, they have their own businesses running, sometimes they're having positive profits even with a very poor domain and a 90's styled website mostly because they have a solid offline reputation or something.
Often they tend to forget how important would be having a short and a direct domain, so even if your domain is a gem, they would never care about it.
If they are smart, mentioning the domain name in a short and direct email would be enough to convince them (if the price is reasonable).
If they aren't, well, nevermind.

 

[Loko]

Often they tend to forget how important would be having a short and a direct domain, so even if your domain is a gem, they would never care about it.

It's surprising how some companies are not interested in a good domain name. I used to own a great generic two word domain and there happened to be a company having this exact name, even displayed on their vans. They were absolutely not interested in buying the domain from me. They were using some phonetic and hyphened domains instead and I was asking for a reasonable $xxx at the time.

 

[matrigaldo]

It's surprising how some companies are not interested in a good domain name. I used to own a great generic two word domain and there happened to be a company having this exact name, even displayed on their vans. They were absolutely not interested in buying the domain from me. They were using some phonetic and hyphened domains instead and I was asking for a reasonable $xxx at the time.

Exactly.
Same here. The realty example is strictly related to one of my domain names.
Dozens of real estate agencies and businesses have my exact domain as main name like everywhere on their website and social media but still they prefer to keep their [city]realtyblablabla sometimes with numbers and hyphens (the owner of [city]123realty4.com DECLINED my mid $xxx offer, they place "[city] Realty " everywhere and according to the apparences, they have a very profitable business, but still... ).

All this reminds me thought about my local area (south Italy) where all the businesses don't consider internet as a solution and a way to improve (or sometimes save) their revenues. They barely do any traditional advertising, but then complain on how static is the economy etc. They just... survive.

 

[infosec3]

Ok. I would like a straight up answer from someone who knows what they are talking about.

Should you reach out to end-users or not? Simple enough question.

I have had so many people tell me that domains don't sell themselves anymore and you MUST go out and find potential end-users.

On the other hand I am hearing more and more of people saying NOT to reach out to end-users because it's SPAM.. I personally feel that if the person your emailing could legitimately benefit from your name then it's not really spam.

Those that say that good names sell themselves are only partly right, because that is not always the case. In many cases, it takes an email to inform an end-user that a domain he did not know was for sale is in fact ready to be acquired and that his business would greatly benefit from acquring it.

When sending emails to potential end-users, there are several things to consider. I am not an attorney, but as long as you comply with the anti-spam legislation requirements, which includes not disguising your identity, puting your contact information and allowing the recipient the possibility of unsubscribing from your emails, you are not doing something illegal.

Now, there are people who object emailing potential buyers, not on the basis of the legality of doing so, but on ethical grounds, but that is a different matter.

The truth is that if you have the type of names that would sell between $250 and $1000, for example, certain City+Service or City+Product names, waiting for offers may mean never selling them. So, you must make a choice.

Even more valuable names sometimes require approaching people. Now, having said that, I honestly prefer the passive approach and have used a proactive approach only when I realized I had no choice.

I have sold a substantial number of geo names that fall under the above-mentioned category and sold many of those as a result of contacting end-users one by one. But some time ago I started buying more valuable names due in part precisely to the fact that sending emails to potential clients is not something I enjoy.

 

[Icenevermelts]

...

 

[Weber]

Since the financial crisis in 2008, the economy is supposedly getting better and the stock markets have recovered and been on a Fed induced mania for years, yet domain speculation beyond certain categories, languishes in comparison. Now Icann and some of your more affluent domain competitors are "dumping" billions of potential product onto the market. Dot com or not, that just doesn't seem to be the ideal environment to wait for someone to find you.

 

[Weber]

An enduser reached me and says he wants to buy my HomeBuyersInc dot com domain. What is the fair price tag to give him? He asked if I am still the owner and how much I want. I don't want to scare him off yet want to make some $...

I saw a couple of sales for homebuyers.net and org in 2007/2008 at around $2,300. For many, the inc lowers the value, but for not so much for an enduser. No one wants to scare off potential buyers, but you have to stand your ground if you want a decent return. I've gotten quite good at scaring off buyers, lol.

This reminds me of a blog article I saw today, with the title, "To make 7 figure sales, one has to turn down 6 figure offers."

 

[RaiderGirl]

Now Icann and some of your more affluent domain competitors are "dumping" billions of potential product onto the market. Dot com or not, that just doesn't seem to be the ideal environment to wait for someone to find you.

In most cases you lose a substantial amount of leverage when you contact an end user, And with GTLD's, you have almost no leverage at all, unless its a super strong keyword domain, but most of those are kept in reserve and auctioned off for ridiculous amounts of money, making it a much harder sell.

 

[AEProgram]

It's surprising how some companies are not interested in a good domain name. I used to own a great generic two word domain and there happened to be a company having this exact name, even displayed on their vans. They were absolutely not interested in buying the domain from me. They were using some phonetic and hyphened domains instead and I was asking for a reasonable $xxx at the time.

some people feel upset as in how dare you have their name and for the sake of not giving you any satisfaction even if all you want is a few pennies they rather stick with a domain that is completely junk.

 

[TravisS]

If your reaching out to end users, on a less than satisfactory domain (in YOUR opinion)....always be more than nice. I've lost a few deals from offending the buyers hahahahaaaaa. My go-to line...."What would you like to see on your business card?"

Gets them every time. @RaiderGirl. 100% agree. Outgoing offers are always a little awkward.

One key of advice. ALWAYS build a solid relationship w/ a buyer. They're likely NOT to tell you they are interested in more, but.... if you treat them right. They will come back. Never treat a buyer like he/she's a one-time customer.

 

[Maxwell]

IF the domain, realistically, is worth $10K, never sell it for $500...

Thanks Caption Obvious

 

[matrigaldo]

I add:
If you think the domain worths $10k but you keep receiving $500 offers, question yourself.

 

[gene438]

I believe you have to reach out to end users..particularly with EMD's

 

[tk]

With hundreds of TLDs now coming up , I have seldom found success when finding potential buyers. These things used to work some years back. Unless its a .com or .net domain which has low recurring price other TLDs generally dont get much response.

 

[Edward Smeu]

Have you tried selling on facebook/twitter/etc so far? How did it go?