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

 

[zaidis]

There are a lot of scammers there. Just watch out

 

[teatime]

Very good suggestions here.
The Linkedin idea makes a lot of sense, too.
I received a well-written email from a seller the other day, incorporating many o f the best ideas on this thread. Impressive & didn't have the odor of spam at all.

 

[bgmv]

How would you respond to this? I have been getting alot of responses like this:

"Thanks but I don't need the .com. I'm not a web based business and my cards are printed .net which works just fine for us.
thanks"

 

[Gene]

How would you respond to this? I have been getting alot of responses like this:

"Thanks but I don't need the .com. I'm not a web based business and my cards are printed .net which works just fine for us.
thanks"

Make them aware that someone will own this domain, most likely their competitor. Explain that most people type in ".COM", even when they see .net, so they will lose visitors to their competition.

 

[DomainBuyerBroker]

In a nice way, thank them for the traffic because when people get back to their computer they are going to type in the .com and forget the .net.

The more they market the .net, the more traffic the .com will get.

The more they develop the .net, the more they will need the .com in the future.

The more they market and develop the .com, the more money you will charge for the .com in the future.

So, seriously, thank them for developing the .net.

 

[bgmv]

Thats exactly the type of response I gave them, here it is:

"That’s not a problem at all. But I must tell you for the duration I have owned the domain it has received about 2-5 visitors a day, this may be due to users looking for the previous site or users trying to find your site, thinking it is a .com. Owning the .com version of your domain will allow you to expose those 2-5 visitors a day to your business. I will lower the asking price to $75, if you are interested at this price please let me know."

I just dont understand why people wont fork up $75 to better their business. I mean $75!!! My original asking price was $195 and I dropped it, that in itself should have warranted a sale...some people just dont understand

 

[copper]

Is that domain that bad?
$75?

Also, you are dropping your price more than 50% in one shot?

Anyway, within your response, you can add...
.com can easily be forwarded to .net

Thats exactly the type of response I gave them, here it is:

"That’s not a problem at all. But I must tell you for the duration I have owned the domain it has received about 2-5 visitors a day, this may be due to users looking for the previous site or users trying to find your site, thinking it is a .com. Owning the .com version of your domain will allow you to expose those 2-5 visitors a day to your business. I will lower the asking price to $75, if you are interested at this price please let me know."

I just dont understand why people wont fork up $75 to better their business. I mean $75!!! My original asking price was $195 and I dropped it, that in itself should have warranted a sale...some people just dont understand

 

[d0main]

I don't think that type of response will attract a positive response at all. It's almost as if you were taking their rightful traffic hostage.

 

[bgmv]

Is that domain that bad?
$75?

Also, you are dropping your price more than 50% in one shot?

Anyway, within your response, you can add...
.com can easily be forwarded to .net

I mean the domain is XxxxXxxxStudios.com, they own the .net. It wouldnt have any reseller value - they would pretty much be the only ones interested...plus im just trying to make some money on my hand reg :blink:

 

[copper]

I mean the domain is XxxxXxxxStudios.com, they own the .net. It wouldnt have any reseller value - they would pretty much be the only ones interested...plus im just trying to make some money on my hand reg :blink:

ok, I get it

 

[pcp]

How would you respond to this? I have been getting alot of responses like this:

"...I'm not a web based business...

I sold Yellow Pages online advertising a while back and often got this objection.
I'd respond with something like:
"That's right, you don't have an effective internet presence at the moment and people looking online for a (plumber) are finding and using your competitors - you're missing out on all that online business..."

 

[JoshuaPz]

How would you respond to this? I have been getting alot of responses like this:

"Thanks but I don't need the .com. I'm not a web based business and my cards are printed .net which works just fine for us.
thanks"

I used to reply with a polite e-mail explaining that these cases are extremely common and the simple workaround is to forward the .com URL to their existing site at [theirdomain].net. Personally I wouldn't use Rob's or Gene's approaches because -- even though the information contained therein might be true -- end-users tend of find these e-mail very condescending, any they reinforce public perception of domainers as money-grubbing cybersquatters.

In my opinion the owner's message that the domain isn't worth $195 to them because historically they've generated no leads via the web is very legitimate. Even though it represents short-term view, for purposes of their brick-and-mortar style of operation forking out $195 for a domain name differs little from chucking $195 in the garbage pail.

Lately I've simply responded to these folks with "I wish you all the best" and proceed to move on. There are many more fish in the sea and it's not worth your self-respect to condescend to slashing your price from $195 to $75. The dramatic cut might even make your candidate suspect something.

I HAVE, however, whipped up a very successful and didactic response to the "I paid $70 to register my domain for 3 years, why should I pay $450 for yours?" type of feedback. If anyone is interested I'll post that response here. It has resulted in a nice sale every time I've used it.

 

[NP41215]

Lately I've simply responded to these folks with "I wish you all the best" and proceed to move on. There are many more fish in the sea and it's not worth your self-respect to condescend to slashing your price from $195 to $75. The dramatic cut might even make your candidate suspect something.

I HAVE, however, whipped up a very successful and didactic response to the "I paid $70 to register my domain for 3 years, why should I pay $450 for yours?" type of feedback. If anyone is interested I'll post that response here. It has resulted in a nice sale every time I've used it.

Yes, Joshua, please post your didactic response.

Thanks very much in advance for all the help and advice.

NP

You can use a service like aweber.com or constantcontact.com, they have deals with email providers that they will not be marked by spam. Both services have a 30-60 day free trial

Hi, Patrick,

For Aweber, don't you need to have the recipient opt-in first? In other words, you cannot just enter their information and send an unsolicited, even though customized/personalized email, if I understand how Aweber works (not that I have an Aweber account), or am I wrong about this?

Thanks in advance for sharing your insight on this.

NP

Very good suggestions here.
The Linkedin idea makes a lot of sense, too.
I received a well-written email from a seller the other day, incorporating many o f the best ideas on this thread. Impressive & didn't have the odor of spam at all.

Hi, Teatime,

Could you kindly create a template containing that seller's sales pitch and post it here so we can all take a look and possibly give some feedback?

Thanks in advance,

NP

 

[ripley]

Hi all,

Here's a tip I've picked up on while working enduser sales. Everybody knows it's preferable to get your email into the hands of a decisionmaker rather than a gatekeeper (i.e., a CEO or VP of sales rather than a receptionist or assistant). That's what makes sending solicitations to [email protected] or [email protected] less than ideal. Sometimes, though, that's all you have to go on.

However, I've found that sometimes -- especially at small to medium-sized firms that have been around at least a couple of years -- you can find a better email address by using DomainTools' domain history function. This requires you to pay a small monthly fee, however I've been successful at using the domain history function to find personalized emails that otherwise aren't available on their websites.

The other thing it's useful for is ensuring that you aren't marketing a domain to the same people who just let it expire. This is particularly handy when your pool of potential buyers is small.

ripley.

 

[Kate]

The other thing it's useful for is ensuring that you aren't marketing a domain to the same people who just let it expire.

Good point indeed :music:

 

[JoshuaPz]

Great tip, ripley. I've seen this one elsewhere but this is the first time I've confirmed this technique leading to greater prospects for success. By any chance have you computed statistical data on your response rate when using [email protected] versus the decision maker's e-mail address you uncovered via DomainTools?

Every serious domainer should absolutely subscribe to DomainTools Gold. No exceptions (IMHO).

Whoever's inbox is located at [email protected] should now prepare for a barrage of Nigerian scam e-mails

 

[bgmv]

Nice tip rip!

Just completed another sale today:

Tektite dot net = $300, not bad for a $7 hand reg!

 

[ripley]

Great tip, ripley. I've seen this one elsewhere but this is the first time I've confirmed this technique leading to greater prospects for success. By any chance have you computed statistical data on your response rate when using [email protected] versus the decision maker's e-mail address you uncovered via DomainTools?

I haven't, no, and it wouldn't be enough in any case to be statistically significant probably. But, anecdotally I've seen responses come from those email addresses rather than someone manning info@ enough for me to keep doing the legwork via DomainTools' history command.

Way to go bgmv. Love to hear peoples' success stories. I'm close to wrapping up another sale myself of $175; transfer done, just awaiting payment. People sure pay slower than I would prefer sometimes.

ripley.

 

[The Stealthy One]

Nice tip rip!

Just completed another sale today:

Tektite dot net = $300, not bad for a $7 hand reg!

Congrats on that! Like you say, that is definitely not bad at all. :D

 

[JoshuaPz]

Yes, Joshua, please post your didactic response.

Thanks very much in advance for all the help and advice.

NP

Here you go. I've left all information intact except the recipient's name:

===

Hi [...],

I appreciate the inquiry. It's important to realize that domain names are not much unlike real estate. As a case in point, it might cost you $1000/month to rent a 250-square-foot space in the Bronx for a brick-and-mortar shop, but it would clearly be unreasonable to expect to rent the equivalent amount of space on Fifth Avenue around Midtown, NYC for a penny under $5K/month. The added cost, of course, accounts for the revenue gained from planting your store in a densely populated location and the prestige of selling on Fifth Avenue. As in any other matter of business, demand determines price.

Comparing BlushBoutique.com to ShopBlushBoutique.com, the expression "blush boutique" is regularly Google-searched 2400-2900 times per month whereas "shop blush boutique" receives nominal search traffic (see Google AdWords Keyworld Tool). Since Google heavily weights closeness of match between search expression and domain name in determining the ranking of its results, you would boost your site a long way towards the #1 google match for "blush boutique" (and I notice there are many other blush boutiques out there) by acquiring this domain and then hiring a web developer to build a landing page on it.

If it will make a difference, I can lower my tag on domain's price a bit, to $400, but that has to be my final offer because I could easily dispose of this domain for an amount in the $500-$1000 range by contacting the other prospects on my list. BlushBoutique.com was initially registered 10 years ago (re-registered in '05), and it's very rare for ten-year-old domains to sell for under $500.

I look forward to hearing from you. Let me know your thoughts,
Joshua