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

 

[krx]

For quick-flips, consider domain industry market cap over anything else. Yachts sell for much more that paperclips, for example. I would avoid food-industry and religion-oriented domains entirely, unless you're lucky enough to own a domain like Jesus.net.

Next, consider keywords search volume and PPC.

Other factors like # of TLDs taken, age, etc. are tertiary factors you could employ as bargaining chips.

IMO, only purchase domains for which 4+ highly targetable, well-established end-user candidates already exists. If XYZ.com has 3 potential end-user candidates and the best-off one generates only $50,000 in sales per year, XYZ.com is not going to sell for more than $150 or so. Your quick-flip earnings are bounded by how much your potential end-user candidates are (1) able and (2) willing to pay (whichever of the two amounts is smaller).

Some very helpful material in this thread. A couple questions if I may...

Avoiding religious domains needs no explanation (ie, you'll be competing with the Sunday school snack fund) but not sure I see why you recommend avoiding the food industry. Could you expound on that a bit?

The religious bit makes me wonder what percentage of non-profits you target in general, if any? Do you proceed any differently with them?

I have more recently come to place primacy on number of PPC ads (which I get from estibot) in valuing prospective buys. Is that what you mean by PPC (above) or are you referring to max CPC bid amount, as provided by adwords keyword tool?

Thanks!

 

[fm1234]

Quick-flipping generic religious domains is difficult (I own two that I've always thought were great ... running up on four years now for one of them and about to renew the other for the second time.) The problem is that churches and other spiritual organisations, while generally operating with some kind of advertising budget, are generally not interested in the business aspects of what might make a given domain better for their organisation. For any given church, the vast majority of its foot traffic comes from word-of-mouth "promotion" by members and attendees. No amount of SEO or brandability is going to put a dent in the proportion of the church's traffic that comes from simple p2p promotion.

Where I have had success with this type of domain is in doing basic development on geo+kw domains, and on "issues" domains (explained below.) There are many different approaches for this, all of which are easy to put together and which are simple enough to find a target buyer -- and I do not see it being done a lot, so it's sort of an open market (at least in the U.S.)

A "business fellowship directory" (for lack of a better term) is nothing more than a typical geolocal business directory that is donation-supported by businesses and professionals who belong to the church. The money presumably goes to whatever missions and such the church manages. It's a soft sell for the businesses, because even if the efficacy of the site is marginal, they are supporting a cause towards which they probably would have tossed a little money anyway. It's a soft sell to the church because they will likely make money off of it right off the bat, as the usual "front line donors" who exist in any given nfp organisation will jump at any new opportunity to write a cheque.

"Issues" domains are harder to develop, but finding a given hot button issue which non-profits (churches and otherwise) tend to try to tackle, adding on a geo prefix/suffix and building a basic content site with information on how to donate to stop this problem In! Your! Area! is a fairly straightforward procedure, and finding the organisation or organisations in that geo area that are working on the issue is an easy task. Avoid anything that involves political lobbying or social issues over which people can get crazy, eg. abortion. But homelessness, child literacy, drug use, runaways, you name the issue and in any city of any size there is a potential market for a donation-supported information sites.

Again, this is a seriously undertapped market in my opinion, at least in the US. It's not quick flipping, but the work involved is pretty minimal, especially if you already have experience putting together basic sites.


Frank

 

[FPForum]

I'm a little curious what type of approach some of you take when you receive multiple responses? Say you send out 15 emails in one night. The next morning you wake up to 3 different responses asking what you are wanting for the domain. What type of response do you give them? Do you tell them multiple people are interested? Do you give the first chance of getting the name to the person who responded first?

 

[Soofi]

I'm a little curious what type of approach some of you take when you receive multiple responses? Say you send out 15 emails in one night. The next morning you wake up to 3 different responses asking what you are wanting for the domain. What type of response do you give them? Do you tell them multiple people are interested? Do you give the first chance of getting the name to the person who responded first?

FP, I personally haven't experienced this yet, however I would strongly recommend putting a word in about multiple parties interested in the domain name to create quick deal interest!! :sold:

 

[skulldude]

I'm a little curious what type of approach some of you take when you receive multiple responses? Say you send out 15 emails in one night. The next morning you wake up to 3 different responses asking what you are wanting for the domain. What type of response do you give them? Do you tell them multiple people are interested? Do you give the first chance of getting the name to the person who responded first?

I've had this happen quite a few times actually. Typically I just tell them something along the lines of that I've had quite a bit of interest in the domain so far and that the domain is being sold on a first come first purchase basis. I might set my price a bit higher as well depending on the domain and how much interest there is.

If they make me an offer below my asking price, that I am not completely satisfied with, I email the other parties that I received an offer of xxx and if they are interested, to put in a higher offer within next 24 to 48 hours.

 

[FPForum]

FP, I personally haven't experienced this yet, however I would strongly recommend putting a word in about multiple parties interested in the domain name to create quick deal interest!! :sold:

Yea, I do have a line in my second email (response when an end user asks how much) that tells them I have multiple parties interested. I guess "first come, first serve" is the bet line to use for this..Although I personally haven't run into it yet I thought I would get some of your opinions before it ends up happening, lol.

 

[Soofi]

Yea, I do have a line in my second email (response when an end user asks how much) that tells them I have multiple parties interested. I guess "first come, first serve" is the bet line to use for this..Although I personally haven't run into it yet I thought I would get some of your opinions before it ends up happening, lol.

lol that's what you call; learn before you actually get into it :P

 

[exsedo]

The all new Estibot will find them for you. Hope this news doesn't kill the thread. :lala:

 

[mtford]

Anybody had any success using AdWords to reach end users? - i.e. putting ads for your domain listing in Google search results? The drawback, as I see it, is that it's difficult to target businesses that way. If I were to use "carpets" as a keyword, my page impressions would come from people wanting to buy carpets, not people who sell them. I could try other keywords like "carpet advertizing", but those usually have negligible search volume.

 

[Soofi]

Anybody had any success using AdWords to reach end users? - i.e. putting ads for your domain listing in Google search results? The drawback, as I see it, is that it's difficult to target businesses that way. If I were to use "carpets" as a keyword, my page impressions would come from people wanting to buy carpets, not people who sell them. I could try other keywords like "carpet advertizing", but those usually have negligible search volume.

Not a recommendable way of looking for end users for your domain names as it will only attract end user of the product but not the businesses who have been manufacturing or selling that product.

You would just be wasting your cash on adwords listing.. IMO

 

[FPForum]

Anybody had any success using AdWords to reach end users? - i.e. putting ads for your domain listing in Google search results? The drawback, as I see it, is that it's difficult to target businesses that way. If I were to use "carpets" as a keyword, my page impressions would come from people wanting to buy carpets, not people who sell them. I could try other keywords like "carpet advertizing", but those usually have negligible search volume.

I would consider doing the opposite of this to find end users. Type your domains keyphrase into google and contact the companies who have ads come up for that. Same with Yahoo. Another thing you could do would be to actually host the domain and put some adsense on it, see what ads come up and then contact those companies.

 

[Soofi]

I would consider doing the opposite of this to find end users. Type your domains keyphrase into google and contact the companies who have ads come up for that. Same with Yahoo. Another thing you could do would be to actually host the domain and put some adsense on it, see what ads come up and then contact those companies.

I did that, and have seen positive results
Recommended!!

 

[mtford]

Not a recommendable way of looking for end users for your domain names as it will only attract end user of the product but not the businesses who have been manufacturing or selling that product.

You would just be wasting your cash on adwords listing.. IMO

Thanks. I was just curious because Chef Patrick mentioned it in his video on marketing Bido auctions.

 

[copper]

Anybody had any success using AdWords to reach end users? - i.e. putting ads for your domain listing in Google search results? The drawback, as I see it, is that it's difficult to target businesses that way. If I were to use "carpets" as a keyword, my page impressions would come from people wanting to buy carpets, not people who sell them. I could try other keywords like "carpet advertizing", but those usually have negligible search volume.

There was one forum member on other forum who tried it and had some success few years ago.
There were few others tried following this person's advice.
However, no one had any success.

 

[G_C]

Wooohoo - my first rude end user!

Howdy folks,

Just thought I'd share this one with you - I guess we've all come across rude end users during our pitching; but exactly what causes people to respond in this manner even though they are representing an organization is completely beyond me.

Anyway, here's mine - totally reasonable, I think - e-mail:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I'm [Name] a domain name investment specialist from Geneva, Switzerland. I am writing to let you know I currently have the following domain name available for purchase:

OxfordShirts.net

As, according to my research, [Company] manufactures oxford shirts, it is my firm belief that, by owning this domain name, your company will gain the following benefits:

• Reach 2,508,000 prospective customers - every year, over 2.5 millions queries for "Oxford Shirts" and its singular are entered into Google alone. As the domain name closely corresponds to the query, Google will normally regard it as more relevant, and often award it placement at the top of the first page of search results. This means that you will expose your product offering to over 2.5 million prospective customers every year - without any recurring costs, such as advertising.
• Associate concept with brand - by having your website listed as one of the first search results, you will be able to associate the concept of oxford shirts with your company's offering in the minds of prospective customers
• Outpace the competition - as .net is one of the two premium domain name versions, you will deny the above powerful advantages to your competition (to whom similar offers are being extended), who will have to settle for far less effective and reputable domain extensions.

Because I am looking to close this transaction swiftly, I would be willing to offer you OxfordShirts.net below market value. If you would like to consider acquiring this domain name, please reply to this message or call me directly at my mobile number in Switzerland [number].

Thanks for taking the time to read this message. I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Sincerely,


Signature, including my mobile phone number

Company response:

Pathetic
------------------

What did I do? And, incidentally, what do you think of my pitch e-mail?

 

[InsanerDomainer]

Pitch seems fine. Very similar to what I send. I've sent about 150 emails like that out and not one rude response yet, which really surprises me. Although, I do belive most people think selling domain names is pathetic, whether they say so or not. :]

 

[martinos]

Strange response you got.

Maybe the person answered was in a bad mood..

You pitch mail is nice i think.

I suggest don't bother and just try another.

 

[G_C]

The best part is, I sent it to the info address - so it's not as if they have any reason to feel that I somehow violated whatever questionable privacy they still have by looking through WHOIS or Jigsaw (actually, the info email was the same one as listed on WHOIS).

 

[JoshuaPz]

Not a bad pitch, but a handful of grammatical errors such as '2.5 millions queries' spoil the broth and help to confirm the global stereotype of domainers as uneducated and bottom-feeding.

 

[G_C]

Christ, did I really just write it as "2.5 millionS?"....

I'm blushing crimson right now - it's just the kind of mistake that I never thought I'd make after speaking the language for 12+ years and working as a ghostwriter to God knows how many native speakers...