I've been out of the thread for a while, so sorry in advance for the lengthy post.
posted by PlusNames:
Has anyone tried mailing end users rather than emailing them? Is it a waste of time or does that improve the response rate?
posted by lennco:
I think some in this thread have tried that with no success.
I would just stick with emails.
I always send a letter on any domain for which I am asking more than $500. Response rates are pretty good. However, I think that as with any other aspect of the end user sales process, if you don't know what you're doing, you're probably hurting yourself more than helping yourself.
If a domain has a relatively high asking price - generally over $1,500 for me -- and if I have had affirmative contact with the prospect over phone or e-mail, I will put together what amounts to a "media kit" that has most of the information that went into me buying and evaluating the domain. These take me about two hours to put together, so whatever your own or a VA's time is worth, plus the $8 or so it takes to send them by Priority Mail. Response rates on those are generally extremely high, but these are typically a concise cover letter, 3-5 pages of market data and occasionally some additional supporting material, and again are being sent to people with whom I've already made contact. Priorty Mail gets a massively greater response rate than first class -- however it might be worth noting that the significantly more expensive Express Mail does not get any better response than Priority Mail.
Many people over the years have looked at me like I am insane when I talk about these efforts; however, my own feeling is that if I buy something for $100-$200 (or, more rarely, $8) and plan on selling it for $1,500-$3,000 then I am going to have to put a little more into it than expecting the buyer to see the "inherent" value of the asset and write me a big check.
Frank
---------- Post added at 09:11 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:10 AM ----------
@jideofor:
Definitely take Theydon's advice about taking your foot off the gas -- the last thing any seller in any market ever wants to do, is appear desperate to close a deal.
Frank
---------- Post added at 09:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:11 AM ----------
If I could just add, or I suppose summarise/reiterate things I've said a few times in the 111 pages of this thread, this is what you need to do to make good money selling to end users:
1) Don't have crap domains
2) Don't put stupid prices on just-above-crap domains
3) Learn how to look for buyers - I see people talk about sending out e-mails to say 100 prospects on a single domain. If I can find 100 prospects for a single domain, I can only conclude that did something wrong, because more than 30
worthwhile prospects is a rarity on the sort of domains I sell (two-word .com and .net generic product/service domains, and the odd geo, almost all of which are sub-$1,000 asking price.)
4) Learn how to craft concise and professional e-mails.
5) Learn how to work dollar figures and negotiate drops. Aside from shitty domains, this is the most common pratfall of domain sellers imo. Your price has to have some kind of corollary in reality, something
outside of the domainer world -- a market about which most of the people to whom you are selling know and care absolutely nothing. If you do well in establishing the value, then every price drop in negotiation is a gift you are giving to the buyer. If you drop price, and can't connect that drop to a reason, you are deflating value.
"$5,000"
"We can't pay that! The best we can do is $1,000."
"Sorry, but my bottom price is $3,000"
^^^^^give your wife the weekend off, you've already been screwed once this week.
Value is a proposition. You claim the domain has value. Be prepared to back it up.
A price drop is a concession. If you established your value up front, be prepared to have some kind of logic built into dropping the price. If you don't, then you can rest assured your first drop won't be your last.
Anyway: quality domains, reasonable prices, productive research, professional communication, value building, and consistency. It's not hideously complicated; in fact it's not drastically different from selling any other product or service since the dawn of selling anything to anyone.
Frank