Making intelligent and rational decisions in domaining / Direct Navigation Marketing

[NovosVentures]

Hi there,

I'm relatively new to the world of domaining. My brother an I decided half a year ago to start researching and investing. We now have a small portfolio with "good" names. One of them even attracts 11.000 unique visitors a month.

But what I'm interested in right now is to get some advise on how to make rational decisions in domaining. What I mean is: is there a possibility that the decision to buy/register a good name can be informed by good and relevant information? I already know about the classic domain tools which point out search volumes. But is there more?

I suspect that a knowledge of the fields/topics/products/services on which advertisement dollars are spend is equally important. Where could one get such information? Online marketing reports are expensive and I still wonder if it's worth the investment.

I guess I'm looking for a way to find an "edge".

Also: what are your thoughts on Direct Navigation Marketing? Could one build a respectable business on this idea? I'm currently trying to find out if companies are interested in purchasing targeted traffic based on certain keywords in which they have a commercial interest.

One way to make this a success could be to join portfolios under the umbrella of a company and split the profit between domainers. Could this be an idea that is of interest to any of you?

I'm looking forward to your thoughts.

 

[Sparhawke]

I suppose you can use the lists as a start, these are direct mailing lists which give you an idea of the people who actually pay for information in the real world. You do not have to buy anything, but it is good to know information about your demographic such as age, gender, average income and spend on their "hobby"

DMA Mailing List Search Tool

I also like to drill down into a country if I am looking at a cctld, there is little point in buying a domain name and finding out later that only 1 person on that island has an internet connection. The CIA world factbook is excellent for this. For instance, a few days ago someone was asking about a domain appraisal, I was able to find out all kinds of useful information about why buying that domain was not at all a good idea.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

There are of course many more tools and tricks I use but these are two of my main ones

 

[NovosVentures]

@Sparhawke

That DMA list tool looks promising. Thanx! I used the CIA Factbook before, but didn't quite knew what to look for. I got stuck researching Germany. I knew for instance that Germany is an export country. This led me to a couple of registrations. But I'm not sure this is the most intelligent way to go.

And about that island: the website World Internet Usage Statistics News and World Population Stats has lots of geographic/demographic info on internet usage.