guide Outbound process for beginners

[rohitgoyal]

Hi All,

A lot of people struggle with outbound or complain about having no sales via inbound or marketplace. Well domaining is not a get rich scheme and it takes lots of time , hard-work , capital and luck to succeed in the same.

Though everyone would love to have xxxxx sales however you cant have such big ticket sales without pouring thousands of dollars and wait for long time for the right end users to approach you. This post is for the beginner who wish to have regular xxx or low xxxx sales and keep their domaining journey going on.

3 words Geo/keyword domains has very low chances of getting sold via landing page or marketplace even if you hold them for years. Such domains can be sold via outbound easily however you have to follow the practice properly.

There are number of steps and factors in the same. I will try to list few of them here for your understanding.

Let me first share the basic..

1. Outbound is a volume game. It may happen that you wont receive any response for your first 20 domains and than your 21st domain may get sold.

2. Price is big factor . $200-$499 is a sweet spot for normal geo domains.

3. Searches and cpc matters in case of Geo/keyword domains and its easier to sell domains with good metrics.

4. Follow up matters a lot as it hardly happens that you would sell domain in your first mail itself.

5. Certain niche sells faster than other niches. Location and country matters a lot as well.

6. One need to have lots of patience and a proper schedule to succeed in outbound.

Now back to the outbound process:-

1. Find leads:- There are basically 5 ways to find lead for your domain.

a) Google.com :- You can find the list of existing companies which are presently ranking for your keyword.You can use semrush.com to get first 100 result of google.com if you wish to avoid manual work.

b) Google map/yellow-pages:- You would find names and details of the companies which are registered for that keyword in that region. For geo domains , google map works better than google.com. There are automated tools which can fetch the google map results .

c) ZFbot.com/Domainiq.com :- Both these tools provide you list of the domain which are related to your domain or have same keyword like yours.

d) Socal media:- LinkedIn etc can be great source for finding potential end user for your domain.

e) Advertisers:- It makes sense to contact the advertisers who are advertising for the keyword of your domain. You can find the list of the same from semrush.com.

2. Finding email id:- There are 3 ways to find email id for the leads you have collected from above sources.

a) Whois.com/whoxy.com :- After gdpr whois is no more openly available however you still find email ids in 20-30% cases as compared to earlier days as few registrars still shows whois detail. Whoxy.com is a portal from where you can fetch whois details in bulk.

b) Hunter.io/adapt.io :- Such paid tools are great way to find email id of potential leads. However be aware that even though they are paid tools but still email id accuracy would be 60-70% only.

c) Website:- Lastly you may directly visit the website and collect email id from there.

3. Sending mails:- This is a tricky step as it is very difficult to send mails these days. Free email id provider like gmail , yahoo etc have strict spam policy and most of your mail would land in the spam folder. Now you have 2 options:-

a) Free email providers:- You can create multiple email ids with free email providers like gmail , yahoo, outlook etc.

b) Logicboxes panel based registrar:- There are some registrar which uses logic-box panel and they provide 2 free email id along with every domain. You would have to set up email id there and use their server to send mail. It works like charm as i have tried Bigrock.com and nettigritty.com.

c) Own server:- You can set up your own smtp server and purchase multiple ip for sending mails. It is a complicated and expensive way so wont be suggested in the initial days.

4. Pricing & follow up:-

a) Pricing:- Pricing plays a very big role especially in case of geo domains and 3 words emd domains. If you price them in $200-500 range than you can easily sell them. If it was a hand registered domain or purchased from go-daddy closeout than its a great roi.

b) Followup :- Now follow up can further be divided into 2 parts:-

1. Initial mail:- Suppose you collected 50 leads of end users for a particular domain and you sent mail to them. You may have received 1-2 response and no response from other leads. You can send a follow up mail after 2-3 weeks as its highly possible that many of them may have missed your initial mail or were out of office. Though never send more than 2 follow ups or else you would be spamming in general. Further be very careful not to send mail again to the same person who has already responded "No".

2. Price inquiry:- You have sent 50 mails and have received 3-4 price inquiry. You have sent them the details regarding the domain as well as your asking price. You should follow up every week or 2 regarding their interest. Under normal circumstances it takes 4-5 follow ups to finally sell a domain. It would hardly happen than you send them price and they immediately closed the deal.

5. Closing the deal:- You again have 3 options in this.

a) Paypal:- You can send a paypal invoice to the client and they can make the payment via them. I personally transfer the domain first and than ask for payment. It has never happened with me that client didn't make payment though their were delays in couple of cases. When you first transfer the domain and than ask for payment than it create trust factor in the eyes of end-users and deal closes faster. This works best in case of xxx deals as your risk factor is low.

b) Escrow :- You can create escrow account and ask the client to complete the transaction via that. Be aware that creating account at escrow is a tedious process and many times deal gets cancelled as end users do not want to take so much of headache. Escrow is recommended in case of xxxx and xxxxx deals and not at all recommended for xxx deals.

c) Marketplace:- If your domain is registered with Godaddy than you can ask the client to directly purchase from there or via landing pages like undeveloped.com. It works very well as these marketplace have high trust factor among the general public.


Some personal suggestions based on my experience of outbound.

1. Registrar:- If your domain is with Godaddy than it is easier to sell them . Godaddy is world's largest registrar and due to their massive advertising campaign everyone is aware about them. Most of the end user have account with godaddy or they dont mind opening account at Godaddy. If your domain is with any other registrar tha always do outbound after 60 days transfer lock is over.

2. Response time:- xxx purchases are normally spontaneous decision and end users immediately pay the same. If you receive a offer or end user agrees to your price than try to close the deal instantly. If you delay than their is high possibility that end user may change their mind or look for alternative options.

3. Related domains:- If you have a singular version than always purchase plural version as well if available. Further in case of Geo domain if you are marketing .com domain than always acquire cctld version of the same to be on safe side.

4. Calling :- If you receive a price inquiry than always try to call up the client as the possibility of leads getting closed increases manifold in case of calls rather than on mail.

5. Promo offer:- If you are into hand registered game than keep a keen eye on promo offers offered by various registrar. If you can grab promo offers for .com at $3-4 range than its always a winning game.

6. Expireddomains.net:- Thousands of domains expire on daily basis and you can find lots of decent domains in daily drop list which can easily be sold in xxx range via outbound.

Last but not the least , there is a very thin line between marketing and spamming and majority of newbies dont understand the difference. Outbound is great to have regular sales and to keep the cash register rolling but most of the time we end up doing spamming. Even though i am into outbound but i am strictly against spamming.

 

[creataweb]

Why add a signature to your outbound email. This is a hobby, not a business. Do my outbound emails work? No, but I didn't do it often, maybe did for 100 times in my whole life. I plan to send 100 emails per day without spamming. I prefer writing interesting, funny, eye catching, informative emails to writing boring and formal emails and pretending that I'm doing a bonafide business when obviously this is gambling.
If I need to advertise a business to build trust, I would advertise the marketplace where the domain will be sold (but not in the signature). Maybe it would work better if potential buyers don't think I'm selling the domain, and instead informing them about a sale or a public auction event.

Put goofy memes in there, that'll work. Who doesn't love a good laugh? Except someone who just had surgery in the stomach region maybe.

 

[EbookLover]

Great thread, I have 2 more pages to go but I wanted to address a few things...

"Realtor" is trademarked hence you can't use it

I did a simple TM search in the USA and Realtor is only TMed by a Jewelry company and a Clothing company because they use it as a branded, proper name. The word "Realtor" alone cannot be TMed by a realty company since it's just a dictionary term meaning a person who sells/brokers real estate transactions. It's like Burger Kink trying to TM the word Burger. Can't happen.

... if the buyer says, how much did you pay for this domain, how much profit do you plan to make

The price of your inventory nobody's business! If someone is asking this question, then they will likely not buy your domain because they think you bought for $10 and are making a killing because they believe you're time is worthless. Only their time has value. They also probably believe that Domain reselling should be criminal. These people are communists at heart and are not a good lead.

You can either lie to them, tell them to hold a secondso you can look up that information, then say $250 or just tell them that you are unable to share confidential company inventory information. It doesn't matter what you say because the sale will likely never happen. Just be professional no matter how you end the conversation because they are already thinking you are a spammer, no doubt.

I don't like giving unnecesary info. For example I don't give a phone number, or address, or even name. Just domain name, email, and how to make an offer, and why this domain is good for them, and why they don't need to trust me at all etc. Is this why I don't receive any response. They will buy my domain, not me. They will get the same thing at the end whoever is selling it.

You have a very delusional idea of how cold-calling and business in general works. By not giving them any personal/business information, you are just another spammer to them.
Use your head.

I have emailed over 10 companies regarding my domains that they should be very interested in.
Title - XXXXXX.com Domain is Available

Text - Hey,

You need to be more professional when you send business emails. Starting an email with "Hey" is very informal, unprofessional and childish. Try instead using their name or if you don't know their name or sex, try "Greetings, Sir or Madame, ". Well, some people say that is a bit too stiff, but it's better than "Hey".

Also, don't get discouraged about not getting responses after 10 emails. Cold-calling is not a cash cow or easy or passive income. Your response rate will be under 10% an your conversion rate much less than that.

 

[rohitgoyal]

Rohit, can you point out what mistake/mistakes you would attribute to, due to which there was no reply on first 50 outbound sales and what was the change/changes which led to consistent sales later.

First it's been over a year so I don't even remember...

Second it's all trial and error... End user is the decision maker,, they may like useless domain and may not like good domain .

Third with time I have developed my buying skills, selling skills as well as automated the process...

 

[howudoin8]

It clearly would depend on situation and many would not be interested. I guess for those who would, the idea that some people might try searching that way, say VictoriaSpas for spas in Victoria where I live, so if you owned that, and redirected it to your website, you would get possible leads. They might guess how much volume and whether it supports the acquisition. But most owners with a well working web presence are not keen on considering additional domain names, I think.
Bob

In addition to this

1. Such a geo domain can also be used for paid advertising (Google adwords) since displayed domain would clearly show as to what is it about & might improve the Click Through rate (CTR) for advertiser.

2. Some business owner might also want to start an additional lead capture site where such a domain can be used.

3. Setting a 302 Redirect of such a domain to their main site might also provide some additional SEO benefit. Although, not sure as to how much of an impact this might have but it could be a small SEO signal. I say this because it was a big signal in past but Google Algo updates in last few years might have decreased the strength of this SEO Signal.

4. Some business owners might buy such domains in order to prevent their competition from having it. This usually happens in highly competitive niches for keywords with good search metrics.

There may be other reasons so I encourage community members to chime in.

 

[peace800]

Great thread.

I just have two questions.

1. How long does an end user normally take to reply if they are interested particularly at a big company.

2 days, same day or a week?

If they don't reply after 2 or 3 days can we assume that they are not interested?

Has anybody replied to your first original email after one or two weeks and bought the domain?


2. Is it possible and do some people sell domains doing outbound for 5 or 5 figures? (depending on the name of course)

Thanks.

 

[rohitgoyal]

Sure. But good luck with your business if this is your HR strategy

This is unless you are planning on starting a (paid) domaining school on the back of a successful domaining business

I'm happy to share and give free advice to newcomers. However, costly (in terms of both time and money) comprehensive, hands on training, that's something else entirely.

Exactly... having a paid domaining course is completely a different game all together. Further the nature of domaining is such that it takes lots of time for an individual to learn the tricks and to start making money so not a viable option for everyone.

 

[rohitgoyal]

Your students might be interested to know that unsolicited commercial email may carry legal hazards. For example, each separate email in violation of the US law known as the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties up to $41,484. Certain aggravated violations may give rise to additional fines and criminal penalties including stints in the greybar hotel. Compliance is straight forward:

Don’t use false or misleading header information.
Don’t use deceptive subject lines.
Identify the message as an ad.
Tell recipients your valid physical postal address.
Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you.
Honor opt-out requests promptly.
Monitor what others are doing on your behalf.

More info at: United States Federal Trade Commission

Thanks for your input and its very helpful... we presently follow all the points mentioned...

 

[Domains - Wanted]

Your students might be interested to know that unsolicited commercial email may carry legal hazards. For example, each separate email in violation of the US law known as the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties up to $41,484...

Quick and dirty: this applies only to email sent from the US or targeted at US recipients. In practice, its application is even more limited. More importantly, all developed nations have their own legislation, more often than not with conflicting regulations to CAN-SPAM Act.

...Don’t use false or misleading header information.
Don’t use deceptive subject lines.
Identify the message as an ad...

This is assuming that an individually targeted (by name) email asking the recipient if he/she is interested in receiving a price offer falls under CAN-SPAM, which targets mass mailing. My take is that it does not. Nor does any ensuing back and forth once there is a positive reply from the recipient.

In practice, your only worry is blacklisting and deliverability, not prosecution. The likes of Spamhaus and Spam Assassin have nothing to do with CAN-SPAM or any other legislation.

 

[Domains - Wanted]

"NO" is always an opportunity. Most negotiations start with a "NO" answer or "not interested"...
So before doing any outbound learn how to handle objections, and how to sell. That really should be STEP 1.

Very good point! Basically, if you're an average Joe and get a lot of action dating, you should do well in outbound, too

I live in Asia, it's different here for average (caucasian) Joes, but from what I remember from long gone younger days, most European and American girls default setting was this kind of negotiable "No", too

 

[rohitgoyal]

Hey,

Hahaha today morning I accidentally post my response to you accidentally in other outbound post thinking it was by you. Now I am correcting my mistake by posting here in right place. Hahahha. Please see my response below. Hahhaha


How are you Rohit?? I hope you are doing great. First of all thanks for sharing your view and experience with others it shows how helpful you are to anyone selflessly. I admire that quality in you. I been observing your post silently on various occasion. You are one of few others on NP who are doing good with outbound.

I am a student and I will always be a life long student in life. So far my model is I try to buy good asset in aftermarket and wait for right offer to knock my door. It’s working really great for me. I am always trying to improve in my selection and the way of doing my little business in Digital world. This month alone I completed Mid Five Figure Deal. 90% of my sales I did not share so far here on NP because I like to share when I experienced something unique which may add some value in someone’s life. I expirienced lots of new things recently so I will share some of my recent sales soon witu all friends here on NP.

As I said I am student and for me Outbound is something I never did so far. I like to keep trying various things to improve what I do in life. I know I need to do so many changes for more exposure of my business and I will try to add those missing elements slowly and steadily. But I really enjoy your helpful post and I am very thankful to you for that. I will try outbound soon. How soon ?? Only time will tell. Hahahah

But again thanks for helpful post.


Thanks

Hey bro , i am great fine and hope the same for you.

Yes i am aware about you as i have been following your post as well and its great you are achieving great success in your strategy.

The only rule i domaining is that there is no rules. Everyone has their strategy and its best for them to stick to their own strategy which gives them best result. As i mentioned earlier this post is for beginner who may not have lots of fund to purchase from aftermarket or to wait for long for right end users to approach them. I just shared one part of outbound strategy focussing on geo domains such domains are available to hand register and anyone can purchase them looking into basic parameters. Purchasing keyword and brandable domains at right price can be tricky game for beginners as we all know the kind of shill bidding happening in all the platforms.

Do let me know as and when you plan to start outbound , i would be at your service.

Cheers

 

[rohitgoyal]

I would add that I have effectively used the Namecheap Marketplace in a similar way. Agree that GoDaddy is much better known, although Namecheap is apparently now the second largest retail registrar in the world and have been in business for 16 years. When selling especially lowish value domain names I find that end users like to be able to buy it through a marketplace that they trust, especially one that also offers price competitive hosting, so they can within a few hours after buying my domain name be up and running with their new website if they want to.

Agreed ... My simple point was that using popular marketplace is helpful in closing the deal... It can be godaddy , afternic , sedo or anything elseelse...

 

[DeliDomains]

Thank you Rohit for the information shared.

I would like to know if this mode of selling is viable if you consider the time & effort required to close a sale.

In addition your outbound method of selling would mostly work in countries which benefit from currency exchange value and where labour is cheap.

For example, In developed countries it would not be financially possible to hire a team of 4-5 execs and sell domains in the 200-499 range unless the sale numbers are huge. The working costs would overshadow the profits. And without the team it just too much of work for a single person.

 

[rohitgoyal]

Is it also professional and reasonable to indicate in the mail that you will contacting other potential or interested parties.

Yes you can. It helps in closing the deal faster however I normally use that when buyer made a price enquiry and than not responding to the mails...

 

[rohitgoyal]

How many emails in total?

640 emails... Average of 64 mails for each domain. Leads were collected from google.com as well as google maps.

 

[rohitgoyal]

Hi Rohit, that's a lot of work, do you target and contact customers before domains drop ?

Regarding pricing strategy for inbound, could you suggest something ? https://www.namepros.com/threads/inbound-pricing-strategy.1102413/

Yes outbound requires lot of hard work and dedication.

No we contact end users only after we purchase the domain.

Well everyone has their own model and philosophy of pricing their domains... I normally price domains between $299-799 range.

 

[rohitgoyal]

Do you use email address from your business domain for outbound ?

I have created 100 custom email I'd just for sending mails... All these id's are forwarded to my main I'd so I receive all the response

 

[rohitgoyal]

Just thought would she some light on 60 day lock being a deal killer, I have had several deals which have been or still are dead due to the lock and confusion surrounding transfer procedure.

However, recently I started using Undeveloped and their pages, I have not been doing much outbound for a month or two but have already sold 2 domains through outbound that were still in transfer lock.

For anyone who is trying to do outbound for the names still within lock, I would recommend to try them for few names, interestingly end users instead of replying to my email decided to go to the page and make an offer or click buy now.

@rohitgoyal The email you are basically domains that are hosted with bigrock? So you use their servers and everything? You mentioned 100 custom emails, are these on different domains? If yes, are these on specific domains you are trying to sell or more of portfolio websites? Another registrar that works great for free personalized emails is Alpnames!

Hi umer,

I completely agree with your suggestion regarding undeveloped.com. It is always beneficial to have a landing page like undeveloped.com , further their support and response is amazing. Many time undeveloped team even help in negotiation or closing pending deals.
Even it happened with me yesterday. I had a domain coloradoseoagency.com and was in discussion with 2 end users for $499. Deal was pending since 2 months , I put the domainsame at undeveloped for $350 and bang one of them purchased from there.

Yes all domains are with bigrock and use their server and nameserver to send mail. I have separately purchased 100 domains there just to send mail.

 

[rohitgoyal]

Thanks for this generous post @rohitgoyal

1)Are you using any tools to monitor email tracking

2)Do you do any follows ups if so after what time? Do you do any follows up in case the mail was opened but no reply?

3)How do you price the name ? Do you offer the same price to different users and how flexible are you in accepting the offers

4)Are you using any landing pages with these names?


I tried not to ask anything which is a bit too nosy for this public thread please feel free to skip it you feel that way. Thanks once again for sharing such valuable insights

1. Yes I am using email tracking tool. There are plenty of free email tools in the market and you can use any of them.

2. When I send mails but haven't received response than I follow up with them once or twice after a month. The domains on which I received price enquiry , I follow up on them every 7-10 days till the time deal closes.

3. My normal pricing are $349 ,$499, $749 and $999... pricing depends upon domain name and niche. Yes I do provide different price tois different end users depending upon number of enquiries received or profile of end users.

4. Yes I am.using undeveloped.com for.landing page.

 

[rohitgoyal]

Hi,

When you follow up every 7-10 days what do you write in each email? Let say in first email you give them the price, in second you reduce the price, what next?
What would you write on this email after I give them the price:

"Thanks for getting back to me on this Miro.
The current asking price for the domain is much higher than I expected. If our interest changes in the future, I'll be sure to let you know. Take care."

The price is $250 for 3 words EMD domain name :O

In case client says that asking price is high or they deny the offer after recieving my quote than i use below mentioned format.

"Hi Ryan,

If you have changed your mind due to price than the same is negotiable. You can share any reasonable offer you have in mind and we would be happy to match your expectation.

Kindly advice."

 

[rohitgoyal]

Can I have a clue of your headings??
If I want to outbound
Losangelesdesignfirmer
What I personally did was just to write
Los Angeles design firmer as the subject of the mail.
Does it makes sense this way?

At-least lets respect the time i have put to write the post and solve everyone's query to the best of my ability. Your query has already been answered in the thread but i guess you didn't even bother to read the same.

 

[Windoms]

Hi @rohitgoyal,
2. What tool do you use for tracking sent e-mails?

I tried using Gmail along with Streak for tracking, but had a lot of trouble getting my emails delivered.

What Email Tracker Do You Use With Your Domain Based Email?

I recommend contactmonkey. 15$/month. 200 email limit/day.
Its a chrome extension that works with gmail (you have to give individual gmail access).
It shows how many times the mail was opened. Date, time, ip, which device, links clicked etc.. + charts.
# of emails sent over a time period, emails opened, % opened, % multiple opens, average opens, average time to open, you can ''star'' emails in gmail and it will track those seperatly if you want. its good stuff; theres a 14 day trial. One of my leads has opened the mail 19 times in 1 week, last time a couple hours ago. Hasn't responded yet. Neither did I.
Its good tool.

 

[loredan]

Ha ha ha agreed i am at fault here. I just to wanted to share and help other newbies so that they dont waste money and time like i have done in my initial days..

You did a great job sharing all this. I'm sure it helped a lot of newbies and not only newbies.

Don't mind a few retarded gremlins here and there

 

[rohitgoyal]

You did a great job sharing all this. I'm sure it helped a lot of newbies and not only newbies.

Don't mind a few retarded gremlins here and there

Thanks but due to such retards , even genuine people are unknowingly ignored. Further its always a give and take relationship so if someone wants something than they should offer something in return.. It can be friendship , money or anything else they are good at. I have knowledge of outbound but i am bad in seo or development which other person can be good at and can offer... But majority of guys want free lunch which is dissapointing

 

[rohitgoyal]

Hello Rohit,

Thanks for the information this really gonna help me a lot to get started. One quick question, when you say buy geo domains does that means domains have city names in them? Like lasvegascasino.com or doctorsinnewyork.com? @rohitgoyal

Both are Geo domains however city+service/product are more preferred.... Further singular version of service/product are more preferred. Though to e on safe side i purchase all the variations and it has worked well for me..

 

[Domains - Wanted]

Title need to be changed
Rohits's Method of outbounding,
So that people can search easily

Sorry to disagree. I think the current thread title, Outbound process for beginners, says it all