Well, 2 days ago I wrote about Tax Masters and their use of (looking through my notes since I don’t remember the domain) Txmstr.com in their TV commercial for the tax company. They focus on people that owe the IRS money, AKA Back Taxes.
Today, on the very same channel I see another commercial with a company called JK Harris & Company ® and it’s a 180 compared to Txmstr.com . JK Harris in the commercial talks about Back Taxes .
In this commercial, they not only Talk about Back Taxes, but have the domain name BackTaxes.com on the screen . If you read my last writings about Tax Masters, I wondered how they would even "Say" Txmstr.com to it’s customers and it never did.
Well, JK Harris & Company ® just showed Tax Masters how to Say it! BackTaxes.com
JK Harris & Company ® "Get It" when it comes to Domain Names and marketing their site and service! They were talking about Back Taxes, they have the domain name BackTaxes.com and they COULD and DID say the domain name BackTaxes.com in the commercial.
When I write it like above (bold), it just makes sense and it should make sense, but clearly with proof of the domain like Txmstr.com, many companies spend Huge amounts of money advertising to get their name out and their website but "don’t get it".
JK Harris & Company ® simply uses the "Domain Forwarding Option" provided mostly for free at domain name registrars and sends people who type or click on BackTaxes.com directly to it’s main site JKHarris.com . Not only are they forwarding this domain, they are Tracking it’s performance! The URL that you land on after typing or clicking BackTaxes.com is http://www.jkharris.com/?ml_source=networkcable which tells me they are using this ad on Network Cable.
One bad thing about using the domain as a "Forward" will not help them all that much for SEO and Search Engine placement for the term Back Taxes. They cover this by using Google Adwords on Google for the term Back Taxes, but they really wouldn’t have to do this if they even built a little sister site on the BackTaxes.com domain. Either way, they are covering their bases and I give them 2 thumbs Way Up on the domain name they used for marketing Back Taxes!
BackTaxes.com was first registered in Jan of 2000, and all other major extensions are registered. The domain name was offered for sale in 2006 with a listing price of $75,000 USD on DNForum.com. According to Whois history, JK Harris became the new owner in March of 2007. I contacted the poster of the domain name listing from the DNF.com posting to confirm the sale price and got a reply that they were "The broker for the domain name and could not provide any more information".
Either way, I see it as Great Money spent for JK Harris. Not only is it a Great Domain, they use it wisely and if they ever decide to cash in on their domain asset down the road, I know a buyer for them! Txmstr.com 
Biggest untapped opportunity in domains is for call-to-action in advertising. That being driven by the ability to finally be able to justify and measure the value of a 30 second TV spot by extending the conversation to the web and closing a sale.
Today local spots on national cable shows sell very inexpensively and video spots can be seen throughout the web- in doctor’s waiting rooms etc. But without the right call to- there is NO action, which makes even the cheapest media buy a waste of money if you can’t facilitate response.
I’ve amassed over 300 examples here of call-to-action domains being employed by major corporations here:
http://fragerfactor.blogspot.com/search?q=call-to-action
btw, Typically an ad agency will resell the call-to-action domain for at least six-figures and sometimes include it in a million dollar package that includes producing the spot and the landing site (so the cost of the name is buried and not an eyebrow raiser for their client). These are always under non-disclosure and rarely reported on the sales charts you see in the domain space. But you really need to have some background in advertising and copywriting to create these domains. It’s because every penny an agency doesn’t have to spend by not buying yours is extra margin they can make creating theirs. Which is why they often SUCK.
**Jamie Says**
Thanks for all the great info Owen!
January 8th, 2009