Every domain owners goal that is interested in selling, is to finding the correct end user for it! One big problem, people are lazy and Assume the proper end user will come to them! This only happens a very small percentage of the time, so it’s going to take some effort on your part as the seller if you want more end user sales!
Companies use advertising and marketing for a reason and an interested domain seller should be No Different!
Your waiting days need to turn into Marketing your domain names to the entities that will hold interest in them that don’t even know it yet. This can be in the form of a simple email really.
Now some domains are easy sales. Great domains, priced right really are not all that hard to sell if presented to the right entity. It’s that easy really! If you, as the domain owner did the smart thing and purchased your domain name at a fair price, turning a profit is all the much easier. Educating the buyer is a little harder, but can be done with short and simple words.
So how can you sell your domain names to an end user? Let me offer up some things that I do, That Work!
1.) It all starts with your domain name you are offering for sale! If the domain is so/so, not a .com or fitting TLD to the term or company you are contacting… you are fighting an up hill battle already. Owning good domain names is important, because companies are getting smarter about them. If you own nice domains, this will help when wanting to sell. Traffic will help as well.
2.) Price. Oh boy, this can get a bit crazy! $5,000 is a lot of money to some people but $5,000 is not a lot to some also! So knowing the entity you are contacting is important! Knowing the true potential of your domain name will help you back up your asking price for your domain. Online Advertising costs, product names and the size of the market for your domain will and should help you set the proper price. I always put a price with domain names I am offer for sale!
3.) The Buyer. Finding the right buyer for your domain name, goes back to the domain name itself! Is it a product, service etc. I use a couple tools in finding the entities that I want to email about my domain name being for sale.
Google.com . Use the keyword(s) in your domain and do a search. Pick out advertisers for the Exact Match term. Picking companies that already rank well for the search term is not always likely to produce a buyer. It can, but the likely hood is lower. Dig deeper into Google because many of these companies are the ones that really need the domain!
ThomasNet.com . Never heard of it? ThomasNet.com is a directory of companies that allows you to find manufacturers, distributors and service providers. This is a Gold Mine for domain owners looking for a potential end user buyer! Play around, you will love it. It’s Free!
Once you find matching companies to the domain you are offering for sale based on keyword(s), using the URL in the ThomasNet results, use Whois to obtain the contact info.
4.) Contact. This will depend on if you like using the phone or email better. Heck, paper letters and snail mail work as well, but I find email as the quickest and more likely to go to the person it Needs To! Calling can lead into a circus finding the right person to talk with and snail mail may lead your letter in the recycle box!
What do I include in my email? It would be easiest for me to just paste my email here, but I would rather not do that. I will let you know what I include in it.
- My Full Name
- Domain Price
- Advantages of owning the domain (marketing, ad $ savings etc)
- Direct Link for easy purchasing (I always use Afternic or Sedo, which allows for added security to the buyer) and provide the domain itself (which I forward) for the interested party to visit.
- I include other companies I will be emailing (the bigger the better) short amount 2-4 (can make them think: oh crap, if X company owns this domain…)
I would say my email is a bit on the long side (3 paragraphs) but it works. I talk up the domain, but do not stretch it. I make it clear I use a 3rd party service that handles domain payment and transfer of ownership of the domain. Added security is always a big plus for anything "online".
Using a 3rd party service like Afternic, Sedo or Escrow.com will cost you an extra %, but I truly think it’s worth it.
Once you have your email template set up, you can simply modify it slightly to fit the domain you are offering each time. Jump on Google and ThomasNet.com and find the companies you are going to email (be sure to set up your domain to forward to the sales page if you use this method). Grab the contact info from whois and start sending out your emails. I always hear back in 1-48 hours if you are going to hear back. Sometimes you might hear back a little later, but I seem to hear back in 24 hours or less if somebody is interested.
On average, I send out less then 10 emails per domain. Doing your research correctly should yield the proper buyers by 10 or less. If you feel the need to send out 100 emails, do it if you think you need to.
Simple emails can bring your domain to the attention of companies that WILL be interested, they simply didn’t think of it before hand.
Martin
Thanks for the helpful (and timely!) advice, Jamie – I’m just about to contact some end users for the first time regarding a domain going to Sedo auction tomorrow to try and drum up some interest. Using whois contact info is a good tip, rather than just generic ‘Marketing Director’.
Martin
Riq Ghafoor
Appreciate the post. Would be helpful if you could give some insights (lingo) in regards to the third point; i.e. Advantages of owning the domain (marketing, ad $ savings etc)…..Thanks.
Martin
PS I just read your previous post – Happy Birthday!!
Jamie Zoch
@ # 2
Advantages can be a lot of things and the reason I didn’t go strongly into detail. It all depends on the domain, but assuming it’s an exact product match to a generic keyword:
~ Trust. An exact match (no hyphens, added words) is more trusted by an internet user!
~ Google Site Links are much more likely only to be placed on an Exact Match Domain.
~ SEO, Exact match domains are more likely to rank well on SE’s with less seo..
~ Standing Out. Hundreds of companies may offer the product, but only ONE can own the domain!
~ Direct Navigation. 1 in 6 Search Engine searches skip the Search and use Direct Navigation.
~
Hope this helps some more
~
@ Martin.. Thank You!
Leonard Britt
All valid points – the domain needs to be a quality one, priced correctly and you have to find a company and the contact within that company. In January/February we targeted 20-25 companies/domain with lower-quality or branded nongeneric domains for more than twenty of our best domains and got no response. We then went back and selected two of the best domains in this group, cut the price 40% or so (somewhat hoping it wouldn’t work because I didn’t want to sell that cheap), sent out another group of letters and got no response. We then went to Namebio and DNSaleprice and looked for buyers with a track record of buying names with the same keywords as domains we had promoted and sent out another batch of emails. No response. In the meantime we sent out more than three hundred emails to web development companies around the globe promoting our inventory. We ran a Google Adwords campaign during part of this time which also attracted hundreds of individuals to our Spanish domain sales site. More than 95% of our Spanish domains are priced under $1000 but we promoted a mix of Spanish and English domains. Nada. So while direct sales to end users sounds nice in theory I’m just not convinced that the effort is worthwhile. It could be the economy or a lack of appreciation of the value of generic domains but it wasn’t for lack of effort.
Jamie Zoch
@ Leonard
I would be interested in seeing the domains and the prices pitched (more the 2 you selected and cut by 40%). Also, did you offer a 3rd party service for transaction in your email?
If you are interested, I may be willing to give one a shot for you with my process.
Leonard Britt
The domains we promoted (sometimes mentioned two similar domains in the same promotion):
CheapComputerRepairs.com
CubanRestaurant.net
Bootcamps.tv
WorkoutRoutines.tv
PuppiesZone.com
CutePuppies.tv
PrivateResort.net
FlowerCatalog.com
CreditCounselingAgency.net
FishermanCity.com
Spanish:
BuenViajes.com (good/nice trips)
AlojamientoWebBarato.com (cheap web hosting)
MercadodeCredito.com (credit market)
CuentadeCredito.com (charge account)
Floristeria.tv (florist)
Vestidos.tv (dresses)
VestidosdeNovia.tv (wedding dresses)
Corredor.tv & Corredores.tv (broker/s)
ZonaFutbol.com (soccer zone)
ZonaCarros.com (cars zone)
TrabajoNuevo.com (new job)
TrabajoRapido.com (quick job)
MercadodeTecnologia.com (technology market)
MaestrodeIngles.com (english teacher)
DietayEjercicio.com (diet & exercise)
PerderPesoYa.com (lose weight fast)
NegocioPorInternet.com (internet business)
NegocioenLinea.com (online business)
AprenderYa.com (learn fast)
Mark
Hi Jamie:
Do you use a sales agreement or liability release? I would think most companies would demand this. If you do, is there a template? Or, does the legal dept. of your buyer provide this?
Just curious,
Mark
Riq Ghafoor
Thanks Jamie for the pointers; I for sure am going to give it a serious try. Lets see how it goes?
Leonard Britt
I left one off this list which we promoted in late December to get a head start…
AgentesdeBienesRaices.com (real estate agents)
We mentioned in the letter some benefits of acquisition, .COM if that was the case, one-word domain if so, search frequency of SEO Book, traffic if meaningful (generally not) and mentioned that the domain could easily be redirected to their existing site. We included a link to the SEDO offer page and also mentioned for our .COM domains that the equivalent .net was available at a much lower price. On occasion we would get a response, “not interested” or “I’ll pay you twenty bucks” or “Are you crazy?” but we didn’t generate any serious offers from our efforts. None of the domains we promoted are premium one-word .COMs but few domainers trying to target end users hold such domains. Again, in most cases we promoted to companies with inferior quality domains (hyphenated, very long, .biz, .net if we had a .COM) hoping they would see some value in what we had to offer.
Dan
Great Post Jamie- What have you found works for the email subject line?
Jamie Zoch
# 11 Dan~ I put DomainName.com is For Sale
@ # 8 Mark~ You can use an agreement. I use Afternic or Sedo really. Here is a free one if you need it. http://www.dotweekly.com/2008/10/01/free-domain-purchase-agreement-and-generic-non-disclosure-agreement/
Jay Lohmann
Jamie,
With the mounting frustrations with the DN auctions, both online and off, it is a very good strategy for domainers to take it upon themselves to find buyers. Take a lesson from Rick Latona and sell the domain at a fair (or slightly below fair) value and take the profits. If you only own a few domains, chances are you did not get in early enough to get rich off of them. Use your inventory to slowly/consistently build profit and work your way up. If anyone (Jamie/readers) wants, I have a short and long version of a DN sales letter that I openly share. It is up to DN owners to educate ‘the street’ as to the value of domains.
Jay Lohmann
http://www.AdvertisingAndDesign.net
(TWTR) @FreelanceNation
DNK.it
I didn’t know thomasnet.com, I use also:
http://www.jigsaw.com/
http://www.hoovers.com/
http://www.spoke.com/
http://www.sec.gov/search/search.htm
http://www.business.com/
I’m curious to see your template Jamie if possible
David
Jamie,
Greaf info for advantages. What about savings. What
Ed - Michigan
Thanks Jamie for the ThomasNet site.
Ed – Michigan
Domain Superstar
Good info. Maybe in a subsequent post it would be useful to see the templates that you use.