Selling to Endusers - Part 1

[FirstPageResults]

The best sort of domain sale is when you find an enduser for your domain!

Here are some initial tips and techniques that may help you in approaching and selling to endusers.

This is Part 1 - more specific detail next week.

Please feel free to leave some comments.

(Author: neddy)
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Selling to Endusers - Part 1

I thought I’d write a short overview article about selling to endusers.

If people are interested, I’ll follow up next week with another article giving next steps, further details and examples.

Some of you do this already – so this is perhaps not for you. For those that don’t, if even just one of my suggestions helps you get a sale,
then it has been worthwhile.

I’ve been doing this for a while – and I have “split-tested” so many different methods. This works for me.

(I will preface my article by reminding people that you can’t purchase an Aussie domain for the SOLE purpose of resale).

Benefits of approaching & selling to endusers?

1. Potential to get far more money for your domain than you would get by selling to fellow domainers!
   
   
2. Generally a quicker result than just listing it on a sales or forum platform and hoping someone will actually see your listing and contact you.
   (I’m not advocating deleting listings from anywhere – in fact it can be a benefit to have your name listed on a sales platform like Netfleet
   and direct potential prospects to your listing).
   
   
3. You control your destiny! Input determines the output.

Possible negatives of approaching endusers

1. It takes much more time than just doing a listing on NF, Sedo or DN Trade or similar.
   
   
2. You have to put in some effort to compile a suitable list of prospects.
   
   
3. You have to send individualised emails – you do not want to spam*.
   
   
4. You may have to lose your anonymity (and shyness) and actually talk to some prospects!
   
   
5. Some of them have no knowledge of domain values and benefits – you have to educate them in a nice way.

Steps & stages

1. Choose a good domain that has a decent chance of selling. I know that sounds obvious, but you want a domain that contains keywords
   that if you put them into Google, there is lots of Adsense. Ideally there should be 3 ads up top as well as the side ones. Why? Because all
   these people that are paying for Adsense for those terms are your prime prospects – and they are the ones you’re going to approach first.
   
   
2. Compile a prospect list. I do this in Excel because I can put in lots of info; and it helps me track progress. I am also compiling a database
   for future use (when I have similar domains I want to sell!). These are the headings I use (separate sheet for each domain):
   
   
   • Company name;
   • Website URL;
   • Website email address (*if this is publically stated then imo you are not breaching Spam Act if you send them an individualised email)
   • WhoIs Registrant Contact email address;
   • Contact name (if an owner, director or manager is listed on the website, use this. If WhoIs contact is different, doesn’t hurt to send
     a separate email to them as well;
   • Location (this could be multiple);
   • Date email sent;
   • Response and comments
   
   
3. Go through and list details for all your prime prospects. Generally speaking, if you work this list first, you can save a lot of time looking for
   other prospects. Most of the time, I sell to someone from this list (because if they are doing adsense they are already web savvy, and very
   keen to learn how they can get “free” organic traffic by having a prime keyword domain).
   
   
4. Send a personalised email. I always try and use a first name for the initial contact; and I always mention their existing website. This shows
   them that you have taken enough interest to find out a little about them – and are simply not mass-emailing every man and his dog! Always
   include your name and a phone number.
   
   
5. I’m a great believer in “selling the sizzle” in a short, sharp initial email. I have tried the long convoluted ones which try to convince people
   with logic and examples etc, but I get the least responses from those. To me, the initial email should “whet the appetite” enough in order for
   them to respond by email or phone. Once you get a response, you then have someone to work with. Fishing analogies come to mind.
   
   
6. I won’t give an actual example of my initial email, but these are two sentences I always include:
   

   “Due to personal reasons, I need to sell yyyyyyyyyy.com.au rather urgently; and I am approaching people in your industry”.

   “I wondered if you might be interested if the price was right?”.

   (These two sentences tick all the sales boxes – creates urgency; lets prospects know (nicely) that you’re approaching other people;
   imbues a fear of loss; and insinuates that the price could be an absolute bargain).
   
   
   
7. I sent out 10 emails yesterday on a keyword domain, and I got a 50% response – 3 phone calls and 2 emails. I have 3 prospects out of the
   exercise – and I’m hopeful of getting a sale today.

Part 2 will follow next week ........... “Next Steps”

I hope some of you get some benefit from this article. Please feel free to comment, or send me a PM if you want further information.

Cheers, Ned

 

[pierso]

Nice work - looking forward to part 2 - keep it coming.

 

[techmo]

Thanks for your insights Neddy, I too look forward to part 2 - cheers

 

[reub]

sweet, I too look forward to Part 2.

 

[DavidL]

Good job - IMO there's not enough pro-active selling to end-users amongst us AU domainers. I'm guilty of it too but the times I have done it have really paid off.

Couple of things I would add:

1) list the domains on an auction platform with a set end-date to encourage competitive bidding and reduce procrastination (eBay or NF when the auctions start going again)
2) phone up the key targets and talk to them. Much better cut through than an out-of-the blue email that may well just get wrongly considered as spam. Follow every call with an email.
3) include links to hostoric domain sales, documents or videos on the value of domain names in the email (but without compromising brevity) (maybe this is stage 2?)
4) email domainers too (and/or post the domains for sale on DNtrade etc)- although the whole idea is an end-user sale with a retail price, you never know what a domainer might be prepared to pay. At the very least they might get the bidding going.
5) do an 'inurl:searchterm' search too to find people who have used the KW in their domain name. They may not rank organically or pay for Adwords but it still should be a close match.

 

[neddy]

Good job - IMO there's not enough pro-active selling to end-users amongst us AU domainers. I'm guilty of it too but the times I have done it have really paid off.

Couple of things I would add:

Good suggestions David.

I'm going to cover a lot of this sort of stuff in Part 2 - and in particular highlight some of the resources I use once I have "got someone interested".

One tool I find simply the best is the Netfleet sales page - once you can show an enduser an authoritive source that shows some domain names actually sell for good dollars, then half the battle is over.

I'm also going to cover using oDesk to help build databases of potential prospects - once you have trained someone up, this is so cost and time effective.

 

[sydneyduo]

Hi Ned,

Thanks for the info. Being involved more in selling developed websites to end users. Would love to hear more from you.
Cheers

 

[nina]

Thank you for this post. I've been working on my domain sites with some more strategy behind them, and find that these snippets of information help me make decisions, however small, that I might have struggled with earlier.

It's such an interesting topic!!

Nina

 

[Honan]

This worked for me

 

[neddy]

This worked for me

Would you like my PayPal address in order to show your appreciation?

 

[ScottNugent]

Fantastic artcile neddy. I really look forward to part 2

 

[Honan]

Would you like my PayPal address in order to show your appreciation?

Pass; And pull your finger out and post part 2

 

[neddy]

Pass; And pull your finger out and post part 2

There is no love or appreciation on this forum - I quit.

 

[prawn]

Trying this right now for the first time. Thanks for the info and looking forward to Part 2.

Edit: Trello (https://trello.com - not my site, just a user) might be good for tracking this. I'm setting up lists: Targets, Contacted, Response - negative, Response - positive, Received offer. If you check out Trello and the demo of using it to track unsigned bands, you'll see how I'm applying it. Would be quite effective if a team of people were managing a sale together.

 

[Joel]

I'm keen to see what's in part 2!

 

[Data Glasses]

I'm keen to see what's in part 2!

There is no part two .........he sold them all !

 

[neddy]

I'm keen to see what's in part 2!

Me too!

 

[neddy]

Sorry for the delay with Part 2. Been ultra busy with tons of other stuff.

I have also been clearing the decks and pruning my domain portfolio - sold a lot of domains at wholesale prices to some worthy new owners.

So I promise I'll have this done within the next 2 / 3 weeks. I think I may do something similar to what Gab is doing with the SEO challenge - do a real life example.

Thanks for your patience.

Cheers, Ned

 

[Ashman]

Prospect Database

Great article Neddy.

After reading this post I decided to create a database of prospects. Basically if anyone wants to buy a generic domain they can list the keywords they want and their contact info. Then a seller can access the database and see if it contains any prospects for their particular domains.

The database is located at Domain Name Prospect Database and you can submit data using the Prospects Form.

If anyone already has a list of prospects they think might be suitable they could submit the data or send me a spreadsheet and I will upload it.

Not sure if this system will be of use to anyone or if there is already something similar out there but I decided to contribute it anyway.

If anyone has any opinions please PM me or kick my ass in public if you like.

Ash

 

[geodomains]

I was chatting with Ned recently and he shared some of his email templates with me, I’m definitely giving them a try, as they look great.

It’s good that domainers can help each other out.

Don