Brand Marketing

When It’s Critical To Own Your Product Domain Name

Some companies argue that as long as they own their brand domain name, it’s much less important to own their product domain name(s). They may believe this because they carry many products, and it’s easier to manage one domain name and website than a group of them. In my opinion, when a company’s product is more well known than its manufacturer, it’s critical for them to own the product domain name, as that’s what consumers will obviously be looking to find when searching Google or typing in the domain name.

Case in point. I read an article in the Boston Globe yesterday about a new cleaning product called “Spaghetti Scrubs.” This cleaning product is apparently less abrasive than steel Brillo pads, and it molds to whatever pot or item you are cleaning. The idea is that it takes less effort to clean your pots and pans than if you were using a sponge, and it can cause less damage to your pots and pans.

The article mentioned that Spaghetti Scrubs were invented by a Japanese designer, and it named a couple of stores where it’s available to purchase. However, the key takeaway for me is the brand name’s domain name, SpaghettiScrubs.com, is unregistered. From direct navigation and SEO standpoints, this is a mistake. There really is no reason why the manufacturer shouldn’t spend the $10 to buy the domain name. Even a simple forward to the Crate & Barrel website would be better than nothing.

Have a Great Business Idea and Need to Raise Funding?

One of the things I’ve noticed about domain investors is that they aren’t short on ideas for businesses on their domain names. People seem to buy domain names with a specific idea in mind for them, although many either lack the funding to build out the idea, the drive to build it, or they lack the experience to move forward with their project.

CNNMoney.com has a neat article about 6 startups (which I had never heard of), and the article discusses where the founders came up with the funding to bring their idea to fruition. There are some neat ideas on where to turn if your business concept needs some start-up capital. The CNNMoney.com article covers:

  • AirBnB
  • Makerbeam
  • Boutique Larrieux
  • Everlater
  • Measy.com
  • The Extraordinaries

If you happen to be someone with a great idea that just needs some capital to make it happen, hit me up. I am interested to learn about your idea and may be able to help with funding – or may be able to put you in touch with someone else who can help.

NCAA College Basketball March Madness: $1,000 in Prizes on Brackets.com

Domain investor launches March Madness bracket selection challenge with $1,000 on the line.

Brackets.com is giving away $1,000 in cash prizes during the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament, which begins on Thursday, March 18th. You can print out an official bracket and enter to win $250 – with no entry fee.   The person who has the most points will win $250, the second place finisher will win $150, and the third place finisher will win $100.

Entrants who aren’t good at making college basketball picks can still win. Brackets.com is offering $500 to the person who refers the most valid users.   In addition, to help build awareness, Brackets.com is offering prizes for inbound links from different websites. Higher pagerank websites are worth more points, and the leading referrer will win $250, the second place finisher will win $150, and the third place finisher will win $100.

Full contest details are available on Brackets.com. The tournament begins tomorrow, so sign up today.

Brackets.com is a recently launched venture from 260.com, a domain investment company founded by Tony Peppler.

Pasta ‘N More Direct Marketers Understand Domain Names

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Since my background is in the direct marketing business, I pay attention to infomercials and other marketing efforts specifically to analyze the execution. Some of these commercials (maybe most) are cheesy, but everything from dialog, domains, actors, and product placement has a purpose. The domain name is also important, and in many cases, it’s used for testing purposes.

I saw a commercial today for the “Pasta ‘N More” pasta maker, which seems to be a plastic container used to help cook various types of pasta. The product was being offered by one of the top direct marketers – Telebrands. This product isn’t something of interest to me, but the domain name they used was FreePastaNMore.com.

The url seemed a bit confusing and certainly didn’t pass the radio test, which was surprising to me because most call to action direct marketing efforts (especially radio and tv) do their best to make their phone numbers and urls easy to remember.

I decided to check to see if they registered the potential typos, and it looks like they did.   Here are some of their domain names for this product:

  • FreePastaNMore.com
  • FreePastaAndMore.com
  • PastaAndMore.com
  • PastaNMore.com
  • PastandMore.com

It’s good to see marketers protect their brand, as many companies neglect to do so and are forced to pay for this traffic on a continual basis, rather than the one time registration fee.

Vegas.com Backed by County for .Vegas gTLD While City Backs Other Entity

Vegas.comAccording to an article in the Las Vegas Review Journal, the operators of the famous Vegas.com website won a key endorsement from Nevada’s Clark County board of commissioners to run the .Vegas gTLD if and when ICANN approves the introduction of these domain name.

The county vote was unanimous, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that Vegas.com’s operators will actually be able to manage the .Vegas suffix. The city of Las Vegas previously endorsed Dot Vegas, Inc., another organization that would like to run the .Vegas gTLD. I personally find it a bit odd that another entity won considering the strength of the Vegas.com brand outside of Las Vegas… but what do I know.

Of course, the big winner in this will be ICANN. I presume both entities are going to have to pay ICANN a LOT of money to apply for the gTLD, and then ICANN can decide whether Clark County or the City of Las Vegas has the greater right to select an organization to manage the registry. This is another big issue that ICANN will need to sort through before they make their decision.

With millions of dollars at stake, all of the minor issues will certainly become major. Since the Clark County commissioners have been told the .Vegas gTLD “eventually could generate millions of dollars in fees for the county,” they probably won’t take a rejection lightly and litigation could follow. I guess it’s a good thing that ICANN is charging so much for applications – the legal fees could become enormous (imagine if the State of New York wants a .NewYork while New York City wants .NYC).

No matter whether Vegas.com gets awarded the .Vegas suffix or not (if/when ICANN approves their introduction), they will still be the winners when people type in things like hotels.Vegas.com and vacation.Vegas.com

iCharge Should Buy iCharge.com

TechCrunch ran an article today about a European company called iCharge which accepts credit card payments through an attachable smartphone accessory. The article compared it to Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s company, Square, which I previously wrote about.

I am not going to analyze the company’s product or services since that isn’t my forte and I haven’t tried it out, but I would suggest they buy an important domain name for this international company. At the moment, iCharge uses iCharge.net for its Internet presence. This might not be a problem with for some companies, but inevitably, people will type in iCharge.com, which happens to be for sale via Sedo for $10,000 EUR (not an affiliate link).

When publishers such as TechCrunch refer to the company as iCharge, people will generally assume the will be found on the .com. This is especially true for multi-national companies that operate in many different markets. As a company that will rely on trust since it’s dealing with payment processing, iCharge should not give another company the opportunity to swoop in and buy iCharge.com. If that happens, they will have no control over that generic domain name.

In my opinion, the price for iCharge.com is fair, especially considering the .net company is positioning itself to become a big player in the field. Now would be the best time to buy the domain name, before the company increases its value.

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