Many domain investors rely on outbound emails to sell domain names. One question people regularly ask is who to email at a larger company. Do you send an email right to the CEO? Do you send an email to the CTO?
Selling a domain name isn’t an easy, but it is much more challenging when emails aren’t sent to the right people. Today’s daily poll asks who the best person to email is when trying to sell a domain name to a large company:
Thanks to Francois for submitting this suggestion to me.
Gab has been in the news quite a bit the last few days. The social media platform acquired the matching Gab.com domain name via Flippa for $220,000 a month ago, according to NameBio.
Apparently, Gab.com is registered at GoDaddy, and the registrar is requiring (Twitter link) that the company either transfer the domain name to a different registrar or GoDaddy will suspend its services due to reported TOS violations. The website is apparently not hosted at GoDaddy – just the domain registration is there.
Today’s daily poll asks if you think a domain registrar should be able to force a domain transfer or suspend the usage of the domain name for non-compliance?
Please keep your comments on point about the issue at hand rather than the Gab platform and be respectful.
We are now more than 3/4 of the way through the year, and I want to see how things are going in terms of domain name sales compared to last year.
In 2017, NameBio recorded 80.9k total domain names sold and $118.5 million worth of domain name sales. So far this year, NameBio has recorded 67k domain names sold worth $87.9 million. Based on my interpretation of this data, it would seem that 2018 is trending slightly downwards in terms of domain names sold and the value of those domain name sales. There could be some lag in sale reports and/or the data may not be the same as last year (for instance, Uniregistry may report sales at a much later date so their sales aren’t counted for 2018 but are counted for 2017).
There is still plenty of time in the year to put sales on the books and turn things around if they are also trending down for you. I am curious to know how sales have been trending for readers this year vs. last year:
Name Summit is coming up in a little over a week and a half. The two day event is being organized by Attorney Jason Schaeffer of ESQWire.com and domain investor Steven Kaziyev. The conference is being held at the Westin Times Square in New York City on November 5 and 6th. This is the second year the conference is being held.
I will be attending the conference on November 5th. For those who want to attend but haven’t bought a conference ticket, I was offered a 20% off coupon code to share with readers.
Today’s poll asks if you are going to attend Name Summit:
It’s frustrating when an offer or inquiry comes in, I respond to it, and I don’t hear back from the buyer. It is even more frustrating when their offer is somewhat close to the asking price, and I think there is a pretty good shot of the deal getting done.
Following up on offers and inquiries is important. Brokers spend a lot of time following up with prospects. If you’ve ever inquired to buy a domain name listed via Uniregistry, you’ve probably received multiple follow up messages from their brokers over a lengthy period of time.
Re-connecting with old leads works, although it can be a bit annoying on the receiving end if the domain name is no longer of interest.
I would estimate I follow up anywhere from 1 to 3 times depending on the prospect and/or offer. The greater the chance of closing a deal, the more I will try to connect. I follow up via email, but I am not opposed to texting or calling. In fact, I think texting is one of the better ways to connect. I have discussed many domain names via text, although I typically use it to ensure my emails are making it to the prospect and to schedule a follow up phone call.
How many times do you follow up on old leads? Share in the poll below and feel free to expand in the comment section:
I think the majority of domain names my company owns have buy it now prices listed on the landing page or via Afternic. I appreciate a quick and seamless deal, and having a BIN price is helpful to that end.
On some of my higher value domain names, I have not set BIN prices. There are various factors that will impact my asking price, and the domain market is dynamic. Oftentimes, people will ask me for the price of a domain name rather than submitting my offer. When I don’t have a BIN price, I generally push back and request an offer. It doesn’t make sense having a discussion about a $500,000 domain name when the prospect’s budget is $5,000. I am sure this can frustrate a prospective buyer who may think along the lines of a home that is listed for sale where the owner says “make an offer” without a list price.
I am curious about whether you put prices on your domain names when a prospect inquires without first making an offer or if you insist on having the buyer go first. For me, it really depends on the situation. Sometimes I will give a price to make things a bit quicker, other times I will give a range “six figure offers will be considered,” and other times I will wait until the prospect makes an offer. What are your thoughts on pricing names that don’t have BIN prices listed? Do you go first and name your price when asked or do you require the prospect to make the first offer before sharing the price?
