Frank Schilling

.Sexy Domains Marketing and Usage

Sexy Bus

Frank Schilling posted the photograph of the bus above, which is promoting the .Sexy domain name extension. As you can see from the photo, the bus is on the streets in Hollywood, California. There are currently two buses with the .Sexy advertisement driving through Hollywood and West Los Angeles between Downtown LA and the beach in Santa Monica. The buses are promoting the url, AreYou.Sexy I am told Uniregistry will be doing additional mainstream marketing for its new TLDs in the near future.

This type of marketing is cool, and we’ve seen it before with .Club bus wraps in Canada. I think advertising .Sexy in the Los Angeles market is a smart move. Perhaps Miami would also be a good locale for this type of campaign.

In my opinion though, the best type of marketing is actual usage of these domain names. The more people that see these domain names being used, the more people will know they are available to purchase and use. Although they may seem like a bit of a novelty, more adoption will be beneficial to all who sell (and invest in) the new gTLD domain names.

A few days ago, I saw someone mention

Justin Bieber: “My Tumblr is Joker.Tattoo”

Very early this morning, Justin Bieber posted something on Twitter that probably made Frank Schilling and his Uniregistry team very happy. I embedded the tweet below, but Bieber said, “My Tumblr is Joker.Tattoo“.

 

As you are probably aware, the .Tattoo new gTLD extension is owned and operated by Uniregistry. The domain name is not directly registered to Bieber, but it appears the domain name is registered to someone whose company is backed by Bieber. The domain name was registered in April.

I reached out to Uniregistry to see if this is a registry promotion, and I was told

Who is Responsible for New gTLD Marketing?

It is my opinion that in order for the new gTLD domain names to have investment value for domain investors, there need to be companies who use these domain names for their websites. In order for this to happen, end users need to know what the new domain extensions are and why they should choose them over existing TLDs. These end users also need to be convinced that their domain names will be recognized and trusted by their clients and prospective customers.  Educating these end user buyers will require significant marketing efforts.

This leads me to the question: who is responsible for new gTLD marketing?

On one hand, the domain registrars have direct contact with the prospective end user buyers, and they are responsible for suggesting specific new gTLD domain names to potential buyers. On the other hand, the domain registries operate individual gTLD extensions, and to a large extent, each TLD is its own brand that needs to be marketed to prospective buyers and end users.

I reached out to representatives from several domain registrars and new gTLD registries, and I asked them who they think is responsible for the marketing that needs to be done to make consumers aware of the new gTLD domain names. Below, you will find the responses from those who were kind enough to take the time to share their thoughts:

Uniregistry Announces Pioneers Program

Uniregistry LogoOne of the best ways for a new gTLD domain registry to let people know that it exists is to ensure that some of their domain names are developed into brands. One way to accomplish this goal is to get some of the premium domain names in the hands of people and companies who will develop them into brands.

Uniregistry recently announced its Pioneers Program, which aims to put some of its reserved domain names in the hands of developers. Instead of having to pay what might be a substantial sum to secure a reserved domain name from the registry, Uniregistry will either give a domain name to a qualifying applicant or charge a nominal fee for the rights to it.

Here’s how the Uniregistry Pioneers Program is described:

Name Administration Parked Lander Promoting New gTLDs

Screen Shot 2014-04-29 at 10.31.50 AM

I stumbled across an interesting landing  page that I want to share with you. KidsActivities.com is a domain name owned by Frank Schilling’s Name Administration. It had previously been parked with traditional pay per click revenue generating links as well as an orange “for sale” call out at the top of the landing page. Right now, it’s almost completely different.

In place of the PPC links, Schilling has put a call to action to encourage visitors to search for domain names ending in a new gTLD extension. The main message on the page says, “KidsActivities.com This name is taken in .com, but it may be available in other extensions.” Below this message is a search bar to search for available extensions at Uniregistry, the domain registrar owned by Frank Schilling. On the top of the landing page, there is a message announcing it’s for sale, but it’s much less of a call out than the standard orange bar found on most other DNS-parked landing pages.

I reached out to Schilling to inquire about the new landing page, and he was kind enough to share some more details. “We are trying many different implementations to see what works best,” Schilling told me. “Some of these names will

DNS: “We May Have the Perfect Alternative For You”

dotlink-imgThis afternoon, I received an email from DomainNameSales.com that said, “We may have the perfect alternative  for you to [Redacted].com.” The brief email continues, “Many great names, including those ending in .LINK, are available now!” Frank Schilling’s Uniregistry operates the .Link domain registry, and the company began selling .Link domain names today. It is one of the first “generic” new gTLD domain extensions that has been introduced.

The redacted domain name was one that I had inquired about back in 2006 directly to the owner. The owner of the domain name had entered my email into the DNS offer management system, and when a DNS broker followed up last year, I expressed surprise about receiving the inquiry. As a result, my lead was sent to the dismiss folder because I was obviously not going to move forward to purchase this domain name.

I believe I received today’s email because the owner of the domain name signed up for the Uniregistry affiliate program and my lead was considered a dead lead. As sort of a last ditch effort to make money from the dismissed lead, I was emailed about the opportunity to buy the keyword .Link domain name, which is not currently registered.

I think this tactic is pretty clever.

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