Citigroup Really Gets It!
Last week I blogged about Citibank’s purchase of ThankYou.com to go along with its “Thank You Rewards Program.” While it may seem like the obvious domain name for this program, many corporations simply assume its customers will find out more information about a branded product or service by navigating to the corporate site instead. Last week, I congratulated Citibank on this wise purchase.
I was reading a post on Frank Schilling’s SevenMile.com blog about Citigroup’s branding of Mortgage.com, and I wanted to bring attention to this. Clearly the ThankYou.com purchase isn’t just a one time smart move. There is a strong marketing culture at Citigroup, and its domain acquisitions prove that the company understands its customers’ web surfing habits.
Mortgage.com is miles ahead of any other domain name in the mortgage industry. Sure, Citigroup executives could have said “if a potential customer wants a mortgage from us, they will navigate to Citigroup.com or Citibank.com.” This could have been true, and nobody would really say otherwise. However, the Citi branding of Mortgage.com allows Citigroup to make their pitch to ANY potential customer who wants a mortgage and visits this site. Instead of paying $x.xx or more per click to attract customers to its site, they now own all of these leads. They’ve eliminated the competition that existed, and they don’t have to compete with other advertisers.
It’s so easy, but so many companies just don’t understand this. I can’t say enough positive things about this great purchase.
**Although Mortgage.com was acquired by Citigroup, when they purchased ABN AMRO Mortgage Group, Inc.
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About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has sold seven figures worth of domain names in the last five years. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest.Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Google + | Facebook | Email
Louis
Mortgage.com didn’t even factor into the purchase of ABN. It was just a side asset….
owen frager
citibank acquired abn
citigroup.com/citigroup/press/2007/070122c.htm
had this discussion on Rick’s board because they TM’d it and someone on there was all excited he had a different extension
Dan
Hi,
It nice to see this starting to happen…I have noticed more TV advertisements with ‘generic keywords’ being used recently.
This one comes to mind:
Hyundai (car company) thinkaboutit.com
(3rd down)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=thinkaboutit&btnG=Search
Looks like they put a decent amount of $ into this advertising campaign…not a bad one at all.
You sure be a great trend…these folks starting to ‘get it’.
Best,
Dan
DomainerPro
I was recently trying to market geodesic.org to about 30 companies that design, build and install geodesic domes or geodesic dome homes as they call them. It’s not a dot com, but it gets about 50 type-in visitors a month who are mostly looking for information about this exact subject. I made the point to these companies that the domain is a perpetual lead generator. I only got one reply, from a company that offered me $50. Maybe I should have tried to explain it to them, but we were so far apart I didn’t see the point.
You’re right, many companies (large and small) just don’t get it.
Dan
DomainerPro…
I feel for you…
They will have to ‘get it’…sooner or later.
Just keep re-registering it.
It will pay off.
Peace!
Dan