Recently, I was contacted by a prospective buyer who wants to purchase one of my domain names. During the course of our discussion, I learned that he owns a toll-free 800 phone number with my keyword, and he would like to own my keyword .com domain name to go along with his phone number. This gave me an idea.
If you own a short keyword domain name, perhaps you can find a buyer by seeing who owns the corresponding toll free phone numbers. You can search 800, 877, 888…etc phone numbers online or simply by calling those companies directly and getting contact information for the respective companies. You may even find some local companies who bought keyword phone numbers in their area code.
Some of the phone numbers you call may not realize their number is the keyword of your domain name, so it’s a hit or miss effort. However, if a brand has been promoting their 1-800-keyword phone number, they may be very interested in buying the corresponding keyword .com domain name. This is especially true for a company that has been using that phone number for quite some time without realizing the keyword .com (or other extension) is available for sale.
Because of the limited supply of toll free numbers, this may not yield many prospects. The prospects that are interested likely understand the value of having the keyword, and they would also likely see the value in owning the domain name and toll free number pair.
If you’ve had experience selling a keyword domain name to the owner of the keyword toll free number, I would be interested in hearing about your experience. Further, if you’ve ever acquired a toll free number to pair up with your keyword domain name, I would be interested in hearing how that process went and if a buyer found value in the set.
Yes, its true that people like 1800 numbers and exact matches. Long back I had received request for once such domain with a reg fee price which I had rejected! Ideal domains for 1800 are 7 character domains because 1800 numbers usually follow the format 1-800-XXX-XXXX. Hence a domain from 4~7 characters would suit best, with 7 character domains ideal in many circumstances.