In response to yesterday’s article about using contact forms to sell domain names, two readers asked me for more information about my usage of Dropping.pro. I find the Lead Generation tool helpful, and I will share some more information about how I use the tool to find prospective buyers for my domain names.
When I am looking to do outbound marketing on a domain name, I will plug the domain name into the Lead Generation tool. After a couple of minutes, it will reveal prospective buyers it found based on other domain names and domain name registrations.
Many of the leads will include the Whois email addresses, but with Whois redaction at GoDaddy, GDPR regulations, and Whois privacy, the Whois email address field isn’t always helpful to me. Typically, I will open each of the domain names the Lead Gen tool found. I do this to see what websites are actual business and what domain names are owned by investors or others. I also do this to see if I can find a good contact person (President or owner of a SMB) or the Marketing / Biz Dev person at a medium-sized company. If I can not find a good email address or contact form, I will use DomainIQ to see if I can find an older email address via historic Whois record.
I do my best to try and find the most likely prospective buyers based on what I see on the websites and glean from Whois records. For instance, a website for a company that went out of business would not be a good prospective buyer. A company that operates in the field that matches my domain name would be a good lead. Much of this lead analysis I do is common sense based on my experiences. I do my absolute best to not email other domain investors.
One other way I use the tool is to analyze the market for prospective buyers before buying a domain name. Of course, I think it is unethical to do any sort of frontrunning, but knowing how many prospects there are for a domain name can be helpful in determining its value to you as an investor.
I use the Basic plan, which costs me $49.95/month, automatically paid via PayPal. I primarily use Dropping.pro for its expired domain name daily email alerts that are tailored to my needs. In terms of finding prospective buyers for domain names I want to sell, I use the Lead Generation tool. In looking at the current plans, I may have been grandfathered in to an old plan because it looks like the Lead Generation tool is part of the Intermediate package, which runs $99.95/month. I believe there may be a similar tool on Estibot.
Dropping.pro is operated by Intelium, which also operates Estibot, DomainIQ, and several other domain industry and tertiarily related websites. I also have an account at DomainIQ, which I find to be helpful as well. I have had accounts off and on at Estibot, depending on my needs.
yes, there is a similar tool on Estibot
Very helpful post Elliot. Thanks.