I’ve written extensively about selling domain names to end users, and one thing I want to recommend is that you use the registrant email (or phone number) found in a Whois lookup as a means of getting in touch with the proper person.

Oftentimes, a business website only offers a contact form to contact them. If the company is larger or if it’s a company that would need a customer service contact (ie an ecommerce company where most people are writing to check on orders), your email may be lost in the process or reviewed by someone who doesn’t know how to handle your request.

Instead of taking a chance and sending the email via form that may not be read by a decision maker (or calling the wrong department), use a Whois service like Domaintools and find the email address on record. Chances are good that it’s a person in the executive offices or possibly the actual business owner.

I’ve also found the History tool to be helpful, since many companies change the Registrant email once they grow sufficiently enough that the owner/founder is more hands off. The History tool costs $15/month as part of the Silver membership, and if you are serious about buying domain names and need to check on a domain name’s history, it’s an essential tool.

Maybe I will look smart with this, and maybe I won’t.  We’ll see…

I was looking for a long tail domain name to register today with the hopes of re-selling it to an end user later on today. One domain name I found was PhiladelphiaTourGuide.com, and I registered it at Godaddy this morning. I chose Godaddy because almost anyone who buys domain names has heard of them, and the trust factor for an easy domain transfer/push is there and could reduce any anxiety.

I chose PhiladelphiaTourGuide.com for a few reasons:

1. Philadelphia is a historical city with plenty of tours
2. There are a whole lot of tour guides in the city, especially with a bad economy.
3. There are very few barriers to entry to be a tour guide, so having a good domain name can propel someone to a higher search engine ranking, generating more business
4. Large companies own other big city TourGuide.com domain names (ChicagoTourGuide.com is on sale for $2,388
5. It’s a .com and .com is still king

FYI…Sorry for going back and forth with past and present tense in this post. As I am writing this, I have not yet sent out any emails, but I am in the process of finding people the email.

I am going to send the following email to prospective buyers of this domain name:

Dear XYZ,

I saw that you are a tour guide in Philadelphia, and I think you might be interested in buying PhiladelphiaTourGuide.com, a domain name my company owns but doesn’t have plans to develop. When someone is looking for a Philadelphia tour guide, they are likely to search Google/Yahoo/Bing for “Philadelphia tour guide” or something similar. Have a website built on the exact match domain name can be very helpful to your search engine ranking for related searches.

Additionally, I believe it would be cool to be known as the “Philadelphia Tour Guide,” and that can be done more easily with PhiladelphiaTourGuide.com. You can build your brand with this great generic domain name. I am offering this domain name to several Philadelphia tour guides and tour companies over the next few days, and the first one to agree to buy it for $1,800 will get it. The domain name only costs around $11/year to renew at Godaddy, the world’s largest domain name registrar.

I hope you consider buying this domain name. Please get back to me ASAP, as it will sell to the first person or company who agrees to the asking price. Payment can be easily made using Paypal or a trusted escrow service like Escrow.com.

Regards,
Elliot J. Silver

I am going to search Google and Philadelphia’s Craigslist to find people who are advertising themselves as a local tour guide, and I will send them an email about this offer.

Should I not be able to sell it, I plan to park the domain name at Parked, and I will have a for sale notice on it in case people are interested in buying it.

This is a guest post from domain investor Calvin Washington, and I wanted to share it in the hopes that it helps others who are dealing with end user sales. If you are doing something unique that could help other domain investors, and you’d like to write a guest post, please email me. As long as you aren’t trying to sell something or get a back link, and it’s helpful to others, I would be happy to post it.

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I have been using this trick successfully lately when selling to end users who for whatever reason showed no interest in my particular domain. It has been working for me after getting a “No!” or “Not interested” reply. It’s really simple and I’m sure many others are doing something similar but you never know!

Thanks XXXX,

Though you expressed no interest in XXXXX.com, I appreciate your getting back with me. The highest offer we received was $XXX. I guess it’s best to let the market decide it’s value. If for any reason in the future it may be of value to you, we will be willing
to accept $XXX.

In either case, take care!

Best,
Calvin

In closing, it’s strongly recommended that your price that you’re willing to accept be higher than your highest offer received. If not, you may come across as being dishonest. Hope this helps someone. Another big point I’d like to stress is the salutation. “Best” is my way of basically saying to the end user “This is my last contact to you, take it or leave it”. I sure there are some grammatical errors or misuse of punctuation, so make the necessary corrections when needed.

I posted a sample sales email to an end user that I’ve used successfully in the past, and I am sure a few people thought my $400 price was probably too low. “Hey – you’re selling a domain name to an end user – an attorney no less. You should charge them more money!” Yeah, perhaps the people who say this are right, but below is a little perspective.

Say you buy a name like this every day, five days a week for $100 each. At the same time, every day, five days a week, you sell one similar domain name for $400. Each domain name you sell will yield $300 in profit (minus taxes of course). At the end of a year, not including 104 weekend days that you don’t sell a domain name, you would make $78,300 in profit.

This might not be a lot of money to everyone, but it sure would be a great revenue stream to have. Sure, there will always be names that won’t sell, but if you can focus on selling one targeted geographic keyword domain name, or a category defining domain name in a small industry, you can make some real money if you do this consistently – maybe even more than $300 on some of the names.

The key thing is knowing what’s a valuable name and what isn’t valuable. If you are just guessing, you will likely lose money. The smart thing to do is really do your homework. Research what other domain names professionals in those industries use for their websites, like cityAttorney.com for example, and buy similar names as they come on the market. This will give you the biggest clues about the buying habits of others.

***Update***

This is more theory than practice. I haven’t done this exact thing, but did similar sales when I started in the domain industry several years ago. I’ve also had luck recently selling names for good profit margins similar to what I outlined above. There are also some interesting comments to consider below.

A couple of weeks ago in the comment section of a blog post I wrote, someone asked if I could provide a sample email I’ve written to end users to sell domain names, and I am happy to oblige. Most of the time, my emails are short and to the point, as I know an unsolicited email to a CEO or small business owner needs to get to the point quickly. My emails also can vary depending on the potential buyer and the domain name, but this is one that has worked before on lower value (under $1,000) domain names.

Below is a sample email and my rationale for writing what I wrote.

Email for a CityAttorney.com domain name I purchased on Snapnames for $99 (the name was sold)

My company owns XXXXXXXXAttorney.com, and I would like to know if you would have an interest in buying it. Owning a strong keyword domain name can help you rank higher in search engines for the term, and I believe this is an important term to own.

This is short and to the point. I don’t think people give random emails a lot of attention, and why oversell in the opening email? Save all the other points about trust in owning the generic name for a second email if necessary.

The price for this domain name is just $400, and it is registered at Moniker.com, a domain registrar located in Florida.

I named my price because there isn’t a reason not to do so if you know what your name is worth. I didn’t want to get greedy or have my email deleted because my price was too high. I figured $400 was a fair price and would be easier to get someone to buy. I paid $99 for the name a few days prior, so it’s a 300% profit when I sell. You can also leave out the price if you want to as a A|B test, but I opted to name the price to keep it simple and allow a quick business decision.

I also mentioned where the registrar is located so they knew I wasn’t a spammer from a different part of the world and there would be some trackability.

I am sending this offer to several attorneys in XXXXXXX, and the first to reply will have the opportunity to buy the domain name. I found your contact information via Google, and this is a one time individual email.

I wanted the recipients to know that time was of the essence and they needed to make a decision before someone else did. I also wanted them to know the email wasn’t spam, and that they weren’t being added to a list so they knew it was a one shot deal.

Regards,

Elliot J. Silver
Top Notch Domains, LLC
Phone: (610) 217-xxxx

I provided my contact information and company name so they could see that I am legit. Just another way to give them confidence in doing a deal with my company and me.

This isn’t a very comprehensive email, but I generally prefer to keep it simple on the opening email. The name is a generic geo-keyword domain name, and the benefits of owning it are pretty clear. I will search for a more comprehensive end-user email that I’ve used when I return, but I have had success with this.