Email Templates to Sell Domains?

[jimmc]

Hi, Apart from selling via Sedo, or DAN who now as a GD company seem to offer most aftermarket platforms, how many members contact potential end-users by email and what kind of success do you have this way?

Using something like outlook is pretty bland, it doesnt pack any punch and doesn't seem to work for me but do members have some kind of favourite templated/branded email that works well that gets eyeballs/sales and would you be willing to explain or share an image to give others a chance to try something similar?

All the best,
Jim.

 

[m4c]

To share my recent test on outreach:

60 .co.uk EMD / Keyword domains, mostly service / small business keywords - I searched Google of the “exact match” keyword string, and sent emails to anyone paying for exact match Google AdWords, and / or the top page of results.

Also thought I’d been ‘touched by genius’ when I came up with the idea of sending emails to the webmasters of those ranking / ad paying sites, thinking they would be happy to pitch my domains to their clients, cause it would lead to more work for them…

Method: emailed manually (ie: one at a time) from a branded Gmail account, personalised emails using an email address from a ‘marketing & design agency’ website.

Results:
550 emails sent
5 responses asking for info / prices
0 sales

I was pitching at mid £xxx prices - only got a single response with a firm offer of £100 from a webmaster, which I accepted, then they ghosted me

So for me it confirmed what others have shared before, and from personal experience from interacting with many small business owners - and that’s most of the small business community have no appreciation / don’t share our perspective on the value of domain names.

Also I’m mindful of email deliverability rates - cold emails rarely end up in the primary inbox, so I expect far less than 50% were actually read by someone who was a decision maker.

But based on that sample size, in my experience it isn’t worth the time required to research and send by cold email, for keyword domains.

In the future, for Premium / higher value / SEO domains / web sites, I reckon the only way would be to search the website / LinkedIn / call to find out a decision maker, then cold call / make an appointment to talk about ‘a unique domain name opportunity’ or ‘digital business development ideas’… etc - but again low chances of success…

Would love to hear about any strategy others have used, and found to be repeatable / commercial viable.

 

[m4c]

This was the simple message I tested, courtesy of @seemly

>>>>
Dear Jill,

A domain name that we are currently selling may be of interest to your company:

propmaker.co.uk

Let us know if there is any interest, as we are reaching out to some prospective buyers.

Thank you

Jason McCarthy
[email protected]
M: 07958 123456

If you would prefer not to be contacted about domain acquisition opportunities in the future, please respond with opt-out or unsubscribe in the subject line. This is a one-time advertisement.

 

[Murray]

I've never had too much success but I don't think I spent enough time researching the right individual to contact and how to best reach them, which is probably more important than the contents of the message itself

 

[Nigel]

I'm moving some back to sedo tonight. At least they allow us to use British Pounds.
Trying out sales landers v2 seller, v3 seller and v4 seller. Not bad - does anyone have an idea which performs best for 'buy now' ?

 

[Systreg]

Did a forum Search and @Federer had some good result doing outreach, seems they were mostly in the £100 - £500 price range, but when you sell a lot, they soon add up. This is one of the sales templates he posted on the forum:

Hello,

We are contacting some companies concerning a domain we are selling:

xxxxx.co.uk

Please let us know if you would be interested in acquiring this domain name that is now available.

For the purposes of full disclosure, i'm also contacting other businesses and people I believe would be interested in acquiring this domain.

Best Regards,

Business Name
Address
Phone

- If you would prefer not to be contacted about domain acquisition opportunities in the future, please respond with opt out or unsubscribe in the subject line.
This is a one-time advertisement.
Registration information: whois.domaintools.com/xxxxx.co.uk

Federers follow up email to the one above:

Same response to everyone - a response that shows little desperation, but ignites a little urgency:

------

Thank you for your message. The domain name xxxxx.co.uk is for sale for £395.

Please let us know if interested, as we are contacting some other companies that are also ranking under domain's keywords.

Best Regards,

Xxxxx

 

[seemly]

Did a forum Search and @Federer had some good result doing outreach, seems they were mostly in the £100 - £500 price range, but when you sell a lot, they soon add up. This is one of the sales templates he posted on the forum:



Federers follow up email to the one above:

The sales template I was mentioned in earlier was actually the sales template Federer had the best results with.

I used to have a domain sales template generator tool on seemly.co.uk, but I never copied it over to domainsaleshistory.uk as it wasn't used much.

 

[seemly]

I've rebuilt and launched the domain sales email template generator.

You can read about the update here.

 

[Ben Thomas]

I've rebuilt and launched the domain sales email template generator.

You can read about the update here.

Probably the worst email template I've ever seen. If I received this in my inbox, I would immediately mark it as spam. No offence to you, as you obviously think it's good.

Some of the best cold end-user sales I have had have been via email, and just to give you an example OP, of the sort of email that usually gets a reply from buyers that are interested, goes a bit like this (this is a genuine email I have sent which has had sales behind it):

Hello,

Bit of a cold email, but we’re trying to find a new owner of HandwritingExperts.co.uk, a premium domain on our portfolio. We intended to develop this into a directory of Handwriting Experts, and Handwriting Forensic Experts etc. but no longer have the time to do so.

We’d really love this premium domain to go to a company or business in the sector, it’s a really authority commanding domain name, it’s what we call in the domain name industry a “category killer” because it’s a standalone keyword people search for in your industry.

Please let me know if you’re interested, and we’ll get this invoiced up for you.

Thanks a lot!

Another example of an email I've sent which has made sales on follow up after no reply is this:

Hi Beth,

I guess you’re snowed under? That’s great news and I’ma let you finish, but can I just follow up with you about our previous email?

Securing your brand is 100% the best way to secure more high ticket clients, and can I remind you that we love .uk domain names (we use one for our main domain too!), but there’s no denying that if we could get hold of our .co.uk, we would. Unfortunately, we didn’t have that opportunity — but you do!

I’m CC’ing Rachel Lowes into this email, I don’t know who is better to speak to about this. To be honest, we’re just trying to get a yes or no. We’d love to see you secure this, but we’re also going to move on with our enquiries if you’re not interested.

I hope to speak to you really soon.

 

[Ben Thomas]

To share my recent test on outreach:

60 .co.uk EMD / Keyword domains, mostly service / small business keywords - I searched Google of the “exact match” keyword string, and sent emails to anyone paying for exact match Google AdWords, and / or the top page of results.

Also thought I’d been ‘touched by genius’ when I came up with the idea of sending emails to the webmasters of those ranking / ad paying sites, thinking they would be happy to pitch my domains to their clients, cause it would lead to more work for them…

Method: emailed manually (ie: one at a time) from a branded Gmail account, personalised emails using an email address from a ‘marketing & design agency’ website.

Results:
550 emails sent
5 responses asking for info / prices
0 sales

I was pitching at mid £xxx prices - only got a single response with a firm offer of £100 from a webmaster, which I accepted, then they ghosted me

So for me it confirmed what others have shared before, and from personal experience from interacting with many small business owners - and that’s most of the small business community have no appreciation / don’t share our perspective on the value of domain names.

Also I’m mindful of email deliverability rates - cold emails rarely end up in the primary inbox, so I expect far less than 50% were actually read by someone who was a decision maker.

But based on that sample size, in my experience it isn’t worth the time required to research and send by cold email, for keyword domains.

In the future, for Premium / higher value / SEO domains / web sites, I reckon the only way would be to search the website / LinkedIn / call to find out a decision maker, then cold call / make an appointment to talk about ‘a unique domain name opportunity’ or ‘digital business development ideas’… etc - but again low chances of success…

Would love to hear about any strategy others have used, and found to be repeatable / commercial viable.

I would advise ever mentioning a price in your initial pitch email. You don't want them to know the price, you want to gauge their interest. So you can see replies like this:

Then you can go into the price, because you know they're interested. That's when you switch your sales game on.

 

[Murray]

I used to just put

"Hello, I thought you might like to know I currently have the domain ___ for sale

My asking price is ____

If of interest please reply to this email to discuss further

Best

*name*

ps. This domain will be sold on a first come first served basis. You will not be contacted again regarding this matter"

I feel like anything much more is just wasted words and time

But again I havent had too much success so.

 

[Ben Thomas]

The ending is great, because you're giving them the sense of urgency but also not pressuring them into buying.

 

[seemly]

Probably the worst email template I've ever seen. If I received this in my inbox, I would immediately mark it as spam. No offence to you, as you obviously think it's good.

This isn't an opinion piece, and I'm not offended in any way. I'm just making and sharing tools to save people time.

How much success have you had with your email sales templates?

They read a bit long for me—too much fluff. Nobody is interested in reading more than they need to.

The reason behind the success of Federer's template is its conciseness. It's straight to the point.

If you can match the frequency and sales numbers that Federer achieved, by all means, I'm happy to include your template as an alternative.

 

[Ben Thomas]

This isn't an opinion piece, and I'm not offended in any way. I'm just making and sharing tools to save people time.

How much success have you had with your email sales templates?

They read a bit long for me—too much fluff. Nobody is interested in reading more than they need to.

The reason behind the success of Federer's template is its conciseness. It's straight to the point.

If you can match the frequency and sales numbers that Federer achieved, by all means, I'm happy to include your template as an alternative.

Well, I have had more sales via cold emailing than most, I would say. I don't do it every day like this guy seems to have done, but during the bursts of time that I did do it, I maybe sent out 15-20 emails over an hour, and worked with the responses.

I'm not really interested in whether they seem too long for you, because they have worked for me and the OP wanted advice on what worked. So there we have it.

I am so confident in my templates, that if you gave me a decent domain name to broker, I think I'd find a buyer using them rather quickly.

EDIT: I'll add, nobody wants straight to the point. That's a fallacy. Have you ever heard the phrase, "sell the sizzle not the sausage"?

Another example of long form cold email, domain in this case sold for £390 + VAT:

Reply:

 

[seemly]

Well, I have had more sales via cold emailing than most, I would say.

Brave claim when you have absolutely zero clue in relation to what anyone else has done, or is doing.

I'm not really interested in whether they seem too long for you, because they have worked for me and the OP wanted advice on what worked. So there we have it.

Just as I'm not interested in some random person's opinion of a sales template that is from a guy that has published and shared his prolific successes.

I am so confident in my templates, that if you gave me a decent domain name to broker, I think I'd find a buyer using them rather quickly.

I'm sure that if anyone was given a decent domain name to broker, they could also find a buyer rather quickly.

Decent domain names sell. I'm not sure what you were trying to prove there.

EDIT: I'll add, nobody wants straight to the point. That's a fallacy. Have you ever heard the phrase, "sell the sizzle not the sausage"?

No.

Another example of long form cold email, domain in this case sold for £390 + VAT:

I didn't even read all of that through boredom, and it's on a subject I was already invested in and talking about.

I'm out. As usual, @Ben Thomas has managed to turn this into a dick-measuring contest, when all I was doing was sharing a proven successful email template, and providing a quick and easy way of using it.

 

[Ben Thomas]

No idea why you harbor such passive aggression for me, nor do I care, Christopher.

That one line email “template” is worth nothing, not sure why you’d even bother adding it to your website, it adds no value to anyone.

“Hi this domain is for sale, wanna buy it?”

Really successful, I’m sure.

 

[Conda]

Can anyone give me best subject for emailing. Because everybody talk about email content.

 

[gdomains]

Can anyone give me best subject for emailing. Because everybody talk about email content.

I have had success using the domain itself in the header keep it short and sweet

 

[gdomains]

I think that where a lot of people go wrong is they send one email thinking this will work. It won’t you make your money in the follow-ups. I normally have to make 4-7 points of contact. I do a mixture or email/ calls / texts / linked in / fb message etc.

 

[Ben Thomas]

I think that where a lot of people go wrong is they send one email thinking this will work. It won’t you make your money in the follow-ups. I normally have to make 4-7 points of contact. I do a mixture or email/ calls / texts / linked in / fb message etc.

Yeah, you've gotta become that annoying little email that won't go away. A lot of people forget that the sort of people we're emailing are directors, etc. that don't sit around checking emails all day. It's about getting in front of them during that 5-7 minute break they have between meetings, with a catchy subject heading.

Someone else mentioned subject headings, remember that this is your only opportunity to capture someones interest before they swipe you away into the read folder, or worse still the junk.

Whoever mentioned just putting the domain in the subject, that's mostly how I do it too. If you are sending to a public mailbox, do your research and think about gatekeepers who might discard your email before the person you want to read it, even sees it. I sometimes put things like FAO: Director Name — Forecasts for Example.uk or something that a gatekeeper might think is important and forward to the right person. Often times you can find the name of the person you want to speak to on Companies House.

It's a bit of a rough edge, but, sometimes I even look at the dates of birth and try to figure out who might be most technical minded by their age, Google them, get their LinkedIn, or find an email for them on their website and then email them.