Just sold a domain to an end user with this email...

PoshTiger · May 20, 2013

Not a great sale but not a bad sale either, made 2x what I bought it for on here - this may be of some help to the members not used to contacting end users.

I basically searched for the term in Google and picked the top 20 businesses that were either in the organic listings or paying for ads.

I ran whois lookups on the domains and got contact details for all those that had them - then I sent over this text.

I added the auction bit to make them take action now instead of kicking it into the long grass.

Subject: <domain name>

'Hi,

I'm shortly going to put this domain out to auction...

I'm wondering if you'd like to make an offer on this domain before it goes out to auction as I see you're in the same market.

If so, please email me back with your thoughts...

thanks,

Tony.'

It took around 15 minutes to complete all the work which isn't bad really.... Hope it helps someone.

Admin · May 20, 2013

Nice! thanks for sharing

Admin

max99x · May 20, 2013

thanks for sharing too, always interesting to know what works

websaway · May 20, 2013

PoshTiger said:
Not a great sale but not a bad sale either, made 2x what I bought it for on here - this may be of some help to the members not used to contacting end users.

I basically searched for the term in Google and picked the top 20 businesses that were either in the organic listings or paying for ads.

I ran whois lookups on the domains and got contact details for all those that had them - then I sent over this text.

I added the auction bit to make them take action now instead of kicking it into the long grass.

Subject: <domain name>

'Hi,

I'm shortly going to put this domain out to auction...

I'm wondering if you'd like to make an offer on this domain before it goes out to auction as I see you're in the same market.

If so, please email me back with your thoughts...

thanks,

Tony.'

It took around 15 minutes to complete all the work which isn't bad really.... Hope it helps someone.

so was it really going to auction ?

Systreg · May 20, 2013

websaway said:
so was it really going to auction ?

No, it doesn't look like it how I'm reading it, he said:

I added the auction bit to make them take action now instead of kicking it into the long grass.

PoshTiger · May 20, 2013

I actually was going to put it to action if it didn't sell - yes...

I use DL quite a bit but I think it would have gone for around 25% of what my end user sale was.

I always find when sending emails out, you have to have something that makes them take action right away.

I've learned to be a little more patient before putting them on DL - I caught a domain last month and it went for £60 on DL.

The very next day, one of the end users I contacted mailed me saying he tried to put a £250 bid on it but it wouldn't let him...

I was a bit gutted but forwarded the mail onto the new buyer and wished him good luck with the sale.

That taught me a lesson though...

Aiden Roberts · May 20, 2013

Thanks for sharing this could prove useful on a couple of names I'm sitting on.

srccode · May 20, 2013

curious, what type of email account did you use to send the email gmail (etc) or company?

Thanks for sharing and congrads on the sale

retired_member29 · May 21, 2013

Thanks for sharing. I will need to contact end users in the future. And like srccode mentioned i would be concerned about using a hotmail, gmailmail acount etc. I guess this is why having your own domain sales website can be a big bonus?.

fscisum · May 21, 2013

Thank you for sharing! Anyway, how would you know from Google which business is in organic listings or paying for ads? What do you mean by "organic listings," anyway? Also, were the domains you sold without any content? You just searched on Google the key words that are in your domain, right? I'm sorry for asking many questions, but I'm sure that this would be helpful for all of us! =)

PoshTiger · May 21, 2013

srccode said:
curious, what type of email account did you use to send the email gmail (etc) or company?

Thanks for sharing and congrads on the sale

I used a computer related domain name, but not a domain selling type name.

I wouldn't use a free email type account as when I see a message from someone I don't know from say a hotmail account, I pretty much discount it as probably trash before I open it.

Edwin · May 21, 2013

fscisum said:
Thank you for sharing! Anyway, how would you know from Google which business is in organic listings or paying for ads? What do you mean by "organic listings," anyway? Also, were the domains you sold without any content? You just searched on Google the key words that are in your domain, right? I'm sorry for asking many questions, but I'm sure that this would be helpful for all of us! =)

The ads are marked "Ads" and are usually found above and to the right of the regular search results. The ones above are in a yellow/orange background box (very faint shade of yellow/orange, but it is there) and the ones on the right are in a narrow column.

All the results between the top "Ads" and the bottom "Ads" boxes (usually 10 results per page) are what people describe as "organic". It's another way of saying "Results that Google displays for free, without anyone having to pay" i.e. the regular search results.

You can see all the advertisers for a given term by searching for it, then cutting and pasting the URL in each ad. Likewise, you can find all the top organic results just by visiting them.

Here's a screenshot of a search for "domain names" to show what I mean...

If you do a few more searches, you should soon start to get used to which results are actually ads and which are regular results.

srccode · May 24, 2013

I pretty much discount it as probably trash before I open it.

Yeah same here

lee · May 24, 2013

PoshTiger said:
I used a computer related domain name, but not a domain selling type name.

I wouldn't use a free email type account as when I see a message from someone I don't know from say a hotmail account, I pretty much discount it as probably trash before I open it.

Interesting.

I have started using my Google account more than my personal email for domain queries as the delivery (and getting through any filters at the far end) are greatly increased.

This is normally due to the words 'domain name' in the text, which I change to 'internet name' and the fact that my domain names has neither an SPF or probably a reverse DNS entry and I have not been bothered to sort that out.

fscisum · May 24, 2013

Thank you very much for taking time explaining this to me! It's very clear! I knew about the "organic" ones, but I didn't the specific term.

Edwin said:
The ads are marked "Ads" and are usually found above and to the right of the regular search results. The ones above are in a yellow/orange background box (very faint shade of yellow/orange, but it is there) and the ones on the right are in a narrow column.

All the results between the top "Ads" and the bottom "Ads" boxes (usually 10 results per page) are what people describe as "organic". It's another way of saying "Results that Google displays for free, without anyone having to pay" i.e. the regular search results.

You can see all the advertisers for a given term by searching for it, then cutting and pasting the URL in each ad. Likewise, you can find all the top organic results just by visiting them.

Here's a screenshot of a search for "domain names" to show what I mean...

Stephen · May 24, 2013

Thanks for sharing.

I'm waiting for somebody to offer that type of proactive sales / marketing action as a service rather than the Sedo approach to sit and wait to find your domain and click though to their website.