Monetising domain names with paid email addresses

[bb99]

As some of you may know, I used to sell email addresses off the back off certain domain names. This was a branded/customised service running out of www.girth.co.uk.

When we moved servers, the signup code that I had written myself stopped working because we changed various elements of the back end system. I never got round to rewriting it. Still, the customers signed up back then continue to use the service.

The point is that, if you have a reasonable generic nice domain name (or maybe a surname or first name), some people will pay to have an email address there.

I'm going to be relaunching my Girth service and am paying a developer to write a nice clean front end interface and sign up script that will interface with a payment gateway and then setup an email address at the required domain name.

After discussing it with the developer we thought there may be an opportunity to provide this service to domain owners.

As a domain owner, you would provide:

- the domain names
- a price per year per email address
- a logo
- a domain name to run the service from, a brandname
- a PayPal account

We would be invisible behind the scenes and would provide a templateable skinnable system for the users. They would be able to:

- browse the domain names available
- search for their name@ the domains available
- buy an address
- perform admin like changing password, forgotten password, etc
- find out about the service, its limits, etc

As a reseller, you would be able to:

- list your domain names
- set your selling price
- view signups/traffic/etc

The email service itself would be run by a reliable established 3rd party email provider and would be (almost) invisible to the end user.

We would charge you a small setup fee and then a fee per email account per year.


Nothing is cast in stone but I'm curious as to whether any domain owners would be interested in this sort of thing? I know it's been mentioned on here before a few times.

The other added bonus is that this may be seen in a DRS as making fair use of a domain name - offering a bone fide service. But I wouldn't know anything about that

Thoughts / comments / criticisms please

 

[mally]

This sounds interesting and is something that I would consider looking at once your established.

 

[bb99]

Just to clarify a couple of points having discussed this with A Domainer:

- You could still park the domains or do what you want with them, it's just the MX in the DNS records that would point over to us.

- One sticky point would be what happens if you sell the domain name but you've got 10 email addresses running off it? I guess the T&Cs will need to clarify this and will allow the domain owner to give say a month's notice to the email users and maybe refund them their fee.

- The email service will not be run out of a crappy reseller account, it would be a proper gucci service with imap, pop3, webmail, anti spam, anti virus, desktop notification widget, uptime guarantee, etc.


Not sure on costings yet, will post them here once I've done some more work.

 

[philiporchard]

Interesting...

Not sure of how viable charging for email is?

I know as I am trialing it at the moment. Take a look here:

http://www.chislehurst.co.uk

Chislehurst is a very expensive and exclusive place to live, and therefore thought it might take off!

Even printed 15k leaflets to deliver. Had a friend hand deliver 2,000. Not a single response.... hmmm. Don;t think I will continue down that route!

Maybe there are some glaring issues with the site, as I am suprised there was such a lack of interest. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained!

 

[bb99]

That's interesting... I'm very surprised that you didn't get a single sign up! Did you get traffic but no sign ups, or just no traffic?

When I did it before it seemed to do OK based on several domains, there were about 20 domains and you could pick which one to check availability against. I advertised it through Adwords and that's where I picked up customers from.

Times have changed though - with free Gmail (although with ads) it's much less of a valued commodty. Gmail was around back then, although with smaller inbox and by invite only (but everyone knew where to get invites).

But if you were offering @smith.co.uk and your name was Bob Smith, surely you'd be happy to pay over for [email protected] ?

Dunno - I suppose it's a case of suck 'em and see. The plan would be to keep the setup cost very low anyway. It's not as if the script is that complex anyway so it's not going to be a lot.

Thanks for the info anyway.

Having looked at your site I'd suggest the following to perhaps help get some signups. Not sure if it'll make any difference but here's my thoughts. Not criticisms, just thoughts and suggestions

- Advertise on Google Adwords based on Chislehurst as a keyword

- Show some screenshots of the email interface and emphasise benefits

- Maybe explain things a bit more, not everyone knows what POP3/IMAP is, the key point being that you can have webmail OR you can access your email through Outlook etc. You could even charge a tenner to nip round to the person's house and set it up in Outlook for them (5 mins work).

- Have a customer testimonial or two

- Tell people who you are and where you're based, there's no name/address on the site, this would put me off

- If I click on the T&Cs it takes me to the apply page, that's odd. I love small print

- Give an instant sign up, it's a bit odd that I have to wait up to 24 hours to get up and running.

- Maybe add a forum to the site to get people in the community talking, although you may have missed the traffic boat if you've already done the leaflet drop. A nice Sky affiliate advert may be a good earner on the forum.

 

[keys]

I like this idea, and it is one that we could make substantial use of. I would expect most interest in domains that are short, fun or popular surnames. Place names are another option but they seem rather too functional and impersonal.

I would also be inclined to aim for quality hosting and extras, thus adding value to the service.

 

[bb99]

We hope to have a basic system up within the next few days or so, depending on our workload on other stuff.

Because the email system is already there we just need to code up the search/signup stuff, payment stuff and a bit of management code.

How exciting

 

[philiporchard]

Thanks for the comments.

I'm sure it can be done well, it's just getting the site to be 'just so' so that it engages the audience.

I designed the site chislehurst.co.uk to look smart (i.e. no funky colours etc) and to be quite understated. Not sure if this works or not - I guess not at the moment!

I use the free email that comes with the hosting to run this service.

I have 170GB of email storage available for users to access.

I can have unlimited users, and my hosting company is responsible for running the email system. I just put the site up, and pulled the email login box onto the index page. Total cost per month is £5 which is not bad considering they are running Smartermail which is quite a robust email system.

So at least I'm not out of pocket (apart from the £200 I paid to print 15k postcards to promote the service!)

Will watch this space with interest to see what your system looks like when it's up and running.

 

[Multiowner]

Interested in your plans but I have tried something similar without much success. I registered personal names to be used as email addresses e.g. danas.co.uk, danasplace.co.uk and tried to lease them- no success. I have sold a number of the names (£300.00- £400.00) but no takers for the email addresses. I also tried the same with business addresses e.g. Westminsterbusiness.co.uk - but nothing apart from a few sales.
I have a reasonable number of visitors to what is an "old" site -scotours.co.uk but nobody seems to be interested in email addresses - web diversions are more popular.
If you can get something running that works for email, I'ld be happy to sign over a few hundred names.

 

[ratboy]

Another.com is a big provider of paid for email addresses, think they have over 10,000 generics they offer email on (!). Looks closed for businesses at the moment, but thats probably a good model to follow if you want to go down this route.

 

[uglygit]

just had a look at the chilthurst domain, at £2.95 per email !, that's £35.40 per year, wow that's a lot considering your email is free with your isp, no wonder no-one signed up. some ideas :-

1) offer the email address free for the first year...with small print blurb (terms and conds) on the flyer/website that 'we are offering this exclusive offer to Chilthurst residents as a free service however if demand increases along with bandwidth we may have charge a small fee (approx £2.95 per year) to accomodate the extra demand'

now people will sign up if it's free (I would), let them use it for a year , give out email addresses, get comfortable with it, etc and then hit them with a email about the demand and the £2.95 per year.

£2.95 x 92761 (population source google)= £273644.95

2) integrate voucher/freebies deals exclusive to chisleton folk (see http://www.hotukdeals.com/vouchers-static.html)

3) how about a shoutbox for people in your street (or user specified),when someones online.

 

[smileysmile67]

Paid e-mail addresses set up - please contact me if poss

Hi - I have been trying to find someone to provide me with the service that you pretty much describe. I own a web domain pertaining to a sporting venue which I believe is a potentially desirable e-mail address to a niche, but significant market. Basically I need a package which I can sell to buyers along the lines of "make *******.com" you e-mail address for only x p.a" and where the host will supply the framework/legals etc. If you can assist I think there can be money in it for us both. I appreciate selling addresses isn't easy but I KNOW this market and how to reach them. Potential subcriptions could be over 20000 but very realistically at least 2-3,000 per annum. (10-15 gbp per annum?)

 

[retired_member6]

Bang up the prices an I'll have a look, I used to use everyone.net

And yes another do something simailr, wish they'd park their domains properly though.

 

[miked]

I think the key here is demand rather than price. Get an eMail address that people want, a site they want to be associated with, and they'll pay. For example, fans of a particular band might pay to have an eMail address linked to that band (especially if it's related to a street team or similar).

Finding something that people want so much, of course, is the difficult thing...

Mike.

 

[crabfoot]

There are a lot of caveats to be considered here.

The gmail/hotmail addresses are no longer acceptable to register with eBay, because they have been heavily abused by scammers. If the service is offered free, you need some sort of checking mechanism to screen out Mr Bogus, or you will find the scammers are in clover again. Many check the validity of the postcode, or the telephone number.
Having said that, I once helped a friend of mine in the Ukraine to register a free UK email address. He needed an address with a valid UK postcode, I gave him one. Unfortunately, the house it applies to was removed by Hitler (Demolition) GMBH over 60 years ago, but the email still works!

People get free email from their ISPs - then find out that it ties them to the service. You could use this as a marketing point, "a separate email address allows you to change your ISP easily, with seamless continuity" or something similar. But you would really have to spell it out, or target people who have had a bad ISP experience, before you can win them over.

I have been using a couple of free services for some time now, to divorce myself gradually from my ISP and gain independence. I'm not using the free email I get with my domains, because it gets tedious having to check all those mailboxes on a regular basis.

I have eight "regular" email addresses, some of which are targeted to receive business (I only look at the number of mails and check the messages if the number has changed), some of which are full of spam (I open those once a fortnight and delete a few hundred mails), and two of which I check daily.

I cannot see why I would want to "buy" an email service, unless it was part of an email-based business venture, where I wanted a name - and then, I would be more likely to buy a domain and go with the registrar's service.

Whatever I want, I can get for free, although it might require a "black hat". I know "free" providers that will give really fancy email services, and I know that the services I rely on are not going to fall over tomorrow.

I think you need a discount deal or two, linking into some premium services, in addition to email, to make this idea take off. A free offer would just help those eBay scammers, and get you a bad reputation. Perhaps you could roll in a deal that included access to Pogo Games, for example.

 

[aZooZa]

I tried this in 2002 and spend about £20k on it to include all the email back end. It was fine until the spammers got to it, even though I was charging $60 per year up-front. I first had the idea in 1998 when I registered aliases.net but didn't pursue it until 2002, and then did it under another domain name. I could only sustain it for a few months until it was crippled.

The biggest player emerged to be another.com, a year later. Here's the story of the battle that they fought:

The great spam witch hunt

My advice, based on a lot of bitter experience, is to stay well clear of it.