Connect with a Branding Agency

Last week, Alan Dunn shared a link to an article about a company that decided to rebrand as Alongside. The company was able to acquire the exact match Alongside.com domain name, although the article didn’t really discuss how the domain name was acquired. It did, however, give me an idea that might help me sell domain names.

There are two excerpts from Ā the article that grabbed my attention:

“We enlisted Pauly Ting to help us make sense of it all and come up with a name that fits us perfectly.”

“We enlisted Rob Meyerson from Heirloom, who had an impressive naming background for some of the biggest brands in the world”

Many companies use branding agencies or branding strategists to help figure out a good brand name. Obviously naming a company is important, and there are experts whose job it is to come up with a great (and fitting) brand name. Once a few brand names are chosen, the company needs to figure out a few things, including a domain name search to see what Ā matching domain name are available to them for each of their brand name finalists.

My idea is pretty simple. I should think about reaching out to some of the leading branding companies to let them know about some of the domain names I would like to sell. I personally believe that Lilac and Stallion are strong brand names for the right company, and it would probably be even more interesting if that company knew it could buy the exact match .com domain name for those keyword. These branding agencies might be able to pitch one of my domain names to their client. Not only could they help their client, but they would likely want to earn a % of a sale price for the domain name, too.

Earlier this year, I sent emails to a handful of venture capital company partners letting them know about some of my domain names for sale. I figured that perhaps they would have a company with a crappy name or challenging url in their portfolio, and they might have an interest in one of my company’s domain names. This yielded no replies, although that is not unexpected. Reaching out to a branding agency or branding strategist seems like it could be a better option for me.

I am curious if any readers have tried this strategy and what the results were.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
  1. Elliot,
    If you want to find suitable buyers for your top names and maximize your proceeds you should approach end users. šŸ™‚
    IMHO that’s an essential part of domain investing.

  2. Elliot, FWIW, many branding agencies and naming specialists have pre-existing relationships with Domain Buyer Brokers who help the agencies/namers with the domain name aspect of the puzzle. It’s a symbiotic relationship.

  3. It sounds like a great idea. Contacting VC’s as well.

    I was definitely struck by what a great domain Stallion is before, and how versatile. I could definitely see that one being worth 7 figures.

    • (Horse racing/breeding industry alone would be a major win, but the other possibilities are almost endless for other industries in terms of branding appeal.)

  4. Branding agencies are typically too full of themselves to name a company a name that isn’t their own creation or idea.

    And an EMD is typically not in the scope of the initial branding exercise so it would limit the agencies ability to bring names to the table. These guys throw out dozens even hundreds of different names out there until execs agree upon which one they like. The domain is basically an afterthought until then.

    Also, the problem with many ultra generic domains (for resale purposes) is that their is not an underlying product or business that they pertain to. I would assume finding end users could be a difficult task and it’s more of a waiting game, i.e. there are not dozens of qualified leads available from a simple search or two.

  5. I chose the name for a friend of mine and got her set up with the .com domain in a GoDaddy account a number of years ago. In no time at all one of the biggest area TV reporters in one of America’s biggest cities became a client and she got a feature story about her business on the news. Then later her main client wound up dying and leaving his fortune to her, making her rich overnight, not long after which she closed her business.

  6. Elliot,

    I don’t usually go specifically after VCs, but what does often happen is that in the course of researching a specific company to approach, I will come across a VC involved in that company. More often than not, they are also involved in other companies in the same field, so I will reach out to them which domain(s) for their field of interest.

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