Reaching Out to a Potential End User Domain Buyer

I am going to try something a bit different today and give you an inside peak into how I hope to sell a domain name to an end user company that knows the value of potential clients who visit the domain name.

My company owns the domain name ResistancePool.com. For those who aren’t aware, a “resistance pool” is generally a small indoor pool with streaming jets, allowing people to swim in place. These are similar to treadmills in a sense but they allow people to swim instead of run. Resistance pools are perfect for smaller areas, allowing people to work out in a place where a lap pool couldn’t fit.

I have done some research, and I see that there are a number of advertisers who are bidding on the keyword phrase “resistance pool” using Google Adwords. Those pool companies include:

  • Endless Pools (EndlessPools.com)
  • FitMax (FitMaxiPool.com)
  • FamilyPoolFun.com
  • SwimEx.com

I also did some research to see what other companies offer these types of pools but who aren’t using Adwords. Since it’s the winter time – and since many parts of the country are facing frigid temperatures, some companies may not be advertising right now. Other pool companies that offer resistance pools include:

  • Sentry Pool (SentryPool.com)
  • Hydroworx.com

Now that I have a small list of potential buyers, I am going to do a bit of research to find the names and contact information of the companies’ principals and/or marketing contacts. Here are the contact name I found (email addresses not included here):

  • Endless Pools (James Murdock, President)
  • FitMax (Lawrence Chang)
  • FamilyPoolFun.com (Jeff Backer)
  • SwimEx.com (Mark Pearson and Suzanne Marchetti)
  • Sentry Pool (info@SentryPool.com)
  • Hydroworx.com (Anson Flake, Paul Hetrick and Mike McHugh)

Not only will I use this information to get my emails in front of the right people, but hopefully Google will visit my site, and I presume many of these companies monitor their brands with Google Alerts, so they should see this blog post as well.

The hard work of finding potential buyers is nearly complete, but here is the email that will be sent to the buyers today:

Dear (Contact),

I see that your company is one of the few pool companies that sells a resistance pool. My company owns the keyword domain name ResistancePool.com, and I would like to sell it. Instead of having to pay Google, Yahoo, or Bing every time someone clicks on advertisement, you can own the domain name for this competitive search term.

According to the Google Keyword Tool, there were 320 exact match search for “resistance pool” last month, and the number is almost certainly higher during the warmer months in the Spring and Summer. Owning this product domain name can help bring you new high value clients, and perhaps more importantly, it will prevent one of your main competitors from doing the same.

I am currently offering ResistancePool.com for just $850.00, paid via check, bank wire, or Paypal. I am also amenable to using Escrow.com, and we can split the fees. Since I am offering this domain name to several companies, the first one to reply with “I want it!” will get the rights to acquire it. The domain name is registered at Moniker, a Florida-based domain registrar.

Please contact me at once if you would like to purchase ResistancePool.com.

Regards,
Elliot J. Silver
President, Top Notch Domains, LLC

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. Hi Elliot-

    Great idea.

    However, they will probably still want to continue their advertising campaigns with Google, etc. You might want to acknowledge that having the domain name will help in attracting clicks on SERPS.

    Also, $850 seems pretty low. What the heck do I know, but I would ask more in the 5K range.

    Best,
    Mark

  2. I would leave out the Google Adwords Keyword Tool data as it may be foreign to them. I would also leave out the first come, first serve comment. Keep it simple. You have identified an end user. If they believe they can benefit from acquiring the domain, they will respond. Best of luck.

  3. I agree with Mark, I think the domain is worth more than $850. Pools are high dollar items with pretty decent margins, you can tell because the average CPC is around $4.50. If they sell just one pool from buying your domain name (that’s guaranteed), they’ll earn more than $850. They’ll probably sell more like one every month or two.

    Another comment I have is that if you say the first one to respond with “I want it” gets the domain, you’re eliminating the possibility of a bidding war. Maybe you’re just trying to liquidate this quickly, but I would state an expected range (i.e. – “I am accepting offers from $850”) and then let them fight it out.

  4. Great letter Elliot – this is very similar to the emails I send-out to end-users myself. I also work very hard to get a real decision-maker within the company on the phone.

    At the end of the day it’s all about showing the buyer how the domain will save them money in the long-run – and with exact match domains like this you have a great case!

  5. Michael has hit the nail on the head. You should be asking in the 5k range and there is very good chance that more than 1 company would want the domain,so, you should remove the ‘ first one to respond with “I want it” gets the domain’ part.

  6. For all the big talkers in the room, why don’t you buy this recent hand-reg from Elliot for $850, and then go flip it for $5k? I’ll be the first to congratulate you upon a successful sale.

  7. Aaron, that would be a great idea, we can buy it and then approach the same end users Elliot just approached, but asking five times as much. That would definitely work. I never said $5k by the way.

    Just goes to show there are still some solid domains available for hand registration, I didn’t realize he just picked it up yesterday.

  8. $850 seems like a fair # to me – the # has to be very enticing to the buyer (remember, seller is contacting potential buyers, not the reverse) – i think first come, first served is necessary language – what happens if company a and b both reply “i’ll take it” – it creates confusion and reputational risk w/o that caveat.

  9. $5,000 could still be reasonable, but that would probably require the buyer needing the domain name and approaching me. Under $1,000 can usually be more of a quick answer rather than having to crunch numbers and get approvals.

    The call to action is necessary to elicit a quicker response, IMO.

  10. Say “I am accepting offers from $850.” instead? That way they can offer $850 but you aren’t forced to accept it outright. Maybe someone else will come back and offer $1k. I guess having it be a fixed price on a first-come, first-served basis would give a stronger sense of urgency though, so maybe that’s the way to go.

  11. There is a comparable domain that is a bit above this asking price so that’s probably where the $850 is coming from. Won’t say what that name is but it should be obvious to a domainer.

    The right buyer would be nuts not to buy both for the redirect to their main site, or develop one and redirect the other.

    In any case, this is an interesting hand-reg case study. Let us know how it goes.

  12. @ SL

    I agree. The one downside to this “case study” is that there are under 10 potential buyers, one of which has an affiliate program. Ideally, there would be 20-30 potential buyers (or more), and the competition between them would be more fierce. This is the case with real estate agents, insurance agents, attorneys…etc.

  13. Nice domain at an excellent price, Elliot; though several others I also like the idea of offering it on a “will consider offers over …” basis.

    One never knows just how high is (especially with domains) until one tries.

    I’d pitch them first, though, with a $1950-2950 start price; reducing it if no one bites to $995 after a week or two.

    Since the next common price point after $500 is $995 (any business wo/man who’d pay 850 will pay 995), I’d suggest starting there.

    I’d also throw in the fact that this investment is likely tax-deductible to them.

  14. Elliot, it sounds like a great plan. Seems there are others here that think they could get $5,000 for it. They could save you some work by making you an offer and reselling it, following your suggested approach with their own pricing 🙂

  15. Hey Elliot – That’s a pretty low starting price IMHO, considering the price tag of the item. I generally try to ask about twice what I’d sell for initially in scenarios like this. That way I have some bargaining room.

    I’d ask maybe $2,500 or best offer for a name like this. I do like the ‘fear of loss’ angle, and agree that you should add a ‘tax deductible’ bullet point. Also, it might help to stress that just ONE sale acquired pays for the name and the highly targeted traffic for life!

    But for a quick flip $850 should be pretty easy for one of these companies. Good Luck!

  16. Elliot,

    I am sure you have thought of this, but I would contact the owners of swimspas.com and swimspa.com comparable terms that both resolve at seperate companies. They might want it to protect and help a brand.

    Steve

  17. Elliot,

    Thanks for sharing your approach. I think I would have been tempted to say “many pool companies that sell resistance pools” rather than “few pool companies” – if you’re in a competitive industry where products go for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, even a dozen competitors can seem like “many” when you’re having to face off against their advertising campaigns at every turn.

    Hope the approach pays off for you, either way!

  18. This might also depend on the size of these companies, if these are small businesses (distributors) then your asking price might be reasonable for a quick sale, but if these are big manufactures that specialize in building this kind of pools, then there might be room for higher prices. Also is this the primary name for these pools or are these referred to by another more popular name, if this is the primary name that these pools are known by (and are advertised by) then some of the larger companies might be willing to pay even more in order to get a domain that represents one of their high dollar products. IMO

  19. A couple of things I might try: Make a simple site and run Adsense. Then you can get a better idea of what they are paying .. they are already paying to advertise on the domain, why not own it?

    If one of the top companies has an affiliate program, make an affiliate website with it.

    Sometimes it’s better to be a buyer than a seller ( I have found this many times with Adsense and affiliates). I understand some people just want to flip names, while I prefer to develop. But even if you don’t want development and residual income, I think you can get more than $850 without much effort. You might find more value in it.

  20. Love the idea and method, but I am always intrigued by the “quick flip” “too low” “should sell” comments all domainers buy into. Sadly, I doubt this domain sells at $850 to any of the companies targeted. I hope I am wrong and it may sell for much more someday, but I see very little success pushing sales. Potential end users do not for the most part buy into extra domains and I can almost assure when they consult their webmaster about such a strategy, he will highly advise against it, right or wrong.

    I hope you have fast success because we all know the push model is duplicable. But overall, it seems a volume or low-ball game in the end.

    Someone buy it though…I need motivation again.

  21. May be worth adding a piece on how the domain can potentially increase their CTR on the PPC ads as well which in turn will drive more volume, rank higher and all at a lower CPC. If it is the one buying the AdWords or YahooSM, in addition to all IM, this proposition should make sense to them…or use the domain to stack the results with their corp site + the KW domain site.

  22. Elliot,

    Please contact me. Give me 48 hours and I’ll sell your domain, free of charge, for over $1,500. I sell domains almost daily to end users.

    Luc

  23. I think your strategy is perfect and your price of $850 is fine as long as you are satisfied with it. In this bad economy domain name sales are Slow and the the prices have to Low in Many Cases if you want a Sale.

    Relating to what Aaron said – If you could get an easy $5K for ResistancePool.com it would be Sold in 30 Seconds.

    Also I agree with Edwin – “Many” is much beter than “Few” and You Proved this to the Potential Buyers with Your Facts & Research.

    Thanks for Sharing Your Great Domain Knowledge.

  24. I sell new hand regs all the time and I think its usually necessary to be under $1k. Companies dont have to think about it as much when its a few hundred bucks. I think $850 is a good amount to tell them and then they might counter with lower and you settle for $500 which is good for a brand new reg. Something else that I think helps a lot when flipping a new reg to an enduser is that it helps if the domain is with GoDaddy. Almost all companies and potential endusers have heard of GoDaddy and trust it. If its registered with a place unknown to them and they have to get an account there if its less than 60 days since you regged it then they dont want to deal with that. I am not affiliated with GoDaddy in any way btw, just know it makes a HUGE difference based on experience.

    • @ nr

      Also a good point about Godaddy, and it’s an issue with new registrations that can’t be transferred. Under normal circumstances, I try to pitch names after they’ve been registered for 60 days in case a company wants to transfer it.

  25. I’m trying an experiment with a legal domain. I made a short list as you described, and used almost the exact wording you have here, but I’m varying the addressee field.

    I’m mailing To: {addressee n} and using the greeting “Dear {addressee n+1}”

    I’m assuming the recipients will recognize the name of their competitor to whom the email is addressed, and hoping a competitive frenzy will ensue.

  26. I agree with others here that $850 is too low.

    I recently sold a long tail real estate domain on eBay. I used the same type of email you wrote but I told everyone that the domain was for sale on ebay and that it would sell to the highest bidder in 7-days. It created a bidding war PLUS everyone knows eBay (and most trust it) so I didn’t have to explain what escrow.com is.

    Just my 2-cents.

    J.R.

  27. rather not say exactly, but it’s an area of practice + “florida” .com

    I’m hoping this’ll work fine for industries/occupations, where folks tend to know their competitive.

  28. You are absolutely spot on with this suggestions, Elliot! Although, I had imagined that ResistancePool.com would have gone for a little bit more. All they have to do is sell one pool and they’ve recouped their cash.

    Great suggestions and tactics though, loving the posts recently. Keep up the awesome writing bud!

  29. Elliot,
    Would love to hear the results of how this went.
    Did you end up selling the url? Did people bite at your email and what kind of response did you get?

    -Jordan

  30. Hey Elliot,

    Thanks a ton for passing along a some tips to us newbs. 😉 Just found your site last week and have been on here every day since. I was curious though, when a customer buys these types of domains (to use in addition to their existing business domain), whats the best way for them to use it? I’ve heard stories that redirects or even mirrors of your site (at the new web address) may cause Google to impose penalties in your search engine ranking. Is this true. If I was the purchaser, whats the best way to go about using them? Thanks in advance!

    -Lance

  31. here is a newbie

    do unregisterd .com domain domains with about 1000 – 2000 monthly searches for the keywords in search based google keyword tool and 0.25 ppc , have any reselling potential in the aftermarket? how many type in visits such domains may recieve if registerd? is there any to tool to gauge that before register it ?

  32. I have sold names not as good as this one in the $7k-10k range. Your approaches to clients are not very sophisticated – your letter, in particular, is poor. It wouldn’t get past the office assistant.
    What you are doing may be okay for a quick domainer’s flip, but it’s not good enough for high-value selling.

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