I reached out to an end user today who operates a website on the .net version of one of my geo+realestate .com names. The owner of the real estate firm replied via email:
Thanks for your email… but I’m not sure why I would pay you $xxxx for a .com, when I paid $9.99 for my .net… can you please remove me from your list?
Regards,xxxxxxxxxxxx
To which I replied (names and pricing xxxxxxxx’d out for privacy):
xxxxxxxxxxx,
Thanks for the response and as requested, you will not be contacted again regarding this domain name.
Before I let you turn your back on this opportunity, since you asked, I will try and help you understand why there’s so much value in having the .COM over the .net or any other extension.
You spent $10 on the .net, that’s fine and dandy. Finding it hard to justify a $xxxx .COM purchase? What is each lead worth to your business? Let’s say you lose 3 leads a year by not owning the .com (xxxxxxxxxxxx.com is averaging 20+ visitors each month). Of those 3 lost leads every year, let just say only ONE of those leads would convert in THREE years. How much money will you have LOST? You know what an average conversion/commission is worth, so do the math:
Average $$$$ figure for a single conversion/commission
– $xxxx (asking price on my domain + 3 years cost)
———————————————————————
Amount of money lost by not owning the .COMThat’s assuming you lose just one conversion in the next 3 YEARS. Imagine if you are losing three or more conversions each year by not owning the .COM! Additionally, I’m not suggesting you need to change anything with your homepage as xxxxxxxxxxx.com can be re-directed to your current website in a matter of minutes once it’s owned by you.
If you still are not convinced that owning the exact match .com to your business and real estate area will make you more money in the long run, that’s ok, I only have spent a few minutes of my time trying to help you and I feel I’ve already offered the name to you at a bargain price.
Thanks again for the response xxxxxxxx.. and good luck!
Mike
Based on the area they are selling real estate and the price of my name I am positive that the business owner will see money being lost IF I have convinced him that he is in fact losing at least a single conversion in three years by not owning the .com. What do you think? Waste of time or he is going to change his mind?
LOL, Every domainer will tell you 90% of real estate agents do not get it, don’t waste your time, or money, they will spend thousands on offline ads, but won’t spend a few hundred for a decent domain, give up this niche.
All you need to tell him is that by not having .com on his biz cards and fliers, a meaningful percentage of his potential clients go to .com version of his site and send emails to .com version of his email.
You can also tell his that once another realtor uses .com, that realtor will be getting all those web and email leads.
I would not talk about SEO at all.
I have recently started domaining. Not many people understand that a domain name is worth $10 if you are the first one to spot it. Once someone owns it, the price is based on the value/business it can generate.
I like the response and it would be nice if they replied but my guess is that it is pretty unlikely. Educating end users is difficult and many in the real estate industry simply do not understand the value of a good domain. We try to simplify it for them in an article on our site titled SallyJonesSellsHomes.
Nearly every real estate domain we have ever sold, occurred when the buyer made the initial contact. It is not getting any easier for those that are offering domains via email as the market is being flooded on a daily basis with unsolicited emails from domain owners all over the world who don’t even review their emails for spelling and grammatical errors let alone do the research required to find the appropriate end user for their particular domain.
Most of the time the domains being offered are not even worth their registration fee and my guess is that 90% were registered within the last month or are about to drop which only adds to the problem. We get a dozen or so every day and not only do the senders make themselves look extremely uneducated but they are a blemish to the entire industry.
This makes it that much more difficult when there is an actual person sending out a legitimate email offering a great domain that would actually make sense to a particular end user (e.g. CityRealEstate.com for a Realtor working in or around that particular city)…