Finding end-user buyers for domain names isn’t easy and often involves a lot of time and work, the two things most domainers like me try to avoid.

If you think about we’re selling, it makes a lot more sense to let the potential buyer find the name they want, rather than go out in search of the buyer, because as domainers, we’re the ones who are supposed to have the foresight, the knowledge and the expertise aren’t we?

As long as it doesn’t fit my current business plan for development, I start by analysing the domain in question as follows;

What kind of web site visitor would potentially type in the name to the browser?

What would they expect to find if they went to that trouble?

Does the name contain popular key words for a product or service?

Before I place a name for sale, my answer has to be an emphatic “yes” on to least two of those questions.

To the right of this post, is a “Domain For Sale”.

It’s called TaxGuidance.co.uk and for a UK tax specialist, it’s a great domain name. It contains a good quality, exact search term that people are bidding on with Google Adwords, which is always a good sign.

That tells me that tax specialists are on-line and looking for ways to get more clients.

TaxGuidance.co.uk only gets around 2 to 4 visitors per day, but well over 90% of them are direct type-ins, which is a start.

My ideal buyer is an end-user accountancy firm offering tax advice in the UK, since it’s a .co.uk name.

But, I’m realistic about the prospects and offer it for sale with a Paypal payment option at just £950 + VAT.

At that price, it is not worth putting any more effort into finding a buyer, apart from putting up a quick sales page which is aimed at end-users and does go on to explain (probably too much) why an accountancy firm should invest in the name.

I’ve also put the payment link on the sales page, along with my direct contact details, which is important if I am to try and build any kind of trust with my visitors.

To date, I’ve had no takers for this name, but I only need one, which is why I’ll persevere with the approach.

I did manage to achieve a £5000 sale of a three-word .com name earlier this year, to an international firm involved in a specialist recycling  activity, so I do know that this does work on occasion.

When I first started doing this, I used XSitePro to build sales pages. Often, I’d get a designer to make me a unique looking header for the site, believing that potential buyers would want to see how the site might look.

I don’t go to that trouble any more though, it’s only window dressing and anyone that’s interested in the domain, won’t be interested in a $10 design.

Also, it seemed a waste of a unique IP address to host the domain too, so these days, I do things a little bit differently.

Most, if not all domain registrars, allow you to use URL forwarding for your domains and I use this to divert any visitors to a unique sales page that comes under my company name, Hollywood Internet Ltd.

Here’s an example:

www.skillcard.co.uk – the UK construction industry introduced the skill card so that employers of trades people on building sites can see what skills a person has via an accredited training scheme.

This domain is really aimed at training providers, of which there are many.

Just in case a visitor types in the name expecting to see something about obtaining a skill card, I added some Adsense content that will take them to some relevant content and of course, earn me a few pennies along the way.

Again, I haven’t valued the domain particularly highly. I’ve priced it a level that I’m happy with and one that an established business will have little difficulty in paying.

It’s not aimed at domainers or start-up businesses.

The fact that it’s on my company web site means that a potential buyer can see that they are dealing with a real entity that looks like it has substance.

That results in less haggling in my experience.

There are other ways of finding end-user buyers for domain names and I’ll add more about this later.

Do you have a great generic domain name that would be ideal for an end-user company?

If the answer is “yes”, but to date, despite your belief in that name, you haven’t had a flood of offers coming your way, then you have three choices:

1. Contact a broker
2. Get real
3. Start selling

A broker, if a real domain brokerage actually exists, should at least be able to give you an idea as to whether your name is as desirable as you believe. You’ll know immediately, because they will accept your domain name as a listing without asking you for any money up-front, their commission will be reasonable and they will ask for complete exclusivity over the sale, probably asking you for control over the name servers.

If your domain name broker isn’t so keen to help you without an initial listing fee, perhaps the name isn’t so good.

By domain broker, I mean a specialist who is prepared to pro-actively market your domain name to it’s most relevant audience, creating interest amongst competing potential purchasers in order to maximise the price.

Domain listing sites, parking and the like do not do this and despite their claims, are not what I would consider to be a brokerage.

No domain brokerage service I have personally seen to date, comes anywhere near what I would consider using even for a moment. That isn’t to say they don’t exist, but I think such a service is rarer than an end-user buyer.

That kind of rules out option 1 doesn’t it?

2. Getting Real in the domain name game is also a bit of a big ask for many domainers, who, almost without exception, see all of their names as being super-prime and worth an absolute fortune.

Sadly, very few domainers have super-prime domain names. Not even me, which is a shame, because I’d really like to own just one.

Unfortunately, most deluded domainers have many super-prime domain names. I know this because despite me not being a domain name broker, I get lots of domain lists from people wanting to sell and offering me almost unbelievable commission-only sales deals.

I say unbelievable because it is unbelievable that any names on the list would ever sell, never mind make a commission!

So what’s “getting real” all about?

It means taking an objective look at the domain in question. I say “domain” rather than “domains”, because if you think you’re going to attract streams of end-users to a portfolio or a list, you are wrong. You have to concentrate on one domain at a time, in isolation, if you’re going to sell to an end-user of any substance.

Trying to sell a collection of names to such a buyer is just too big an ask. Even to an educated buyer of names.

But knowing what I know about some who call themselves domainers, getting real isn’t really an option either so that leaves just one option.

3. Start Selling – and that means some hard, dedicated work on the domain you are looking to sell.

First of all, assuming your name is actually generic and desirable and not what the uneducated amongst our numbers call a “brandable” domain name, you must now look at how you’re going to get your domain name in front of the elusive end-user buyer.

As a salesman of many years experience myself, I know most domainers aren’t going to want to see this, but the fact is, that finding a buyer of any description is very hard work.

That doesn’t mean it’s impossible though and you might be surprised to know that it might only take a day or two of concentrated effort to set the correct wheels in motion, though it will take considerably longer than this to actually achieve the sale.

You have many options available to you and I don’t necessarily recommend one over  the other. You just have to go with the one that most suits your personality, agrees with your time schedule and is most likely to get you a result.

First off though, I’ll say this. If your domain name is as good as you think, it should be doing most of the work for you.

I bolded that last sentence. Please read it again. It’s that important.

As a bare minimum, you should have your sales pitch on the home page of your domain name, saying that the name is being made available for sale, ideally with a realistic sales price.

A realistic sales price is a price that is affordable to your target audience.

Your target audience is not necessarily the market leader in the sector – so don’t pitch the price at a level only the multi-billion dollar corporation can afford.

Your target audience should be the staff, management or marketing advisors to those corporations.

Here’s a good clue with regard to this. Most larger companies will have advertising or marketing agencies advising them. It’s not hard to find the better advertising agencies, just look at advertising publications like Advertising Age for example.

These guys are in these magazines bragging about who their clients are.

Contact them and sell them the idea. Let them earn some mega bucks too – if you think your name is that great.

Back to the sales page. If your name is that good, you don’t need much more content than:

• The name
• The price
• Your contact details

If you’re having to pitch the idea of a domain name too hard, perhaps it’s not as great a name as you thought.

You might want to promote the name a little. That means wither:

• Telesales – how good are you at reaching decision makers?
• Sales Letters – if you know the right contacts, a letter might work in certain cases
• Email Campaign – if you can stand the rejection it might be do-able
• Search Engines – optimise for your target market
• Pay Per Click – this would be my choice

A good broker miught do all of t his for you. But as I’ve already stated, I don’t think such a broker exists. It’s too much like hard work for most, for relatively small returns.

Nobody is more enthusiastic about selling your names than you are, so why bother with third parties?

As you’ve seen, although I have more than 20 years of professional selling experience behind me (It’s nearer 30 now, because I am an old duffer), I still consider selling domains to end-users to be hard work.

Try an email or telesales campaign and you’re likely to get abusive and rude responses, mainly because people just don’t understand the importance of domain names.

Company contacts are usually salaried people and will resist spending money at any cost. They certainly won’t want to support your efforts to get a good price. Most are small-minded and jealous, just to add to their ignorance.

As you might imagine, in order to sell a domain name to it’s most relevant market, you have to reach the decision maker. That’s true no matter what method you choose.

Therefore, initially, your efforts must be focused on finding that elusive person, whether they are the chief executive or a third party at an advertising agency.

Only then can the real selling start and in the next part of this small series (because the subject is large and complex), I’ll start examining some options in more depth.

Me: “Bloody Hell, have you seen who this enquiry is from Bob?”

Bob: “No, who is it”?

Me: “Only one of the largest utility companies in the country, asking if we can help them with roof surveys for their new green energy installations”.

Bob: “Tell ‘em bollocks. Actually, let’s have a look… F**k me, where did that come from?”

Me: “The autoresponder, the one I did about roofing”.

This is a real conversation (with all of the excitement and most of the foul language removed) that took place at office closing time last Friday between my business partner on the surveying business and I.

It again proves the point that large companies, or at least the managers, decision makers and staff in large companies are going on-line to find the help and assistance they need.

Notice I didn’t say “suppliers”.

That’s because they probably don’t realise that they are looking for suppliers at the time.

No, they need information. Not crummy, low rent e-books knocked up by wannabe bedroom entrepreneurs, but real information about how to solve real-world business problems.

I tried the whole e-book thing more than 10 years ago – it’s not always the road to riches you think it is.

Solving business problems however, most definitely is, but it takes a lot of initial work and a hell of a lot of practice to get it right.

Now I don’t sell my information products. I give them away on my specialist web sites. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, most of my readers are probably students researching their subjects.

Here’s the news.

If the information is good enough for university students, it’s good enough and valid for real businesses and those businesses are on line and seeking the information every day.

I deliver my information in installments via an auto-responder, over several days. Each piece of information is complete and there are no teasers, no more web sites to visit, nothing to buy. I just let my visitors have what they were looking for.

All I ask for in return for this oasis of information and advice is a first name and an email address – bit that’s not for marketing purposes, it’s just so that I can personalise the emails I send.

It goes against everything the Internet Marketing gurus teach doesn’t it?

But then how many Internet gurus sell to large corporations, governments, local authorities and institutional investors?

If, and in all honesty, at this stage it is an extremely big if, this particular job comes off, we’ll be talking an on-going contract worth a small fortune. But my point about doing things like this is that once again, I have a red hot enquiry from a major company that at this point in time, nobody else has.

I am the sole advisor, all because of an auto-responder series I wrote about 18 months ago.

If you’re going to the August Meet Domainers show in August, I’ll be talking about this type of development and how, in a different sector of course, any domainer can pull off exactly the same kind of trick with a low budget web site and some cheap hosting.

Afterwards, if I can find the time to get round to it, I might even give away a CD with all of the information on, but don’t ask for one, because if I do it, it will only be available to show attendees on the day, which happens to be 27 August 2010.

I’m not a guru you know.