THE AFTERMARKET IS YOUR FIRST MARKET
January 24th, 2008 Posted in Aftermarket
Just what “is” the domain “aftermarket”? You’d be surprised how many businesses don’t know, or have a wrong opinion of this very important part of successfully creating their business online.
The aftermarket domain industry is made up of domain buyers who already own a domain that could be extremely valuable for your online company. In many cases, the owner of a domain you want may sell you that domain for a reasonable price, depending on the domain name’s generic keyword quality and recognition. You may be taken aback to hear a price for a domain of this type, but don’t be fooled by thinking “why should I pay this much money for a simple domain name?”
Here’s why: It would be more valuable for a business to buy a relevant descriptive “aftermarket” domain for $3,000, than to settle for a lesser descriptive or weaker domain extension (anything that’s not a .com) for the registration price or a few hundred dollars. In the long run, and maybe the short run, investing $3,000 in a domain that perfectly defines your business, products or services is better than taking out a half page ad in your local newspaper. That newspaper ad is only good for a few days at the most. A good descriptive domain name, even at $3,000 or $300,000, will work for you daily, 24/7/365. It never stops. My term for a good domain name is an “appreciable marketing asset”. You may hear this term a lot.
What is an “appreciable marketing asset”? It’s a marketing service or product a company buys that continues to make money for the company, represents the company in a public medium, and at the same time appreciates in value while the availability of similar products or services diminish. For domain names, there are only a certain amount of domains describing something a company offers, and when your competitors buy those domains up, you’re out of luck. Period. There’s nothing worse than having your competitor own the generic descriptive domain name of the products and services your company offers. You sell “little brown solar lights” but so does your competitor. And they own “littlebrownsolarlights.com”.
Not only discussing the “direct navigation” or “browser surfing” benefits and market that “littlebrownsolarlights.com” create that no other company can participate in, but when they market their product online, and go up against you in placing google or yahoo ad links, they can bid lower on their ad link bids because their link immediately describes the search terms that everyone just bid on! If you were a customer and looked at the google search result page after searching up “little brown solar lights”, you would see on the right side all the relevant ads for that search term. However, would you go to the top, and click someone’s link that said “xyzsolarstuffinc.com”, or would your eyes be directed to your search term as a domain name, “littlebrownsolarlights.com”. It seems logical that this would happen. So an advertiser can spend less in ad link bids because the power of their domain name trumps the higher paying ad link buyer.
I have over 3500 domains that represent generic descriptive products and services of businesses of every type. I get the traffic from their customers on my landing pages because people like to just type in a search phrase as a .com domain and see which smart company owns the domain representing the product/service they’re searching for. My landing page then shows a list of companies that have already paid for ad links to appear on my page. It always amuses me when “electricwheelchair.net” (.net isn’t the best domain extension, but people still look for sites with it) gets about 25 people a month searching for electric wheelchairs, come to my website, and then click on my adlinks. Wheelchair companies pay a lot of money for their ad links, because one sale can mean $5,000. A wheelchair or scooter company might pay as much as $4.00 a click for ads that appear on my electricwheelchair.net landing page. So I’ve been making money from providing the adlink for several different companies that sell electric wheelchairs, when if any of these companies had a smart marketing company, they’d buy this domain name for $5,000, and forever control the traffic that comes to that domain. None of their competitors would ever again be able to take advantage of the domain. The company that owned “electricwheelchair.net” would get all the traffic, and convert the sales directly through their own website.
Many marketing companies and business owners don’t understand that owning a domain name that describes their products/services doesn’t mean they have to change their company name. All the company has to do after they buy the domain is to point that domain to their homepage or to the product page of what the domain describes. It’s a simple process, takes a few minutes, and brings the company the most pinpointed, targeted traffic and customers possible.
NOTE THIS CLAIM THAT NO OTHER ADVERTISING VEHICLE CAN MAKE:
“A good domain name is an unbeatable marketing tool. There isn’t any other system or program to market, advertise, and promote your product that not only represents your company nonstop, but also increases in value as your product does, and lasts longer in maintaining these benefits for your company, than a good domain name.”
In other words, if you are selling a product, like for real estate, luxury or “high class” homes, the domain highclasshome.com wraps up that marketing sector online for your company, and it’s a brandable, memorable, and “high class” way for your company to benefit continually by simply investing and owning a domain name that sets your company apart from others.
When I was the advertising director for a large firm, I would head up projects for ad campaigns that cost the company $100,000 or more. What I learned and accepted as a part of the advertising world, was that this investment was like putting a match to a pile of $100 bills and hoping the ashes from the burning money would get into the eyes of my potential customers/clients – and stick. However, once that $100,000 was burnt up in the radio, TV, newspaper, magazine or other ads we purchased, it was GONE. That investment in marketing was GONE, sometimes as fast as a few days. The advertising money gave what it gave, and there’s no crying over it if the money didn’t bring back a decent ROI.
Let’s try it on a domain name. Put $100,000 in a domain name that is a proven traffic magnet for your product, defines your product, is recognizable and memorable (brandable), and shuts out your competitors, and you have an “appreciable marketing asset”. The domain name is a marketing entity that works nonstop at bringing “point of purchase” eyeballs to your website and products. It accomplishes this without further maintenance other than renewing the domain each year, and at the same time it is appreciating in value as it creates a market online that shuts out your competitors. Even when you go to sell your company, the power of your domain name will increase the value of your business. If you’re selling Little Brown Solar Lights, and you own that domain name, no matter what your company name really is, no other competitor can have the “typein” market online that your company would enjoy by owning littlebrownsolarlights.com.
Investing in a good aftermarket domain name is the marketing gift that keeps on giving.
