So you’ve got a great idea for a business… you’re all set to go… and all you need is a good domain name. And your ideal domain name is… TAKEN. What do you do? Do you come up with a new name? Do you try to buy the domain name you want?

What if you discover that whoever has the domain name is… ‘doing nothing with it’? They’re parking it (which, I can tell you does NOT mean they’re doing ‘nothing’ with it) or it looks as though the site receives minimal traffic or is making little (if any) money?

Do you make the domain name holder an offer for the domain name?

There are a number of ways to approach a domain name holder, but let’s say that, for one reason or another, you want to contact them via email. What do you say? How do you negotiate with them?

Now, email is a rather limited medium. Regular, text based emails don’t normally give you the kind of ‘clues’ about what someone is thinking that you get in face-to-face or even telephone negotiations. But buying a domain name via email can certainly be done. We’ve bought domain names that way. And we’ve sold them too.

So here are some tips for how to go about it.

Just one thing - this article assumes you know the name and email of the domain name holder, and that you have done YOUR research into the domain name. Specifically, you have settled on what you would be willing to pay for it, based on your plans and the current level of links, traffic and other statistics regarding that domain name. If you haven’t done this – get to work!

1. Your Initial Email

Assuming you’ve done all that, then, to start with, I suggest you write an email that is sincere and shows that you are legitimate, and that you are genuinely interested in the domain name holder’s domain name.

There are people out there who get paid to spend all day sending generic emails to domain name holders asking them what price they’d want for their domains. These people typically work for domainers who ARE in the market for domains, but don’t personally know anything about YOUR particular domain.

Nor do such emails give any indication of who the sender is or why they’re interested in your domain. These emailers are basically engaged in a ‘fishing’ exercise with you as the fish.

When we receive one of these generic sounding emails we delete them. We just don’t have time to mess around with someone who doesn’t have a clue about the domain name in question.

And here’s the thing: we tend to delete ANY generic sound email… even if it comes from someone who is genuinely interested in one of our domain names! And I’m fairly confident that many other domain name holders do the same thing.

So… don’t write a generic sounding email!

Instead, write something that tells the domain name holder who you are and what business you run (so they know you are legitimate) and why you are interested in their domain.

Now, when expressing interest in the domain name holder’s domain name, you do NOT want to give away any details that might flag how eager you are to get the domain name. You just want to convey that you have a reason for wanting it.

Indeed, to prevent the domain name holder from getting too excited, you might say something along the lines of ‘it’s one of the domain names I’m considering for a new business idea I have.’

I would also incorporate some wording into the email that shows some respect for the domain name holder. Again, you want to encourage them to take you seriously and  negotiate with you. To this end, you might comment on how well their site looks, or even state the obvious - that they have chosen a great domain name!

Finally, when it comes to making an offer… don’t.

I suggest, instead, that you ask the domain name holder what they would be prepared to sell the domain for.

After you send off your email, it’s just a matter of waiting to see what the domain name holder comes back with, right?

Wrong!

‘Waiting’ is what amateurs do. Professionals roll up their sleeves and do something entirely different.

I’ll tell you what they do, and finish off these tips in Part 2 of ‘Tips For Making an Offer On a Domain Name.’ Look out for it in tomorrow’s issue of Kikabink News…

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 11th, 2009 at 9:01 pm and is filed under Domain Names, Internet Marketing Niche, Kikabink Lab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.