Stepping in to 2010 – it was time to embrace social media and internet trends. If you’re a fan of tag clouds:

We’ve added tags to the Domain Showcase. The newest addition is “Cool Domains“.

What’s a Cool Domain?

It’s a name which is short and sounds delicious. A cool domain is fresher than Web 2.0, Flickr is so last decade. It has to roll off the tongue and no missing letters for people to forget when typing in the URL.

A cool name must stir a reaction. When you hear Twitter, you think chit chat. When you hear Google, you think God. When you hear Nomzo, you think cool domain

Generic Domain Vs Cool Domain

Generic domains are great. They offer so many extra perks that cool domains do not. With a generic domain you can take over a market like Warren Royal did with Bobbleheads.com. But generic domains are not cool because cool is new. Cool domains are invented in the minds of the creative, in the souls of the lost, or in the input fields of a domain name generator.

Cool domains resonate with an audience. They intrigue. They stimulate passion. They force you to react!

(image source)

Disclaimer i) cool is subjective ii) this was not a guest post by Paris Hilton.

There is nothing more infuriating than wasting valuable time pitching domain names only to find you are communicating with the wrong person. Disappointingly though, it’s a process that is too often repeated by domainers.

Learn domain tips to avoid making this mistake.

When you want to sell your domain you must get through to the decision-maker. This is crucial. Direct contact with the decision-maker saves so much time. On some occasions that’s not always possible though, due to privacy within corporations or lack of information on their website.

Going through other channels such as customer services is a viable option. Just make sure your intentions are clear and they fully understand your proposal, otherwise you’ll be passed from department to department, and eventually to the person who has to put up with 5000 solicitations a day and already begrudges you for the mere fact that you contacted him/her. (If that’s you, I feel for you)

Success Selling Domains? It’s not a Numbers Game

There’s the saying “quality over quantity”. In my opinion this holds true for selling domain names. Of course, some would disagree (would you?), and it largely depends on your pricing points and the size of the company you’re pitching to. My advice – try all approaches and see what works best for you.

We’ve all been spammed by someone in China soliciting the ugliest names seen to man. It sucks and it’s a waste of time. Now, put yourself in the shoes of the CEO (or whoever the decision-maker is). If you’re pitching crap, he/she’s getting the same feeling to when you receive the spam from China. Quality counts. Quality saves time.

Email, Written Letter, Social Media or Telephone

Options are aplenty when it comes to finding an end-user. The protocol to approach a prospective end-user depends on the corporate culture of their organisation. For instance, if there’s a design company who utilises social media such as Twitter or Facebook, then there’s absolutely nothing wrong with approaching them through these means. If it’s a big financial corporation and you find their marketing manager’s personal Facebook profile, it’s not good etiquette to invade their privacy. Most big businesses prefer to receive business proposals by written letter anyway. We’ll go to the formalities of this another time.

Email is the #1 friend for a domainer. It’s quick, it’s cheap and it works. Studies show that email still provides the best ROI of any sales material. Be polite, be concise and be available. Make sure your contact details are accessible.

Pitching domains over the phone is rewarding though a little daunting to domainers who aren’t experienced. Just go for it, do it and gain experience. Talking to someone is more personal than email and you can build a good connection immediately. Conversely, when you’re speaking over the phone it’s also easier to tell if the other party is genuinely interested. Thus, giving the option to end the call and save time.

Strange People (& Accents) in Foreign Countries

At times in a domainer’s career–if proactively selling domains–you might come across the perfect end-user, the only problem is that they are half way around the Globe and speak a completely different language. The language barrier would seem to present an insurmountable obstacle to selling your domains. Take Nomzo, our clients span across the World. We’re perfect for pitching domains to end users in Europe, North America, Australia and Japan (that’s not a curveball, we really can pitch in Japanese). Saying that, if we wanted to sell a domain name to a person in Brazil, as none of us speak Portuguese, we’d have to find a domain broker to approach to the buyer. Domain forums are a priceless asset for connecting with other domain sellers from all parts of the World.

Have domain pitch ideas you want to share? Disagree with this article? Add your comment below.

January has seen an influx of offers for domains showcased in the Nomzo domain showcase. Nearly all of the offers have been turned down. The reasons are not always as simple as the offer was not substantial enough, though admittedly on many occassions that is the case. Other reasons include issues such as insuring the transaction goes smoothly and securely, and both parties come out smiling. When a buyer is only willing to pay by PayPal or another payment processor who does not guarantee the transaction, then there is a high chance of fraud and the fraudster stealing your domain.

Rebuffing offers is part of domaining. How many offers have the big domainers turned down for their category killer domains? At a guess, hundreds possibly thousands. It shouldn’t get you down if the offers don’t amount to what you’re looking for. Take positives from offers coming in, it shows there is demand for your domain. The important point is to always maintain a high level of professionalism, as you never know, the person who offered you the low amount may become the CEO of a major corporation and come back to you with a much better offer.

Credit to domainingtips.com for this article.

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The promo code is 777 and only available to new accounts. This is a great opportunity to those who want to create there first ever website or simply see what web hosting is all about.

Christmas is a great time to acquire the perfect domain name for your business. The reason being that many domainers suffer from the same problem as everyone else… Christmas presents! Yep, it’s true, some domainers liquidize their domain portfolio around this time simply to pad their wallets to enjoy Christmas.

This month is the busiest time for online retailers. People are searching for products and they have cash waiting. What’s stopping the majority of businesses from raking in the revenue? The wrong domain. It’s as simple as that.

Take advantage of our domain consultant service to insure success!

Check out this inadvertent but hilarious mishap by a news broadcasting company in the U.S. – Wanted Suspects?

Having never seen these type of advertisements in the UK, they look great for grabbing people’s attention and getting them hooked to twitter campaigns. Unfortunate for the 3 broadcasters but not for the broadcasting company, this type of viral advertising has given the company a massive spotlight to showcase, essentially for free with bloggers spreading this gem around the World.

Godaddy.com is by far the most popular domain registrar with 29% of market share, but does it have the slick domain management interface that domainers deserve?

The answer is an emphatic NO. GoDaddy’s domain manager while improved recently is still a pain if you have hundreds of domains, push and transfer or just regularly change nameservers. It’s too sluggish and the need to confirm everything by the way of slow loading pop-up boxes is inefficiency personified.

Then we have the upselling. Perhaps the most irritating aspect of GoDaddy’s interface is the countless hoops you have to jump through in order to reach the checkout and pay. This should be a few clicks process at absolute maximum. Grrrr.

So which registrars have the best domain management interface?

Name.com’s is a breeze, it’s lightweight and fast loading, enabling you to get things done quickly. Other enjoyable to use interfaces include Dynadot, Enom and on a slighlty lesser degree Moniker. These all have a similar theme, no bulky and unnecessary images, snappy loading pages and most importantly ease and simplicity.

Domainers, share your thoughts. Which is your favourite?

Hewlett Packard’s marketing and design team have come up with a very clever, interactive flash banner which highlights the touch capabilities of the HP TouchSmart 600 running Microsoft 7.

Usually advertising banners do everything to capture your attention, for instance those insanely annoying fast flashing banners you see on ugly websites. Or, shoot the monkey or iPod etc.

HP’s advert is very subtle, no flashing lights, just a computer screen and an expectant hand tapping it’s fingers with the text ‘rollover to play’.

This is struck a chord because it is essentially what a lot of consumers are doing right then and there when browsing. The ad was not trying to grab my attention, nor irritating, but it piqued my intrigue enough to rollover and see more.

Although the rest of the ad was not as captivating as the start, if I was a consumer looking to buy a touch screen computer, this ad would have definitely resulted in a click through and taken me to HP’s intended destination, the point of sale.

Applying this to domains and marketing domains, it’s not always about having your domain name blazoned everywhere in big bold letters for the World to see. The most important thing is to find the right audience and capture their attention, show them a vision of how a domain could improve their business or communications.

In recent weeks there’s been an abundance of complaints on the two main domain forums, NamePros and DNForum, about the performance of Moniker. Moniker is reputed to be safest registrar, with claims that they have never had a domain successfully stolen. Certainly their account security measures are reassuring and their domain registration and renewal prices not unreasonable. But what about charging people extra simply because they are uninformed or because they do not know the right people? That’s the case with Moniker’s domain forwarding. People without approved accounts are charged $6 to forward a url! That is pretty unscrupulous considering one email to the right person, account upgraded, and fee waived.

The norm in the domain market is to entertain offers for domains instead of stating a fixed price. They are numerous reasons for this, the most evident being that the seller does not want to restrict the amount of money to be made from a sale. There is also the issue of scarying a way a potential buyer by setting an asking price well above their budget.

Giving a domain a fixed price is advantageous in many situations also. For instance, some buyers like to make snap decisions. If the domain has a fixed price there’s no need to contact the seller and use more time than neccessary inquiring about the price. Stating a price also offers more transparency, motioning that you consider your price to be fair.