We Specilize In The Design And Set-Up Of Microsoft Active Channels
Geographically Targeted Ad Space
giving e-maill address out
Price and Quality
Name Leasing
Name Business
Domain Name Business
giving e-maill address out
>[The theory that] not many people will give out their e-mail address
for fear of being spammed [is] what I thought, too! But, after nearly
a year, I've found that a great many folks gladly offer their e-mail
addresses to my banner ads!<
The problem with this type of banner ad is readily evident. We, as
internet marketeers, have "trained" surfers that if they attempt to
put their cursor into an ad banner's "input field", they're actually
going to click a hyperlinked banner. Some of the most "popular"
banners (with the highest click rates) are those which *deceive*
surfers by including in their graphic what *looks* like a form field
box. As we all know, and as the internet population is quickly
figuring out, these types of banner ads are nothing more than gimmicks
to trick folks into clicking.
Personally, I've never used this type of banner, and feel it violates
the basic standard of ethics to engage in deception. It ranks right up
there with "Free Money" - that worked a few years ago - but how long
was it going to be before people discovered that even on the internet,
nothing is ever truly free? ;-)
So, would these "host-friendly" auto-responding banners work? Maybe
they will for a little while longer, but we're seeing an increasing
amount of the input banners of the deceptive sort, and it won't be
very long before people avoid putting their mouse prompt anywhere near
those things.
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Price and Quality
>From my limited experience, it seems price and quality are perceived
to be directly related; if one is high, the other is also. I write
tutorials for Microsoft Office products, on CDs, and when I decided to
offered them for sale to the wider community 2 or 3 years ago, I
arrived at a price which seemed not unreasonable. Subsequently, my
accountant told me they were far too cheap; the IT managers of any
company would know a tutorial for that price would necessarily be just
a toy. So, following to some extent his advice, I doubled the price!
Later, the tutorials where offered to a national provider of training
courses, and although initially interested, he declined after
discovering the price expected. He said they could only be rubbish
(perhaps not in those exact words, and not directly to me), and that
"you get what you pay for".
But they are not rubbish. They have been produced in close cooperation
with learners, written according to what they want, the extent of the
interaction they want, and the style of presentation they want. In the
couple of years I've been demonstrating them to local companies, I
have had only one rejection. The national provider rejected them
solely on price, without even looking. IT managers associate quality
with price.
But in fact, is that not precisely what we all do? Last week I wanted
a red pen, and I bought one for $10 rather than the one along the
shelf for $1.50. They both made a similar red mark on the paper. I
know nothing about marketing, but it certainly does seem like applied
psychology.
Subject: Domain Name Leasing
<snip>
>...we had the best .com domain name available for its' particular
field. Now I have been approached by one of the big boys...about
leasing the name...They just want the domain name and not the content.
I have no desire to give it away due to the fact that it is worth
$200-$500/month in advertising revenue. Not to mention the 18k
visitors a month I have aquired.<
What's it worth? The issue here is that it is worth $200-500 per month
plus 18,000 visitors a month. What does it cost to get 18,000
visitors? At present your conversion rate to book sales is probably
about 250 books @ $10.00 on a 20% commission from Amazon.com. That
could be a good conversion rate of visitors/sales. I had a quick look
at the site and thought, Why hasn't this guy linked up with a card
company through the reminder system? I'll take 10% of sales if you use
this idea too!
OK what's it worth? In a good month you are getting possibly 1-2% of
your visitors buying a $10 book. Maybe with more things for them to
buy you could convert this up to 10%. For someone to lease the site
they are accessing the 18,000 per month traffic not to mention a data
base of people who are being reminded of birthdays.
Of the five things all businesses do, one of them is that they have to
sell something. There is a cost involved called the Cost Of Selling.
The amount involved depends on how much is left over after paying for
the goods. In the case of Amazon.com above they give out a commission
of 20% to associates. Hence it costs them 20% of the revenue to sell
the book.
Depending on the new owner and what they can make from the site you
may be best to seek a percentage of the total revenue generated from
the site. What that percentage could be depends on their margins. You
are going to have to do the arithmetic and be prepared to bargain
hard. I hope this is food for thought.
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Domain Name Business
Two things to note:
- The InterNic used to charge $100 to register a new domain. It was
lowered to $70 in March 1998 (see
http://rs.internic.net/fees/facts.html)
- .cc domains belong to the Cocos (Keeling) Islands; there are other
also countries that sell their domains to the world (for profit), such
as .nu for Niue. Although, keep in mind that most countries put
restrictions of some kind on who can register domains under their
country code. One of the strictest I've seen so far is Greece (.gr);
they require you to have a Greek VAT/citizen # (kind of like a social
security # in the US).
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The Domain Name Business
it used to be location, location, location and now it may
be domain, domain domain - or maybe ranking, ranking, ranking...
<snip>
>...right here on the Information Highway. There was, and still is, a
high-pay out - if the company wants the correct address and feels it
will drive visitors to their website. A simple inquiry to
jobdirectory.com returned a quote of $13,500.<
Just because they are asking for that, doesn't mean it will sell for
that. Visit several of the 20 major domain brokers and look at the
inventory, 100's of names, and then look at the names they boast to
have sold, about 1% of that. Yes, business.com, altavista.com and
tickets.com make for great headlines, but they are the exception.
<snip>
>Well, now is your chance to ride the roller coaster of URL buying
with a new .CC global domain. Yes, that's right, those .com, .net, and
..org's are going to be in the 'hood with a new .cc neighbor.<
Well, neighbor, you get people to pay $300,000 for a 5 bedroom house,
in an area of $300,000 homes, but try and squeeze a $300,000 sale out
of a neighborhood with $125,000 homes. It is the same with the *.cc;
sorry it is a 4th class home. Now it may be worth more in the future
when there are 4.7 billion *.com names taken, maybe...but now -
doubtful.
<snip>
>At last check even linkdigest.cc was still available! The cost: $100
for the first two years and $50 after that, plus a $49 registration
fee. Is it worth the gamble?<
hmm, in most cases the knock-off's are not as good as the
original...Which is better, 1-800 Flowers or 1-888-Flowers or 1-877
Flowers.? The dot com's are the 800 numbers of the internet. You
betcha that there are a lot of *.cc names out there, and for good
reason.
Tell anyone to call you on your toll free number, they first assume it
is an "800" number. Tell anyone you have a name, say, 'business,' and
they don't ask, "Is that dot org?" They assume it is dot com.
Business.cc is gone, I checked.
I personally own over 60 domains (many of them bought for resale, and
even sold some...), one is a dot.net, one is a dot.org, 4 are dot coms
with a hyphen in the name and the rest are dot com's with NO hyphen. I
buy about a name a week, almost all of the exceptional names have been
gone for some time, but there are still niche *.com names out there.
Now I reserve the right to change my mind, but at this point in time
there is no way I would buy a *.cc name. I know how hard it is to
explain the *.net or the hyphen for my existing sites, I can only
imagine explaining to people what a cc is...but in year I could change
my mind.
If you are going to speculate, start with *.com names.