Hi All, I have an idea. I want to try a little experiment with a domain name, that I think is somewhat valuable, that I will sell. The domain is QAmerican.com. I plan to have a 10 day Ebay auction listing, starting at one penny, $0.01. The key here is to generate interest and hopefully drive up the price. Needless to say I will have an excellent title and an awesome description, with traffic stats and possible uses for the name. I will featured the auction on the ebay Homepage for $99.99. Do you think it would be also worthwhile to spend money for a top 10 listing at PRWeb.com, this will cost about $300. I might even hire the legend "Jenn" to help write it! Total spent will be around $500, but it should have great exposure. Which is what it needs to find the right end-user. How does this all sound?
Eh - why do you think someone will want to spend > $500 on that domain? Seems more of a gamble than anything. I would rather spend $500 on SEO, getting a website with revenue, etc and increase the value that way.
the reason is because I was getting some interest in the domain and I feel that with the right exposure, a high-priced offer has a better chance of happening. Basically its a $500 gamble. This will also work as a test for my future domain sales.
"Legend"? lol Here's where the honesty thing can cost me money... I don't think this is going to work. People sell domains on ebay all the time. While the domain name might be "good," it's not really PR-worthy. It would be a rare occasion for a domain sale to really be newsworthy (think 3-4 letter common word, incredibly high value, domains... or a major company selling - ummm, like Google?). It's just not the same thing. It wouldn't be worth my charge, the PRweb charge, and the ebay charge... not a gamble; throwing money away. I'm not saying you couldn't do it. But you'd need a real angle. Right now, the press release would essentially amount to an advertisement for the auction, and would very likely be refused by PRweb anyway. Remember... the release shouldn't be targeting the end-buyer in your case. It has to target the journalists and bloggers. Why would they care? Why would they cover the story, and get the auction info out in front of your actual target for you? I'm not trying to critcize the idea... just trying to help you think it through first, so if you move ahead with it, you'll actually have a shot at some coverage. You'll need to be able to answer those questions to have a release be effective for you.
Again Jenn, you blow me away with your posts. I completely agree with you here. Nice post. EDIT: Im going to second the "legend". I will be coming to you for my next major press release.
Thank you for your thoughts! I guess I was thinking of "maximum exposure". The idea hit me today when I missed bidding for an excellent domain that only ended in the low $XXX when i was willing to pay into the $XXXX! But I knew about the domain sale too late. I want to try avoiding that happening when I sell my domains. Thanks again..
"Maximum exposure" is a good goal for you, but you need to tell the media what's in it for them, or their readers/viewers/etc. Like I said, it's possible you can make it work, and that it can work well. You just need to work on the angle. Is there a particularly good possibility for use of the domain? Does the domain relate to a charity, where you could donate part of the cost (especially if the charity is in the news, and it's a significant amount)? Is there something unique you could do or "throw in" with the purchase that would make it interesting? There just needs to be some kind of expansion on the news angle. If you have particular ideas for the usage, PM them to me, and I'll see if any specific ideas come to mind that might be worth considering. Jenn
The best way to get your website in the news isn't to ask what is newsworthy about my website?... but to ask what is newsworthy at the moment in the industry my site is involved in, and be quoted with your take on things. Then get them to list your website as the means of attribution. Attribution is: Fred Smith, founder of example.com said "When they attribute a quote to someone they need their name and some kind of qualifier, like their job title." [Holy crap... what was that? I think I hear pennies dropping all round the world] So here is how you could do that: My suggested angle comes from: what's the bigger picture? Essentially the approach is to prepare a press release that hands the journalist an article on the bigger issue, citing your website as a case in point. So you would do your homework about the current state of domain name sales, mention for example some of the more expensive domain sales, bring in ebay as an emerging trend perhaps for domain name sellers, then drop in your site as an example and some comments you make about the process. The newsworthiness of the resulting article comes from the bigger picture... i.e. what is the state of the industry, how has it changed recently, what are emerging trends, can smaller players make a buck, how is it done, drop your example and comment. I'd add in another suggested person to contact and comment on the issues you raised, preferably someone more known in the field of domain name sales. When you release it, forget whoever you mentioned for distribution and go to either a tech journalist from a large newspaper or associated press. Jenn can help you clean it up, but you need to do the leg work researching the story. If you do a good job covering the current state of the industry, I see no reason why your example site and comments can't be included in a news article that a major newspaper runs or AP sends round the world. When you hand a journalist a great story on a silver platter, they just don't have it in their heart not to link to you.
I agree with Jenn's statements and the other posters. While the domain may seem valuable to you, it's most likely not valuable to other buyers. At least not based on the name. If you have an idea of what to do with such a name, I'd suggest working that into a press release. Perhaps you'll get a better response.
TiltOmatic, I don't see the value in the domain name either. But to get news coverage, you don't need a viable product, or a newsworthy domain. You just need to know how to get an article mentioning your domain published in a newspaper. Most websites are not newsworthy. But the person behind the website, can have their comment made newsworthy, and site mentioned.... if they know how to work the media.