Domain name appraisals have become a growing business over the last decade. When you consider how web domain names are valued, you may ask whether it is worth paying for a domain name appraisal and what is the best way to avoid overpaying for a domain name?
Domain name appraising is definitely more of an art than a science. More than one way exists to appraise a domain name and a range of factors can be used to determine its value, including name length, marketability, brand recognition, industry strength, revenue, traffic, and search engine popularity as well as how a domain name compares with other recent sales. However, what a domain name is worth to one person is often far different to what the next person in line may be willing to pay for it. In fact, few other products out there vary so widely in value, with web domain names ranging from a few dollars to millions.
If you are flipping domain names for profit, it may be a good move to invest in domain name appraisals or at least to educate yourself better on how they are valued. Those who want to launch new ventures with a bang and enjoy healthy amounts of traffic from day one may also benefit from further research. For most, however, it is a matter of what an individual domain name is worth to you and your brand. For example, if you made the mistake of creating other branding materials, registering a business name, and acquiring a toll free vanity number only to discover the matching domain name is taken, then you may really need it and have to be willing to pay a significant amount for it. Whereas if having a certain web domain name is just a nice addition or preference, then you obviously are not under the same pressure.
There is quite a bit of strategy that goes into getting the best deal on a web domain name, and making one small mistake at the beginning could result in the owner skyrocketing his demands. So before you begin any negotiations or show any interest in a domain name that is already taken, it is wise to consult a professional service that offers web domain negotiation so you can be sure to get the best possible deal.
1. Improve Your Product Funnel
Instead of relying on your various social media marketing profiles as totally independent avenues, strive to build a better funnel that pulls all of your online marketing together, allowing each level to do its job while improving your ROI and conversion ratios. Tie together your social media marketing pages, blog, website, and email marketing campaigns to capture more prospects, close deals, and maximize the potential profit from each one.
2. Include Your Vanity Number
Differentiate yourself from all of the small unprofessional fish out there and make sure to include your toll free vanity number on all of your social media marketing fan pages as well, and of course, on your blog and your communications with prospects. A catchy vanity number alone may be the closing factor you have been missing to make prospects take the action you want.
3. Work Smarter Not Harder
It can sometimes seem overwhelming to produce enough content to keep all of your social media marketing channels updated or to expand into more to improve SEO and attract more traffic. However, if you create high quality original content that can be repurposed for your various forms of social media marketing, you can still reap the rewards of a bigger presence on the web while maximizing your budget. For example, commission quality articles that can then be turned into blogs, Tweets, YouTube videos, and social media marketing posts.
4. Explore Group Buying Opportunities
Group buying is about to explode in a big way. It is already the only way many people shop online in China for everything from diapers to houses. Social media marketing giant Facebook has just rolled out its own experiment in group buying for members. Mercedes Benz even discovered its power by using group buying to move over 200 cars in a few hours. So why not explore the potential for your company to benefit from group power whether it is moving your own products or acquiring the things your organization needs?
5. Creating Mobile Apps Or Social Media Games
It is no secret that social media marketing games have emerged as one of the biggest moneymakers in the last couple of years with a monstrous return on investment. Mobile marketing is also an exploding trend that opens the door to thousands and millions of new prospects. So why not explore the opportunity for capitalizing on these trends ahead of your direct competitors?
2010 has certainly seen its share of significant domain name transfers, further demonstrating just how valuable a good Internet domain name really is. Transfers include Dating.com for $1.75 million, Poker.org for $1 million, Guns.com for $800,000, BlackFridaySales.com for $90,000 and one adult-orientated domain name going for a cool $13,000,000!
Clearly a good domain name is the best investment many businesses can make. It could one day be worth more than the rest of your company’s revenue streams put together. True, most companies do not have that kind of cash to invest at start up, but those that do can lock in success from day one. Acquiring a winning web domain name from the start also makes attracting investors and obtaining funding much easier. It not only looks cool, but through evidence of existing and estimated web traffic, it can show that your new venture is a sure thing with revenues just waiting to roll in.
However, you can still be incredibly successful and even dominate your industry with a lower cost domain. Branding is key, and having an Internet domain name that unifies your branding can mean plenty of savings and help your marketing budget go a lot further. One way to guarantee your success and position your enterprise to grab up market share quickly is to acquire a powerful toll free vanity number and use the number as your web domain name. For example 1800FLOWERS.com.
Do not despair if all of your domain name choices are already taken or they are being advertised for high dollar amounts. A leading domain name search and negotiation firm can assist by using its expertise and honed strategies in order to get you the best deals on premium domain names.
Web monitoring analytics offer one of the most powerful tools for improving your online advertising ROI. In fact, web monitoring analytics are essential for guaranteeing the maximum performance of your Internet marketing campaigns. Web monitoring analytics can be used to monitor all of your website traffic, which means being able to test the advertising effectiveness of your different campaigns and how much traffic they are bringing you, the flow of your website, and it’s ability to convert leads into deals.
Web monitoring analytics allow you to track which of your online marketing campaigns are bringing you the most visitors, and more importantly, which one is actually producing the most sales through your individual domain names. You may even be surprised to find out where your visitors are coming from. It may not be the campaigns you think. In this case, you are wasting thousands of dollars in the wrong direction. See which advertising channels are the most productive and optimize those, while scrapping or revamping those that are not producing results.
Next, use your web monitoring analytics to track the flow of movement through your website and identify what is the biggest barrier to prospects taking the action you want. If they are spending too little time on the first page they arrive at, it suggests that either your design is unattractive or your ads are not really reaching the right prospects. Just getting traffic by itself is no good; you want to drive in traffic that you can monetize. Use your web monitoring analytics to watch the flow of your traffic around your site. If visitors spend too little time on a long page and quickly leave, perhaps you are giving too much information and boring them, or if they make it to your closing page but do not acquire your product or service, perhaps your pricing is too high. Or perhaps you need to add more credibility by including your toll free vanity number on your website. Continually strive regularly to use your web monitoring analytics and constantly improve all aspects of your online advertising and you will watch your ROI and profit margins rocket!
Testing before you launch any advertising campaign is essential, and it is especially essential for PPC advertising. In fact, PPC advertising is ideal for testing the viability of the launch of almost all new services and products even if you intend to branch out into other forms of marketing later.
So how should you be testing your PPC advertising? PPC advertising systems like Google Adwords let you find ideal keywords in seconds. However, the real testing is what you put together for your text and image ads. Start by using at least three to four variations of your ad. For text ads, you should be testing your headline, ad copy, and even your Internet domain name. Note that you can use several web domain names, and if you haven’t yet acquired a domain name that includes your toll free vanity number, you may find that having one offers much more volume. When it comes to PPC advertising with image ads, you can also try out different shapes and sizes from animated squares to static or flash banner ads. Try testing different colors in addition to the items above.
A good place to start before even trying to create your PPC ads is to look at other ads that come up for your search terms and see which ones you think are most attractive for customers and how you can differentiate yourself from the competition. You can easily create your own ads in a few minutes in almost any PPC advertising platform, whether it is Google, Yahoo, YouTube, or Facebook advertising, or you can use inexpensive programs like Banner Designer Pro for ads you can use anywhere on the web. Or if you are working with an established company that offers an affiliate program, you may find they have winning ads already created for you to use. You can even take a lesson from one New York Times best selling author and hold a competition that involves having others send your their ad ideas in exchange for providing some sort of free marketing back to the person or company that comes up with your best performing ad. Run your ads for a week, axe the ones that are not producing, and replace them with new ideas. Keep repeating until you have an arsenal of extremely powerful and productive ads that produce big results.
Credit Line: © Ken Toh | Dreamstime.com
Without a strong brand image and a unified brand, your business does not have a solid foundation to grow on. We all know the story of The Three Little Pigs and what happened to the homes made out of straw and sticks! Core to building a solid brand is making sure your Internet domain name, toll free vanity number, and business name all match and blend together. If they are different, you will find that you are losing a lot of business from customers who can’t find you and come across your competition instead.
Not having a domain name that matches your business name can be an easy mistake for new entrepreneurs and small business start ups. However, it can also be an extremely expensive one, not only from having to secure different Internet domain names, or toll free numbers, or changing your business name, but also in terms of new research that will need to be done and redrafting marketing campaigns.
So before you go too deep into the planning stage of a new venture or spinning off a new division, make sure you can reserve and secure the appropriate matching business name, vanity number, and Internet domain names. Just making sure that they are available isn’t enough. Hundreds of new businesses and websites are created each day. Lock in your Internet domain name early if you want to succeed.
Another factor that is often overlooked by those rushing to register new companies and web domain names is checking to see whether your proposed business name is in use in another state or has been used recently. If the name has been taken, you may want to spend time checking out the reputation of that company name. The last thing you want is to secure a new Internet domain name and launch a business only to find that one with a similar name was just shut down for fraud!
The long awaited launch of the new 855 toll free number prefix has just been given a firm date. Those who have been struggling to find a toll free vanity number that meets their needs and marketing programs can now lock in premium 855 numbers if they hurry. The release date for the new 855 numbers is set for 12 Midnight EST on October 1, 2010. However, this does not mean you have time to waste.
Custom Toll Free recently announced the appointment of Rick DeCamp as vice president of business development. In his new position, DeCamp will lead product marketing and business development for a new line of business centered on e-commerce technology solutions."We’re excited to have a marketing and business development executive of Rick’s caliber join our management team," said Michael Evans, president and chief operating officer of Custom Toll Free. "Given his deep and highly successful experience, we know Rick will make a significant impact on our business and product strategy, and help us continue the company’s rapid growth trajectory."
In the current economy customers are slower to spend. So now, more than even, marketing messages need to include key phrases that make the customer pick up the phone and call now. That’s why it’s important to tell people in your ads what’s new and different about your product or services — and why they should pick up the phone and dial your toll-free number right away:
The two most obvious phrases are:
But there are some other attractive phrases that command attention and inspire action. They include:
Need a distinctive toll-free number that matches your new campaign or product? Get started right away with our Toll Free Number Search. We can also help you get a great customer toll-free number that’s coming available.
One of the fastest-growing segments of marketing communication is outdoor advertising. Traditional billboards are benefitting from fast, lower-cost ink jet printing technologies, and new forms of outdoor ads are proliferating. These include electronic billboards, bus signs and bus wraps, kiosks, giant banners, LED message reader boards, and even taxi tops.
Studies of advertisers reveal that they choose billboard ads for their superior abilities to communicate effectively, to attract new customers, and to increase sales. eMarketer Digital Intelligence predicts that US outdoor advertising revenues will rise from the $7.4 billion posted in 2007 to more than $10 billion in 2011.
Outdoor advertising is known for being powerful and streamlined. According to the five principles of billboard advertising, you want to keep it simple: convey one strong visual concept about your service or product, add a tagline or call to action, and provide your company name and contact information.
One of the best ways to keep it simple and effective is with a vanity toll-free number. In outdoor advertising, a great vanity toll free number does double duty, reinforcing either your company name (1-800-yourname) or your call to action (1-800-buy-sodas). A good example of a vanity number being used as a call to action is the highly successful outdoor ad campaign used by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to advertise a new tip line for reporting illegal animal fighting. The vanity toll free number they chose was 1-877-TIP-HSUS.
Get the most out of your outdoor advertising by prominently featuring a strong vanity toll-free number. Custom Toll Free staff can help you acquire a toll-free number that works with your brand, service, or product and takes advantage of the high-impact outdoor ad medium to capture attention and generate response. Find out more about our toll free number search.
