Since “word of mouth advertising” and “offline advertising” are two extremely similar topics from a domaining perspective, I’ll cover both of them today. As someone who invests in domains and/or develops domains, here’s what you need to know:
You WILL Lose Traffic If Your Domain Isn’t Memorable
Situation 1: Someone mentions your site while chatting on Skype (word of mouth advertising)
Situation 2: Someone notices one of your offline ads (offline advertising)
Let’s assume that you on the one hand and a friend on the other (let’s also assume that both of you are from Chicago) are collecting insurance leads: you own the domain ChicagoInsurance.com and he/she owns EliteOnlineChicagoInsurance.com.
What do you think will happen if someone mentions your site while chatting on Skype (situation 1)? What do you think will happen if someone notices one of your offline ads (situation 2)?
What do you think will happen if someone mentions your friend’s site while chatting on Skype (situation 1)? What do you think will happen if someone notices one of your friend’s offline ads (situation 2)?
Which Domain Will Most People Remember?
People have short attention spans, this much is certain: it’s more than obvious that a lot of folks would end up forgetting your friend’s URL (EliteOnlineChicagoInsurance.com), I earn a living online and I’d probably forget it myself. There are just too many things “competing” for my attention when I’m chatting with someone or when I’m doing offline stuff. If you want me to remember your site, please do us both a favor and don’t make things difficult!
On the other hand, it’s next to impossible to forget the domain ChicagoInsurance.com if you live in Chicago and are chatting with someone about something insurance-related or if you’ve noticed an ad which promotes an insurance-related site. If you own the best possible domain for your niche, you can rest assured that people will definitely NOT forget which site they need to visit, simply because it’s the first “online thing” they associate with the niche.
Chicago Insurance? ChicagoInsurance.com!
Internet Marketing? InternetMarketing.com!
Domaining Tips? DomainingTips.com! 🙂
The more you complicate things, the more likely it is that people will have a “Now what was that insurance-related domain someone mentioned on SKype?”/”Now what was that insurance-related domain I saw on a billboard earlier today?” moment.
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel! Seriously, just don’t. When it comes to word of mouth advertising and offline advertising, traffic leakage is an extremely important issue. Spending a bit (or even a lot) more on a kick-ass domain is the smart thing to do and I’m sure that most of you are wondering:
Just How Much Should People Spend?
Try seeing things from the perspective of a person who knows how things work online and wants to help someone out, what would you tell a friend who wants to buy an insurance-related domain? What questions would you ask? I don’t know about you but here’s what I would ask:
1) What’s your advertising budget?
2) Based on your experience or based on what you’ve heard from people who are more experienced than you, how much traffic do you think that you’ll receive?
3) How much is a lead worth to you?
4) How much money would you lose if let’s say 10% of the people who hear about your site would not drop by because they forgot the domain?
If (for example) you’d be looking at a $1,000 monthly loss, spending $10,000 on a great domain would definitely be smart. On the other hand, spending $100,000 would be foolish. Use your brain, analyze things thoroughly and you (and/or your friend) will be fine!
November 21st, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Most of us forget a domain if it’s too long or if it doesn’t mean anything, I don’t understand why businesses are so afraid of spending money on domains sometimes. They’re losing much more business than they think, maybe they just don’t know that much about the Internet yet.
November 21st, 2009 at 9:20 pm
How do you feel about 3word domains… are they too long at 3 words or are they still good?
November 21st, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Great post and great advice.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Don’t get me started, I could talk about internet ignorance and today’s businesses all day. I know firsthand how some companies spend or better said waste their advertising budget, you’d rofl after hearing how their marketing campaigns have nothing to do with even the most basic common sense. The same companies which have no clue what a domain could be worth to them.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Good post, I did one recently about the value of word of mouth and you are spot on, making sure they can remember you is important. After speaking to a small business owner the other day he mentioned that he does not even try to remember phone numbers anymore. He just goes to he website. He said this as he agreed to a contract to buy a domain and web development from us.
That said, @Nick, although I do get your point, it is very easy to say why you do not understand why businesses do not just pony up to buy the expensive domain, but it comes down to capital. I am with these people every single day. They have other expenses that they have to deal with as well. Cash flow is king, most small businesses (which are the majority of potential domain buyers as far as end users go) do not have 10K or even 5K sitting around to buy a domain name.
And keep in mind, there are only a few of us out there explaining the value, I teach seminars to these people every week, I cannot educate them all, there need to be more people out there helping them understand why the domain name is important. Just like we do not understand their business , they do not understand how important the domain name is….
Anyway, the advice I give to domainer friends these days is do not get so inward focused you forget that the customer on the other end a) has to actually have the money to buy and b) has to understand why.
Our industry has not done a good job educating…..
November 22nd, 2009 at 2:32 am
@nmwando – between the Nick comment and yours you inspired a post on my blog. If you really feel like business owners are stupid for not spending big dollars on domains you may want to watch for it.
Sorry DomainingTips.com for pointing to a post I am doing, I linked to you (when I post it you will see it).
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:25 am
@Bruce: np man, looking forward to reading the post 😉
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:07 pm
My post is up, thanks for the inspiration Nick and Nmwando.
November 27th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
It is nice to finally locate a web site where the blogger knows really well about his subject.
December 18th, 2009 at 4:13 am
In my opinion a domain name ideally should be short and say what it does as that might help eventually in the search results.
Great blog!
April 15th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
:O So mUch Info :O
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