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[westcoaster]

Being somewhat proactive I went through our local yellow pages and found some business that had dotcom's but no dotca to compliment that. I mailed out five compelling sales letters to five different type of businesses (retail, car dealership, lawyer, accountant) describing the importance of owning a dotca. I include an invoice with the sales letter. I invoiced all 5 businesses in the same amount ... mid xxx. Today I received a cheque from one of the five businesses.

Anyone else tried this?

Cheers
Phil

[DomainSpace]

Congrats on not waiting for them to call you. The fact that you mailed it to them probably gave it more legs to stand on instead of just seeing it and deleting it as email spam. I personally haven't tried the mailing it approach but I have done the usual sending them an email. The last 3 domains I used the email approach I got the following results...

1st domain: Asked for $1000 and within a day had sold that name. (The person who bought it understood the value of owning a keyword in his sector.)
2nd domain: Didn't put a price and got what I deserved nothing of value from it.
3rd domain: Asked for $1500 and within a week it too was sold.

All of the above where .ca's but what I found was those who bought get why having a internet address that means something and the easier to remember the better (also including a price got rid of the guessing game). The funniest thing was one lady emailed regarding the 1st domain asking me who would pay that and why would she need that when she had her name... Why I found it funny was the person who bought the name was the market leader in her area and the head of their association - clearly he gets it.

Once again nicely done and I might try your tactic with a few domains I have that are more local. (I'd love to see your letter)

Cheers,

[msn]

Being somewhat proactive I went through our local yellow pages and found some business that had dotcom's but no dotca to compliment that. I mailed out five compelling sales letters to five different type of businesses (retail, car dealership, lawyer, accountant) describing the importance of owning a dotca. I include an invoice with the sales letter. I invoiced all 5 businesses in the same amount ... mid xxx. Today I received a cheque from one of the five businesses.

Anyone else tried this?

Cheers
Phil

We are experimenting with this for other TLDs but not for .ca to date. If you would not mind, I would like to see the wording of your letters!

[westcoaster]

The letter Yes, the letter. Without reproducing the entire letter it has these main points.

I acknowledge them as the owner of the .com. If they have had the domain for a long time I have a statement about them knowing the value of a domain name. If they have just recently acquired the domain name I congratulate them on thier choice of name.

Next I proceed to let them know that people in Canada are typing in their domain name with a dotca extension rather than the dotcom. I tell them over 1 million businesses now use the dotca. ( I know they are not all businesses)

Next I let them know that any canadian can register THEIR domain name with dotca extension and anyone typing in their domain name with a dotca extension will be directed to someone else's website and not theirs.

I let them know I have secured their dotca domain name for them and am providing the service of putting their domain name into their hands for a price of xxx. I have kept the prices around the $500 mark to make it affordable for all businesses.

I thought about finishing the letter with a gentle warning that if they do not accept then the domain name may be placed up for auction but thought better of that and chose not to do so.

I include an invoice for the amount due with the sales letter. This saves the step of them having to reply and then me billing them.
I made a quicky website where they can contact me (importantdomains dotca) and also give the company some web presence. It's basic but lets them know I am out there and not a scammer

Lastly, or rather firstly, the letter is printed on a high quality paper. It has my logo on the top of the page and the letter is placed into a high quality envelope.

And that's all there is to the letter. No pressure, no hard sell, just a simple letter letting them know I offer a service to assist their web business.