Advice to the new domainer

I just wrote this at Digital Point forums in reply to a post "Domainers... do they make money?"

This is a lightly edited version of my reply. It seemed too good to leave as a reply that will soon be buried in history so I've copied it here.

Domaining isn't one business, it's several different businesses. Some domainers buy domains to use for the revenue they generate while held, some buy domains to sell on reasonably quickly as stock in hand, and some buy to hold onto for some future payout.

.NZ domain registration wholesale fee reducing by 16% in July

InternetNZ has announced a reduction of the wholesale fee for .nz domain names from NZ $ 1.50 + GST per month to $1.25 per month ($18 to $15 per annum per domain name) from 1 July 2010.

The fee was last reduced in July 2007 and before that in July 2004.

While there is no obligation on registrars to pass on the wholesale fee reduction to customers, InternetNZ President Frank March says he "expects that many will and therefore maintain the competitiveness of the .nz registrar market."

Based on the 2007 experience, we can expect to see the discount registrars taking a short delay before passing on the savings and falling into line fairly quickly once their competitors drop their prices.

See also the Full announcement on Domain Name Commission site .

.NZ IDN Sunrise Registration Period

Background

As previously reported here and here the Domain Name Commission (DNC) has been preparing policies on introducing a limited set of international domain names (IDNs) to the .NZ space to allow the supporting of the Māori language language. This requires adding the 5 macronised vowels ā, ē, ī, ō and ū to the English alphabet.

Policy

They have now written and published the IDN Sunrise Policy (or pdf) for registration during a "sunrise period" that will allow the existing registrant of a Maori name spelled without macrons to register the macronised version of the name.

New Kids on the Block

When I first started acquiring domain names back in 2005 I was approached by someone who'd been in the game a lot longer than me & one of the things he said was that over the years he'd seen a lot of people come into the game and drop out. He advised me that New Zealand domains are hard to market and I listened. I've never really tried actively marketing my portfolio, sure I occasionally get approached by people interested in my domain names, but generally I try covering my costs with advertising and the occasional sale helps fill in the deficit.

Surviving the recession

I pretty much dropped out of domaining during the worst of last year's recession and am only just starting to get back into it. For a while I thought I'd have to ditch a considerable percentage of the portfolio, but I just managed to keep it together and came out with the portfolio largely unscathed. Parking still doesn't pay very well and I still don't see myself back in domaining in the conventional way. I'm moved from investing into developing and am currently developing out many of my domain names into small sites.

One Hundred Smart Companies who Understand Generic Domain Names

Memorable Domains in the UK has a page up of 100 Smart Companies that Understand the Concept of Generic Domain Names

The list has 100 companies (mostly UK) and the generic domain name they use to promote themselves. Each of them has made good use of a generic domain name that exactly matches either their primary business, or one of their main products or services, and many of these are internationally known.

Well worth a read.

How and when to buy generic domain names

When and how should you buy an existing generic domain name for your business?

In Branding on the Internet I discussed what you should call your web site, the short answer is it should match your business name, the longer answer is in that article. Part of the branding article was about using additional “Generic” or product related domain names for extra qualified leads to your web-site, hopefully leading to more business.
My advice, then, as now was:

“You know your business and how well a sale does for you. If your average sale netts you $1,000 profit, then an extra domain name only needs to bring in one more sale every few years to pay for itself. If your average sale netts you $10 profit, then that extra domain name needs to bring in 4 or 5 extra sales a year to pay for itself. Stop and think what your potential customers will be looking for and try to find the right domain name(s) for them to find then register as many money making names as your budget allows.”

That article assumed you would be registering previously unregistered domain names, but what if the generic name you want is owned by someone else? Many people give up at this point, but it may well be that you can still acquire it.