I’ve bought, owned and use some fun domain names. I’m a pretty big advocate of owning more than one domain name and for good reason…Domain names are cheap!!! You can generally purchase a .com domain name for anywhere between $9 – $15 (and often you can find promotions for ‘non-.coms’.) That’s a small investment for a potentially great return. Below you’ll find some suggestions on when and why you might want to think about buying a new domain:
For A Single Product, Service or Package
Buying domain names for a single product, service or package is something that is done on the somewhat regular. Over the past year, I’ve put together a package for Social Media submission package. They are one-price packages to make things easier for my potential clients. So with each ‘package’ I put together I buy a domain name. The domain names, like goingsocialnj.com, make it easier to advertise and promote. Plus, all the domains really do is point to an existing page on my business website (that also happens to be quite SEO friendly.) Speaking of which…
To Make Your Marketing (and Advertising) More Memorable
Next time you are promoting or advertising a single product (or service) sit back and think for a minute about if you could buy a domain that would be good for the promotion. If you’re looking for a fun and memorable advertising campaign then a new domain name can be a great tool to get people to remember your product or service. In fact, your whole advertising campaign might end up being based off of a clever pun or catchy name.
Years ago, I did a whole series of radio ad’s for a local restaurant called the Prickly Pear. The copywriter did a whole puny thing where a woman was singing “I feel prickly…oh so prickly.” When it came time to get them a website, I suggested buying www.ifeelprickly.com as well as pricklypearrestaurant.com so we could cross promote the website more effectively. Nearly 5 years later they still have I Feel Prickly and have continued to use it for more promotions throughout the years.
Echoic retention (hearing something and remembering it) can be a powerful tool when advertising…even in print. So a catchy, short domain name may be just the thing you need to give someone the extra push to remember your product. When I’m doing advertising on radio or print it’s way easier to say, “Go to goingsocialnj dot com” then it is to say “Go to i heart blank dot com and click on the blah blah blah blah.” If you’re looking to do print ads, then you may want to try to think of a fun domain name to buy…and don’t forget…even a catchier print ad can benefit from a short, catchy clever domain name.
Wit (aka – For The Hell Of It)
I was doing a series of postcards for promotional purposes and when I got to selling domain names I wanted to think of something fun and clever to put in there. So after a little bit of browsing I decided to put the line, “If you always wanted to buy iamsoinsanelyawesome.com, then we’re here to make your dreams come true.” I always thought of that line as a little ‘easter egg‘ and if someone was interested enough to ‘read the fine print’ then they’d see something a little entertaining.
If You Own A Franchise
There are a lot of franchises out there. Often times when you purchase a franchise you’re given an insanely long domain. Something like franchise-name.com/store2035/belvidere/235. These always upset me. I under why their doing it, but it doesn’t benefit the franchisee. If you own a franchise you may want to think about buying a domain and simply forwarding it to that really long URL.
If You Have A Potentially Confusing Website Or Business Name
Understand that ‘potentially confusing‘ does not equate to a ‘bad‘ business name, it’s just that some business names can be confusing. For example, you may have a clever pun in your business name or even a number. If you’re doing radio advertising, or simply talking to someone over the phone. and you say “Visit us on the web at sit 4 dog dot com“; how is that person suppose to know if they should be typing in the letter or the word? You may just want to consider buying both so it doesn’t matter and your customers will get there the first time…every time…
Extra SEO Optimization Points
Sometimes you just may want to buy a domain for extra SEO optimization. If you’re attempting to market to a particular town or region why not buy a domain with that town in it!? One of my clients recently did this and bought the biggest towns around his business. If it was me, I would buy “longvalleywebsites.com,” “hackettstown-websites.com,” etc. That little push may have tremendous and amazing results.
Fans For Domains
I’ve also had clients who were huge fans of growing their social media and bought domain names to promote their Facebook and Twitter page. Now there are some restrictions with what Facebook, in that they will not allow you to have the word ‘facebook’ in a domain that’s pointing to their site. You can, on the other hand, find simple and fun ways to get around that (www.fansoftommy.com, etc.)
Conclusion
You can get your creative juices flowing and find some fun, cheap ways to promote your business and make it easier for potential clients to find you. What’s the worst that’s gonna happen? You spend $14 on a domain and let it run out after a year? Seems like it might be worth it! (Also, don’t forget to disable ‘auto-renew’!)
