Sweetmantra: Domain Name Strategy

The Art of Domain Name War

I got into an interesting debate with a colleague the other day regarding the acquisition of a domain name for one of their clients, a large corporation.

During the course of planning a major integrated ad campaign, the team at my colleague’s agency realized they would need to create a mini Website to support the campaign. Not surprisingly, said mini Website would need its own unique domain name.

It was then discovered that the desired domain name, let's call it DesignerPets.com, had already been registered by a third party. (Note: I actually own DesignerPets.com, but it’s mentioned here just as an example.)

Because the client really, really wanted to use DesignerPets.com for the campaign, the decision was made to have the agency try to purchase the domain name from its current owner.

The agency was successful, and the domain name exchanged hands for a modest but fair four-digit sum. The negotiation and transaction was handled through an intermediary (not me, although I’ve acted in this role many times) who did not divulge to the original owner of the domain name the identity of the buyer or their plans for the domain name.

In my opinion, this (using an intermediary or 'broker') was a smart play, and one I always recommend to clients that want to buy a domain name from someone else. Had the original owner of DesignerPets.com known from the outset who was buying his domain name and why, he'd have wanted a ridiculously over-inflated amount for the domain name.

My colleague thinks this approach was “underhanded and unfair.” He is even concerned that the former owner of DesignerPets.com will go to the media and complain how he was "duped" (according to my colleague) by the large corporation. I suggested this would only make the former owner look like a sore loser.

Perhaps I've spent too much time following the writings of Sun “The Art of War” Tzu, but I think my approach of using an intermediary is just smart (albeit tough) strategy. Had the agency not taken this approach, they’d probably still be haggling over a price for the domain name, and their client’s campaign would have been delayed – or forced to use a different domain name.

Blog, Schmog... It's a Website to Most People

Twice in the last week I've been asked if older (i.e. 55+) Internet users "blog."

In both instances, the person asking me the question didn't mean, "Are grey surfers bloggers?" but instead was wondering if this older crowd reads blogs.

This is a legitimate question. It also reveals a faulty assumption regarding blogs, which is that your average surfer (of any age) can distinguish between a blog and a regular Website.

While I realize that blogs have many unique (and wonderful) characteristics that set them apart from regular Websites, I'd be willing to bet that Joe or Jane Surfer doesn't make that distinction. Especially when Joe or Jane doesn't even know or care about blogs.

To them a blog about breeding goldfish is just another Website on the same topic. Joe or Jane doesn't care about the (blog) infrastructure below the surface. They are there for and because of the content.

So don't get too worked up about whether or not a particular target market reads blogs. As far as I'm concerned, if they surf, they read blogs ... even if they don't realize they are doing so in the first place.

The Interactive Gospel According to Kevin Roberts

During his keynote speech on the first day of the 2006 Canadian Marketing Association annual conference yesterday in Montreal, Saatchi & Saatchi's Kevin Roberts strung together 10 words that were music to my ears:

"Within the next five years, all advertising will be interactive."

Roberts covered a lot of ground during his talk, which was (somewhat ironically, given his apparent fondness for interactive) peppered with over a dozen TV commercials. He argued that "the power now sits with the consumer" and that marketers are playing catch up to them.

Roberts also made the case for advertising on mobile devices ... "the future is going to be on screen" ... and implored marketers to "revere the big idea" and stop focusing on the technology ... "assume it can be done."

On Websites, Roberts commented that "most of the Websites I go to look like packages," versus telling a story that will connect with people on an emotional level.

His speech came at the end of a long day for many of the attendees and was very well received, especially by the tiny contingent of interactive marketers in attendance, including yours truly.

If You Blog It, Will They Come?

Most of us by now have heard how blogs are search engine friendly and can supposedly pick up lots of traffic quite easily. Last month, I conducted a 'top secret' experiment to test this theory. Now it's now time for me to unveil the results for you.

On April 1, 2006 I launched this blog, Sweetmantra. "Launch" is perhaps overstating the case since all I did was remove the password protection that was blocking access to the site. Only a handful of people knew I was launching this blog, and they were sworn to secrecy and told NOT to visit it.

Since I've spent over a decade helping people drive traffic to their Websites, it was very ironic (and at times frustrating) for me to sit on my hands for an entire month and NOT market my new baby. The only "marketing" of Sweetmantra that I did was the following:

• Registered Sweetmantra with FeedBurner, PubSub, Feedster, and Technorati
• Added links to my new blog from a couple of Websites I have editorial control over
• Published a new post once a week

That was it!

Here's what happened next:

On April 4, just a few days after launching the blog, pages from sweetmantra.com appeared in Google's index.

Then I got my first few visitors. All praise Google!

Then Google found Sweetmantra 'content' on FeedBurner and Technorati.

Traffic to my blog picked up some more.

Then the folks from iSummit discovered one of my blog postings that referenced their event and included it in their blog.

More traffic. And so on and so on and so on...

All told, in the first 30 days of its existence and with NO "marketing" at all, Sweetmantra received 69 unique visits and 118 page views. While these numbers are not going to give any of the boys at BoingBoing sleepless nights, Sweetmantra's traffic is significant because it came about organically.

With very few exceptions, traffic to my blog was the result of being indexed by 'traditional' search engines like Google and blog-specific search tools like Technorati. (I've always been a fan of Technorati, and I'm even more devoted to it now that I've seen what it can do from a traffic driving perspective. You must register your blog with Technorati if you haven't done so already!)

In addition to 'attracting' visitors from Internet users in Canada, my Internet marketing blog was visited by folks from the United States, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Russia, Singapore, and China.

Needless to say, I've witnessed first-hand the power of blogs and their interaction with search engines. Just wait until I actually begin marketing my blog...