Since we are planning on becoming involved in domain auctioneering and since we have concluded that it is in our best interests in every way to try and attract potential end-users to our auctions. We believe domain owners will get the best price from someone who understands the advantages of being able to call that domain their own, the assumption being that there will be at least one who will pay what the domain is worth over a period of time so that they will pay more than a speculative domainer will bid.

Which isn’t to say that the domainer ought to be left out of the auction - which brings up the two main questions that this post is intended to examine. First, who might be potential end-users and how will they be attracted to the auction? Second, who else apart from the obvious end-users might be interested? Since our first auction is tentatively going to be that of “PuebloHomeSales.com”, followed by “AnaheimHomeSales.com”. We will address ourself to these domains while of course also taking into account the more general case.

The generic component of the domains is “HomeSales” and our perceived end-user is one of a number of entities. First, it can be a individual real estate salesperson. Second, it can be a realty company with many agents. Third, it could be some entity with a business plan of perhaps being a “sell it yourself” site. Fourth, it could be someone with a plan that features advertising revenue from Agents or Companies. There are likely others but for now the assumption is that those four cases constitute 90% of the potential end users, if not more.

Who else apart from end-user types might be interested? We will examine them in the order that we think of them. The obvious one is someone from the domaining community. It may be that they own some sister-site and they like the idea of selling a pair, or it could be that they think that there will be some point in the future where the domain call be sold for a good profit. Following the “sister-site” theme, there may be other domains that are owned in the same city like “PuebloHouseSales.com” or even the entity that owns the pure geo, in the case of our first auction “Pueblo.com”. It is easier to get search engine listings for two phrases by having two sites unless you are Wikipedia. A pure geo owner might see having 5 or 10 geo-generics as enough to get past some “tipping point” not to mention being able to join the “Associated Geo-Generics” domain owners ( a potentially much larger and much more influential group ) and reap the benefits of membership.

A last (for now) group of people that might be interested are entities that own websites in related fields or who are interested in helping a client prosper. For example, a mortgage company might be able to strike some sort of deal with agents who will recommend them, or a lawyer or accountant might have a client who they know would profit by owning a geo-generic. We aren’t suggesting contacting every lawyer in Pueblo in case one knows a real estate salesperson whom they would like to help but the astute lawyer who owns “PuebloLawyers.com” might both be able to understand and able to explain to the realtor(s) the advantages of owning such a succinct focussed domain. The person at “PuebloAccountants.com” might be able to show the eventual end-user how to use the purchase to improve a tax situation. In fact all of the “Pueblo” geo-generic dot coms that are registered might be interested.

There might also be some opportunity to interest a geo-generic dot com owner in another geo that might be interested, nearby or not. This group may be small but it creates a good moment to introduce another few valuable groups to attract to the auction but not necessarily to bid, just to observe. The two groups we have in mind are other geo-generic owners who might wonder what their domains might bring at auction and perhaps people who might be interested in a related forthcoming auction ie an Anaheim realty company might want to see what goes on at the “PuebloHomeSales.com” auction.

So that might not be an exhaustive list of the potential people we wish to attract to our auction but until we examine a different generic to see what ideas that brings it’ll do. If we can meaningfully contact all the entities we have listed so far it will have been quite a feat and certainly we would consider it as a decent effort when applied to all domains that we auction. The next question is how to identify the entities and determine the best way to contact them. Another thing that needs to be considered is when to contact them and what to say.

The number of potential bidders we have judged to be too high for telephone communication, email will be the preferred method. Anything beyond that will be done on a case-case basis. Finding the realtors and the companies in Pueblo is reasonably easy - just search Google for the various terms and then go to the company websites and there is usually a list of realestate salespeople along with their website if any. I would think that they would all be good contacts - even if they have a site already they might want a second site that is a brandable geo-generic and failing that they might know someone who they think might want it. One development that might be possible is that discussion might break out amongst them which would be nice.

The other domain owners that we want to contact have their addresses usually available via their domain’s whois records so that should be simple enough. A few might be worthwhile looking at their sites to see if they have a contact email address displayed there.

Other domainers should be easy enough to alert by posting on a few forums and weblogs - no point in contacting them directly is our sense of the circumstance as domainers tend to all read the same blogs and the word would spread.

This leaves the question of when to contact them and how often? We assume an initial email to all whom we deem to be interested parties. In this case it is realestate and in this case the subject geographical location is Pueblo, Colorada and they are an hour ahead of PST and 2 hours behind EST. Ideally the auction will be at a time that allows the most people to attend but more important is that the end-users get the best chance. We are assuming that the early evening (7PM) in Pueblo might be best. That allows interested people in New York’s time zone to view it starting at 9PM and people on the west coast to be home from work if they want to watch or participate.

We also assume that there ought to be time for the end-user to examine the concept both on the internet and in their everyday travels. If we send out an email 2 weeks ahead of time and then follow that up with one a week in advance that should allow enough time. A third one the day before and a final one 5 minutes before would be ideal yet it seems a little bit much to send out 4 unsolicited emails to everyone which brings us to the “what do we say in the emails” considerations.

Assuming that 4 is our ideal then we might be well advised to ask for an “opt-in” - permission to send them other emails. Alternatively we might send an email with an “opt-out” and at the same time assure them that we are sending out each email individually and that the maximum number of these emails that they will get is 4 and that regardless they will stop after the auction is completed.

The first email ought to provide a short summary, a few links to some resources that outline the various business strategy of owning a geo-generic domain name , the promise not to spam, the link to opt-out and a link to the domain to be optioned. The second email a week later would remind them of the auction, point out a few new news items and some short points of interest. The one the day before the auction would just be a reminder as would the one 5 minutes pre-auction.

The same strategy should be followed with the forums and weblogs. No matter the outcome it will be an interesting exercise in seeing exactly what interest can be generated by following the above strategies and methods. One item to think about as well is the pre-registering (if any) of the bidders but this particular train of thought is complete and we’ll examine bidder registration in a subsequent post.