I received an email quite a while back from a domainer who had written a book and I did a review on my blog. This time, he was letting me know about a friend of his who had written a domain related book as well. Domain Outbound Marketing is the ebook and Yogi Solanki, the author, provided me with a review copy. Due to my lack of blogging for quite some time, I left Yogi hanging patiently. I appreciate the opportunity to review any domain related product or service and pass along my findings to you.
I’ve read quite a few domain related books in my time and I have not been overwhelmed with the knowledge or information provided in them. I will say that with the first page of Domain Outbound Marketing, we ‘re off to a fresh start. Yuri comes out of the gate open and honest about his experience in domaining. He’s hasn’t been in the game for decades like some claim, just a couple of years, but he has results. He also doesn’t claim his results are that of single keyword dot com domainers, but that he sells most of his names between $299 – $1,000. But he’s made $25,000 doing it over 8 months. That’s enough to get excited over, although Yogi states he’s a full time domainer and spends 80-90% of his time selling domains and puts in 8 to 10 hours a day. A great salary in India, but not ideal for a full time job in many other countries, depending where you are in life.
The book, like many ebooks, is made up of short chapters and shorter than what you might expect from a paperback, but I have come to learn it’s not the number of pages that matter. It’s the quality of the content.
Yogi suggests several means by which to manage your domaining. This includes a a framework for managing your time and suggests ways to stay motivated. He also discusses the importance of a niche as well as tools to seek out the types of domains that can be sold in his focus range.
There is a chapter on how to find buyers, research contact emails, all of which are reasonably helpful to a new domainer or someone looking to enter the industry.
Where I think Domain Outbound Marketing earns it’s value is in the discussion of outbound email marketing. I have been researching, collecting and refining effective email templates over the years and will soon be releasing them to the domain community. Yogi is spot on when he discusses the delicate nature of email and the importance of testing your approach. When it comes to follow up, I would argue against the value of “80% of sales made in the fifth to twelfth contact.” I would invest that time in finding new contacts, or include a faq if you find you are answering the same types of questions repeatedly.
Another area I would personally take a different approach is in objection handling. I’m not in the business of investing time in educating end users. Again, I find that time more valuably spend finding new contacts.
Overall, I think Domain Outbound Marketing has plenty of value to a new domainer (under one year) or someone considering entering the industry and looking to learn. It’s helpful to have someone’s footsteps to walk in… someone to show you the ropes, and Yogi is that man. While seasoned domainers will not find anything new in this book that they haven’t already experienced or found a way to improve upon, the author has done a good job outlining the basic steps required to buy and sell domain names.
Domain Outbound Marketing by Yogi Solanki is available on GumRoad (read my interview with GumRoad founder).
