You Just Lost Affiliate Revenue!

After spending the past few years working on various ways of monetizing product domain names through either Smartname.com ecomm sites, Adsense, or affiliate programs I decided it was time to try some larger dollar affiliate programs.

The one issue with product domains is that it takes quite a bit of product being sold to add up to real money, do not get me wrong, it is nice to have sites making a nice stream of revenue from PPC and affiliate revenue but in reality there are times I would prefer to have higher dollar, bigger hit, affiliate sales coming through.

My good buddy Morgan Linton has been working on this and has found a nice partner in his niche paying $150.00 per lead. Now you are starting to talk some real dollars for one click and conversion. That is something you do not get from product domains.

In no way is this post a knock on product domains, I LOVE THEM, but sometimes it is worth it to go for the less is more strategy, one solid lead to a high revenue service provider will pay you more than PPC on your product domain does for a year at times.

Now, with all that said, after some research I decided the niche I wanted to focus on and after some initial testing with SEO determined that with a quality domain name plus proper SEO gathering targeted traffic in the niche would be a challenge but one that can be won in a reasonable amount of time.

But (sorry Morgan) the great thing is that it is completely reasonable to expect $250 to $500 commissions in this industry. To be clear I have not launched yet, but we are talking reputable companies that have real customers with real money. That is the type of pay back I am looking for on a per lead basis rather than .22 cents per click.

After researching the affiliate programs one thing became very clear and has the potential to make or break a site trying to make money off this niche, and in reality it became clear that it can make or break many big dollar sales that people research online but purchase offline.

The PHONE call could be my biggest enemy.

As much as the niche I am targeting will get a portion of bookings online the pricing is high enough that I would expect a) many of the buyers to be savvy enough to look online but b) not trust big dollars for their purchase online. In other words they will do every bit of research and decide to buy but then pick up the phone and dial the 800 number on the website to actually purchase.

I know this is nothing new to people, no big epiphany here, but as we domain owners with quality properties that drive customers to other people through partnerships and affiliate programs move to finding ways to eke out every dollar from our development we need to watch for revenue leakage every step of the way.

Although there are people starting to work towards pay per call affiliate models the majority of affiliate programs do not offer this. And when a site first launches and targets a niche it is unlikely special consideration will be given to the person applying for acceptance until revenue is proven.

One special thing to request would be a special 800 number for your clients, but that only works if they do NOT click through to the partner site and stay on OUR domain, once they get to the partner site the main corporate 800 number would be on the site.

There is no perfect answer for this at this time, but it is something to watch out for. It is very likely if you are working in high dollar lead areas that you may be leaking revenue through that old school technology called the phone.

That said, I am moving forward, I hope to have something launched and discuss what niche I am working on in the near future and maybe some other fun things that have been going on in the background as well on some partnerships.

Building A Website Is Not Building A Business

One of the frequent conversations I had at the domain conferences was about developing websites. Due to the Missouri.me launch and some of my other projects many people had questions about how to develop the sites, tools used, where we get content, etc. I am always happy to share as much as I can but there was something that I would preach to anyone who would listen and it seems to escape many.

There is a huge difference between building a website and building a business. In most cases people can have many great ideas about what they would like to do with their great domain name, they may even have all the technical abilities to create an amazing e-commerce site or content rich geo site but in so many cases there is no plan for what to do once the site is up.

If you put 50K into a wonderful website, do all the hard SEO work, if you do not have a plan on how to generate revenue after the site is up it is really just a website, not much different than a parked page, I can imagine if you spend 50K or even 10K on developing the perfect website you would want to have a plan for something more than Adsense for revenue.

So, when talking about domain development you need to think about taking it past the web development phase and how to get it into the business development phase.

To understand what I mean take a look at what the Castello Brothers have done, they understand business. With sites like Whisky.com and PalmSprings.com they have created businesses. I have really enjoyed my conversations with Michael and David and love the fact that they focus so much on the business rather than just the website. That is the difference between successful domain development compared to someone just building a website.

Now, everyone has different skills, I know many people much smarter than myself that can create amazing web sites but they lack the skills necessary on the sales and marketing side. This is where partnerships come in. If you have a great idea and have all the skills to implement the product and technical side then you may want to look for partners for the sales side. I know I could not of come close to creating everything my development team did on our state geo platform.

So, what is the point of this post?

Well I have heard so much talk of domain development, as we all have heard over the past year or so, I want to see people be successful. In most cases people will not be able to do it on their own, if you plan on building your domains into real businesses and not just websites you need to evaluate what you are good at and determine what pieces to build a business are missing from your skill set. Find people that you can team up with to fill those gaps. You may find that 1+1=3 when you do this.

Missouri.me and Localtek Keep On Rollin

I know the blog has been a bit quiet this week but sometimes the focus has to be on the real business and this past week was one of those. Between seminars, server growth, and customer meetings there was not much time to do much else which is just fine with me.

Although I always tell people not to confuse activity with productivity this was a week full of productive things. One of the more productive things was something I could not of imagined a week ago.

During one of our recent seminars one of our regional competitors was in the first row, now let me say that I knew of the company and had heard good things and everyone always had nice things to say about the owner of the company. The company provides various online services and technical services to small businesses throughout the area, helping them get online, promote themselves and also keep their technology running smoothly.

Well, when you have a competitor directly in front of you when you are giving your whole story that can be a bit interesting, you better have your game face on and feel confident that what you have to offer is unique and valuable. Our customers tell us that everyday so I felt real good....

During the presentation I even pointed to the individual and had direct conversation with him about their company probably witnessing some of the same things we do. It was really quite  fun and enlightening.

After the seminar I was headed to the back of the room (another story there, one of the best things ever happened, customer walks up and says ok I am ready, what do I do and how much? Keep in mind I never even talked about what our products are, now that is fun...).

The competitor stopped me after the first customer and said that he would like to look at partnering rather than competing, WOW, did not see that coming. We discussed a bit longer and decided that further meetings were in order rather quickly.

We sat down the next day and in short order were able to work out how we would do business together and I quickly learned this person had been looking for a partner he could pass over his online services business too. He had been looking for a company that understood more than just web development but had a full solution that could help these customers. Luckily my seminar came at just the right time, based on some research he had done on us before the seminar he felt comfortable.

What is great is that it turned into a very symbiotic relationship, we get a lot of requests for tech services since many times the customer see the technical side of what we do and ask if we can support their various needs, now we have someone in a region of the state that can take that on.

On a separate note we also had our first meetings with initial customers for a niche geo domain that covers a statewide industry, the site will be a business in and of itself but ties nicely into Missouri.me advertising packages as well. Keeping a common thread through product sets is always good, it benefits the customer and keeps you close to your core business, if you cannot find away that makes sense to tie two products together then it means you have moved away from your core too far. Re think if you want that business.

Anyway, just a few notes and info on why the blog may of been a bit quiet.

Benefits Of Having A Business Partner

As more and more domain investors are looking towards developing their top properties into real businesses I thought I would share my experience with working with a business partner when launching Localtek.

From the very beginning of the Localtek launch it was a team effort. My current business partner and I had been discussing various projects for a year or so but never quite found the "one". At Christmas of last year I started talking about the success I had been having with domain investments and, hard to believe, but yes PPC traffic and also the fact I had been direct selling ads on one of my sites without even making calls, they just came to me asking to buy advertising.

Based on this, very long story short, we ended up coming up with what is now the Missouri.me and Localtek concept. As with most businesses the initial idea is not where you end up but hopefully you build from that initial idea and not subtract from it. In this case it grew but at the core it is the same idea and business, just better than before.

Now, about the benefits of why I started a business with a partner, lets outline them:

No one, and I mean NO ONE, knows everything - Lets face it, even the most confident people in the world do not know everything. It is always valuable to have other people around that have experience you do not have. The reason a good team works is because everyone brings something to the table, various pieces of knowledge being a key piece of that. I talk to people or see people daily that have no intention of ever learning from other people, and that in the end, will be their downfall.

Brainstorming - When launching a business there can be alot of time spent brainstorming ideas around certain pieces of the business. Whether it be marketing, product pricing, growth plans, etc. It is useful to have someone else to check your ideas and build off of them.

Push or Pull - It is always good to have a balance between the partners. In our case I tend to be the fire, ready, aim person and my partner is the pull me back guy. It works perfectly, that balance is always needed. Virtually every successful business launch I have witnessed has had the same combination. You cannot have both people pushing without some checks and balances put in place. But you also cannot have two people both pulling back all the time. Both together is the way I have always found it to work best.

Detailed vs Not-Detailed - Along with the push/pull concept is the detail oriented vs. non-detail oriented balance. Once again, in most companies I have seen launch successfully there is a balance here as well. Just last week I witnessed it while in a meeting with a very successful company local to myself. One person was focused on T's & C's in the contract while the other was focused on what the next phase would be without worrying about the details on the first phase. You need both sides of this.

A Different Viewpoint - This one is very important for us, my experience is business development and sales along with technology. My partners is small business operations and small business marketing. You put that together and in our case you have the perfect balance of what is needed to launch a business doing what we do. Both pieces are important. This comes back to no one person knows it all. If you are starting a business keep in mind it takes multiple areas of experience. This is why many developers have a hard time taking a great idea to market. Being able to make a great looking and functional site is only the first step, being able to take it to market and close a deal is a different story.

I could probably list another 5 but the point I really want to end with is that when building a business in many cases it is very important to have a partner. When selecting a partner in many cases we tend to gravitate towards people that are exactly like ourselves. That is the first mistake you will make. It is important to bring a wide range of experiences together to build a successful team. Although my business partner and myself are alike in many ways we have a different knowledge base that we pull from and a good balance when it comes to the push/pull balance. Make sure you select a partner that balances the partner ship and not tips it over from being out of balance (in other words do not pick yourself).