It seems like some domain investors continue to see outbound marketing as spam. Whenever the topic comes up on Namepros the comments fly.
A recent thread on automating outbound got replies like:
Another outbound thread?
Outbout=spamming.
How many outbound threads do you need?
Outbound marketing needs to be done properly, making sure it does not violate the Can-Spam act.
Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $43,280, so non-compliance can be costly. But following the law isn’t complicated. Here’s a rundown of CAN-SPAM’s main requirements:
- Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.
- Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the message.
- Identify the message as an ad. The law gives you a lot of leeway in how to do this, but you must disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an advertisement.
- Tell recipients where you’re located. Your message must include your valid physical postal address. This can be your current street address, a post office box you’ve registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox you’ve registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established under Postal Service regulations.
- Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future. Craft the notice in a way that’s easy for an ordinary person to recognize, read, and understand. Creative use of type size, color, and location can improve clarity. Give a return email address or another easy Internet-based way to allow people to communicate their choice to you. You may create a menu to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to stop all commercial messages from you. Make sure your spam filter doesn’t block these opt-out requests.
- Honor opt-out requests promptly. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message. You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days. You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honoring an opt-out request. Once people have told you they don’t want to receive more messages from you, you can’t sell or transfer their email addresses, even in the form of a mailing list. The only exception is that you may transfer the addresses to a company you’ve hired to help you comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.
- Monitor what others are doing on your behalf. The law makes clear that even if you hire another company to handle your email marketing, you can’t contract away your legal responsibility to comply with the law. Both the company whose product is promoted in the message and the company that actually sends the message may be held legally responsible.
I had mentioned to a friend about Yogi Solanki’s new ebook coming out on Outbound Marketing. They had been complaining sales were slow and I said this might be worth checking out. (I have no relation to Yogi and no advertising deal or promotion compensation). Maybe you get a couple ideas from that, sometimes just one new idea can help boost your attitude and sales.
His reply was the same from Namepros, only in a phone text. “Dude it’s just spam.”
I don’t agree, there are ways to properly market a domain name. Is a broker calling upon a company spamming? Can-Spam does not give business to business a pass.
Because I think some in this industry tend to champion someone they vicariously live through who they view as some superstar but not when it’s an unknown domainer trying to make a dollar.
I would say automating outbound is not legit. It’s problematic with many ways to violate the Can-Spam Act.
Someone like Yogi seems to be doing the right things, as I am sure most quality brokers do the same right things.
The number one thing a domain investor should avoid is marketing to other domain investors.
Place your domain names for sale but do not email other domain investors. It will result in few sales and a lot of anger and possible embarrassment.
You should only be outbounding with domain names that make sense and only one prospect at a time.
Meka says
Yogi is a young kid hustling his way. I am sure he knows who to target when he sends his emails .I do not like domainers spamming me .I do not spam and not interested in selling me a domain same as mine in .net .
Not everyone knows how to do outbound as most send mass emails and claim they are doing outbound.
Yogi is a young star making few hundreds per domain outbounds and all sales have added up to five figures.
There surely is an outbound spam still happening and I just click on spam on the message .
Raymond Hackney says
Exactly I agree. Some believe any email is spam, targeted, in accordance with Can-Spam. They just hate on everyone doing outbound marketing.
XUU says
Of course most put it down, they are lazy ass, know nothings. They don’t want to work. Outbound marketing is done by every legitimate business on the planet.
Nathaniel says
From Yogi’s Twitter feed:
You might have seen this earlier but it is worth sharing again.
2% of sales – made in the first contact
10% of sales – made in the fourth contact
80% of sales – made in the fifth to twelfth contact
Follow up is a must!!
Does that sound like legitimate outbound or like someone who’s spamming people again and again, bothering hundreds of people for each sale he gets? It’s unfortunate that so many domain investors, including industry leaders, are supporting and promoting such “outbounding”. Sales are great but not at any cost.
Raymond Hackney says
No I read nothing about 12 times.
You should definitely not be contacting someone 12 times and Yogi is not the only person successfully doing outbound.
You really should only contact and then a follow up at most.
XUU says
If he is not breaking canspam act and it’s a domain name that makes sense, of course you follow up. Spam is sending any name to anyone. #Lazyfucks
hustle says
Where did he say bothering hundreds of people if he is doing things right there are not hundreds of prospects.
You all just don’t like a kid from India hustling. But guess what you can’t stop him. Or anyone else. #thehustleisreal
Nathaniel says
Yogi contacts most of his leads more than 12 times. He says so repeatedly. He doesn’t get sales for each and every domain he outbounds. Let’s be moderate and say that he contacts 20 leads per domain and gets a sale for every 200-300 emails he sends. Now let’s also factor in the amount of emails he sends for domains that don’t sell. You can sugarcoat it and marvel at sales but the bottom line is that he’s repeatedly bothering people. Every now and then someone buys a domain, but what about the hundreds of people who don’t?
Whether he uses his real address in his emails and follows the other guidelines to avoid being considered as spam I don’t know, though I suspect that most domainers that don’t live in the US can only lose sales by including their address when they’re contacting US based companies. Just read what he writes in interviews. Here’s a quote from an interview with him at DomainSmoke.com:
“Outbound is not easy & it is intimidating. To be very honest I don’t really get that much love from prospects while doing outbound & regarding “negative things” which people say to me is that long that I can write a book on it (haha).”
Raymond Hackney says
I have talked about that before you need to have thick skin if you do outbound because a lot of replies will be nasty.
And Yogi is not the end all be all when it comes to outbound. I think you might gain a nugget from one person then another.
I read stuff from people doing outbound not in domaining.
Yet I have never taken the time to outbound names with all the other stuff I work on.
But for those with little inbound leads I do think if they can do it right they might be able to generate a sale or two.
It should never be 12 times contacting, but I do see where Yogi gets that from.
When I was a broker many years ago (a different time) the people who cold called were told to expect to follow up 7 times.
Now things have changed and that’s not really a thing.
Most people hate to cold call due to the nasty replies.
Nathaniel says
First of all, to correct myself. He says that most successful sales happen after 5-12 follow ups, not more than 12 as I previously wrote by mistake. Not that 5-12 follow ups is much better.
If you’re able to ignore the insults and have a thick skin of course that’s effective. No matter what you’re selling if you bother enough people enough times you’ll get some sales but I don’t think that kind of practice should be encouraged.
Alex says
Envy is a funny thing. People are jealous of those getting business done. And to the genius who asked does that sound like spamming? You don’t think Kate Buckley does follow ups? No you just think she contacts someone and they say SOLD!!!???
Nathaniel says
That’s an amusing comparison. If you think Kate Buckley sends more than 12 emails per lead to the same person you’re delusional. Like any respectable broker she finds the best person to contact in any specific company and reaches out. She may follow up or try to reach them by phone as well.
Yogi says that more than 80% of his sales happen when he follows up more than 12 times and that most of the time he gets angry emails from potential leads. There’s a reason to that. There’s a difference between outbounding top domains to relevant potential buyers and outbounding low quality geo domains by bombarding people with unsolicited emails.
Nathaniel says
Correction. Yogi says that most successful sales happen after 5-12 follow ups, not more than 12 as I previously wrote by mistake. 5-12 follow ups isn’t much better though. When you look at your spam folder do you think about the hustle done by the people who are trying to sell you stuff or do you consider their emails spam? Domains aren’t any different. Targeted emails to relevant companies that follow spamming rules are fine. A follow up is fine. 5-12 followups X who knows how many leads isn’t OK.
Squatters Suck says
You worried about being deemed a spammer? Worry more about being deemed a scumbag squatter piece of shit.
What’s lower than a domain investor in the business world?
Trolls are dooshes says
Trolls like yourself.