SUMMARY: * Our domain was Pinnacle / Direct / com; theirs was Pinnacle / Direct / 1 / com. * Buyer represented a $2.5M/year automotive marketing agency. * We contacted buyer first. * Buyer requested a price tag. * We proposed $1050. * Buyer swiftly countered with $750. * We accepted. ============================================================================== From: [E-mail] To: [Prospect - website sales contact] Date: Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 8:14 PM Subject: [Their domain] website question Dear [Prospect's company] sales staff, I'm [Name], a software developer from [Location]. I am writing to let you know I currently have the domain name [Our domain] available for purchase. Because I am looking to clear out my domain names by the end of April, I would be willing to offer you [Our domain] below market value for use with your automotive marketing firm's online home at [Their domain]. If you would like to consider acquiring this domain name, please reply to this message before noon ET this Friday, 4/3. In the event I do not hear from you by that point, I will contact my next [Our domain] candidate. Thanks for taking the time to read this message. I look forward to speaking with you soon. All the best, [Name] Software Developer, [Organization] [Organization's URL] tel: XXX.XXX.XXXX ============================================================================== From: [Company President's e-mail] Date: [Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 3:24 AM] Subject: RE: [Their domain] website question Hi [Name], I am always willing to hear any offer that may serve my company well. We are pretty established with the [Their domain] URL, 12 years now, but what did you have in mind. [Company President's name] [Very extensive signature with contact details, slogan, demo access info, etc] ============================================================================== From: [E-mail] Date: Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 1:14 AM Subject: Re: [Their domain] website question Hi [Company President's name (with common misspelling)], Thank you for getting back to us so quickly, especially during these challenging economic times. We can tell you have established yourself at [Their domain] since 1998 and have accounted for that fact in our pricing. The most accurate way to gauge a domain's market value is to base it off similar domains' sales listings. Roughly 40 double-word .com domains beginning with Pinnacle- are currently listed at Buy / Domains / com (NameMedia, Inc.), the largest domain retailer on the web and most influential trendsetter on domain pricing. The tags on these 40 domains range from $350 to $5288 (median is $1488 for Pinnacle / Environmental / com), which represents the ballpark amount the seller of a domain beginning with Pinnacle- may expect to receive in exchange for such a name. As we did promise to present you a price below market value, we would be willing to offer you Pinnacle / Direct / com for $1050. If you chose to move forward we would proceed with the exchange via a secure third-party escrow service such as Escrow / com. Putting myself in your shoes, I would probably start off by configuring [Our domain] to forward to your established site at [Their domain] as a catch-all for viewers who forget to type the "1" at the end of yOur domain name. Once your company finds time enough to build a landing page on [Our domain], Google would take haste to rank it as the #1 match on searches for "[Their domain's keywords]" due to the exact match between domain name and search query. Since the expression "[Their domain's keywords]" is Google-searched 8,640 times annually according to the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and the expression's other two primary competitors (Pinnacle / Direct / Online / com and Pinnacle / - / Direct / com) are both marketing-related, you would likely steal a sizeable chunk of traffic from your competition via your landing page. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on our offer and will keep our offer through Friday of next week if necessary. Please feel free to contact me by e-mail or phone (XXX.XXX.XXXX) if you have any questions before we potentially kick this ball rolling. Speak to you soon, [Name] ============================================================================== From: [Company President's e-mail] Date: Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 1:44 AM Subject: RE: [Their domain] website question Hey [Name], I think your offer is a little high even though you back it up with some good data. Times are tough for us, as we are primarily in the automotive marketing biz. We do some on the mortgage side and we may see that picking up soon. It has been a rough 8 months. I am not a cry baby though and we believe the old adage "When the going gets tough...." You know the rest. I would be willing to pay $750 for the domain if you would like to make this deal quickly and move on to others. Let me know. Hope you are doing well [Company President's name] [Very extensive signature with contact details, slogan, demo access info, etc] ============================================================================== From: [Company President's e-mail] Date: Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 2:46 AM Subject: Re: [Their domain] website question Hi [Company President's name] (my apologies for misspelling your name earlier), We completely understand your situation. In setting our $1050 price tag, we did not realize that your advertising targeted possibly the two sectors that the present recession has struck most mightily. After discussing your $750 counter-offer with my colleague, [Our domain registrant's name], who I co-own [Our domain] with, we have to decided to accept it as your figure seems fair given your circumstances. Since we, too, are interested in a quick sale, I have outlined below the quickest way we could transfer you [Our domain]. [...transfer instructions, etc.]