I don’t know about you, but I spend a lot of time looking at different forums and advertising websites that sell domain names. I’m looking for bargains and ideas mostly, but I’m also looking at what is selling, and what is not.
What I find interesting these days is that a lot of domainers are really pimping how brandable their domain name is. Many times, it’s simply because a domain is phonetic. In other words, it doesn’t actually have to be a word, it just has to be pronounceable.
Now I’m not saying these domains don’t have value, I’m sure they do. Especially in today’s Web 2.0 atmosphere, I’m very certain many of these domains will get snapped up. But in my opinion, they still don’t have the weight that real word domains do. Obviously, not everyone can add one word domain names to their portfolio. So these phonetic domains, or brandable domains, are the logical next step.
I just don’t like that we toss that word about pretty loosely. I’ll admit, I’ve even caught myself listing a domain for sale and using that “Brandable” label. But it’s really not indicative of anything when it comes to online marketing. The fact of the matter is, EVERYTHING is “brandable” if you throw enough money at it. You can make anything a household word, if you have enough effort behind it.
Anyway, I just wanted to cover this today because I see more and more domain auctions spouting this as a selling point and it’s getting kind of overused. Ultimately, I guess the buyer needs to beware, because brandable doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a valuable domain.
Tags: advertising, branding, sales technique