A brilliant landing page strategy for selling premium domains — This is

Sending buyers to LinkedIn has many advantages.

The other day I came across Domaining.com owner Francois Carrillo’s landing page for Faster.com (see image above). It’s a simple landing page that allows visitors to take only one action if they are interested in the domain: contact Francois through his LinkedIn profile.

If you click anywhere on the page it shows a message:

Clicking “OK” brings you to Francois’ LinkedIn profile where you can contact him.

I immediately thought this was brilliant. It weeds out any confused visitors. It forces the buyer to make a least a little bit of effort to contact you. It reveals the buyer’s identity. And even if they try to contact you through other means, they show up on LinkedIn in people who viewed your profile.

I reached out to Francois to ask him regarding this strategy. He stressed that it makes a lot of sense for premium domains. For lower priced domains he uses a lander with fixed prices. Here are the benefits Francois noted via email:

1) It blocks most low ballers and not motivated people. First since one will see their face, second since it obligates them to log in to LinkedIn, or worse, create an account. 2) You can do “price upon request”. You know who is behind an inquiry, his firm, his history, his network …You can discuss ahead of giving any price and this way get an idea of what the buyer is planning to do with the domain and how much he is willing to spend. So you can give a price that better matches the buyer’s possibilities and your expectations. 4) You don’t need to update your landing page or marketplace prices over time. What one is willing to accept today for a domain was maybe previously priced for less or the inverse. With this landing page, you decide the price at the moment and with “due diligence”. 5) If you have a domain that probably ought to perfectly match the buyer needs (low or no competition) you can always say: Sorry, but this domain is not for sale… now if you have an outstanding offer I am willing to listen. This way you let the buyer tell you what he could/want to pay… it’s a good negotiation start. It’s harder to use that tactic when your landing is by now giving a price estimation. 6) If, following seeing the profile of the potential buyer, you estimate he could never buy for your price expectations you can always find a polite exit so he will not insist and waste your time. And if the guy is not polite or harasses you…simply delete the conversation thread, or block him. (I never accept an anonymous friendship connection. I only respond to the note added to the connection request and delete the conversation thread if it was of low interest.) 7) It’s awesome to have a real person in front and negotiate, discuss… marketplaces are so boring and idiotic, it’s like exchanging prices with a wall. Now, it may happen the person you talk to is so nice that a kind of friendship may occur over time, and you may finish selling him your name at a discounted price, but no problem since he gave you so much that in fact, you do it with pleasure! 8) Some domainers do not want to expose their full portfolio for many reasons. People who contact you have no idea if you have one domain or thousands.