Renew your domains, or let them expire…an age old question that affects every domain investor!

How do you decide which domains to renew, and when? Do you have a plan in mind when you purchase the domain, or only when the third renewal notice is in your inbox? Do you make a quick decision at the eleventh hour, or do you confer with others and gather perspective first? Let me tell you a story- I just had a giant pecan tree cut down from my back yard. When I bumped into my real estate agent and mentioned it, she was horrified. “You should always call me first! We should have capped the tree!” she gasped. With a similar gasp, we domain brokers ask you:

Do you talk with your domain broker about your assets before letting them expire?

Have you considered making an annual or quarterly list of potential expirations and reviewing it with your domain broker first? Like my real estate agent who saw an additional option for our tree dilemma, maybe your broker can see other possibilities for your domains. Or, maybe instead of letting them expire, we can identify a few with value that we can sell for a lower price rather than leaving to expire and be snapped up on expiring auctions instead. Most domainers review their portfolio once per month to decide about a month’s worth of renewals. They’ll review traffic and revenue stats, look at P & L, and renew or delete and move on… In conjunction with this quick system, we see many domainers who are true entrepreneurs, hard working folks trying to manage a domain business on the side of a full time job. Sometimes there aren’t enough hours in the day for making more careful decisions about renewals & deletions.

Sometimes, one month’s tight budget at home affects a portfolio in ways the investor wouldn’t have ideally chosen otherwise… As domain brokers, we encounter a wide variety of domain investment strategies and business management styles.  It’s great that in this industry, many diverse approaches can still meet success. 

We challenge you, however, to consider a particular renewal strategy that we have seen to be most sustainable. We further challenge you to work with a trusted domain broker like Media Options to ensure you’re developing a solid, sustainable strategy for your portfolio.

Another little story for you… After all, one of the most enjoyable things about domain brokerage is delving into the details of the industry each of our brokered domains represents. This week as we began brokering LocalCheese.com (for sale for $500, please inquire), I learned a lot about the cheese industry. Did you know that when milk is used to make cheese, it separates into curds and whey? Most people threw the whey away (say that 3 times fast)… Until manufacturers discovered there was a different group of consumers searching to purchase whey- think about it, whey is in every protein shake and protein bar we consume! Now, many cheese manufacturers make more money on the whey than they do on the cheese! It’s the age-old story that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Sometimes, we see domainers cling to bad investments with no resale value in hope that one day a buyer will come along. We challenge you to consciously choose your exit strategy and secondary exit strategies rather than just let them happen, throwing up your hands when renewals are due.

 We challenge you to integrate your domain broker into that vital decision-making process. If you receive our Domain Deals Newsletter, you read the high figures and know we close many five and six and occasionally 7 figure sales. But, if you scroll to the bottom each time, you’ll see we also broker many 3 and 4 figure sales, often very quickly. If you’re not currently signed up, sign up here! Talk to your broker to ensure that your domain renewal strategy isn’t leaving too much cash on the table. Divide your domain portfolio into groups, perhaps using your registrars’ folder systems. Make a folder of long term domains, development domains, speculative domains, and personal domains. (I once saved the day when an industry legend accidentally listed his wife’s name for $150 “Buy Now” because he hadn’t separated his personal domains!)

At renewal time, refer to which group the domains belong as that will assist in your decision. And once a year or once a quarter, review the list with your broker to see what perspective he may have, or what tree he can save!