How do I create awareness for my conference on a global level? Rene Kühn, Managing Director of Contilla, discovered the best answer to this question: with a domain that is recognizable anywhere.
Since 2011, CMCX, Europe's largest content marketing fair, has been held annually. It targets brand managers, advertisers and marketers, as well as agencies and technology providers. Over 5,000 visitors are expected this year. But nine years ago, the importance of content marketing was not a very well-known strategy in the business and marketing world. Today it is indispensable because it has established itself internationally in marketing, PR and communications sectors.
No wonder that the initiator of the CMCX, Rene Kühn, is striving for more: He wants to put his leading trade fair on the international stage. And in 2016, he knew what he needed to be successful: the right domain, cmcx.com.
However, his desired domain was already registered at the time. Oftentimes, this is not a good enough reason to throw in the towel and conversely inquiring about a domain can reveal that the owner is not opposed to selling the domain. The domain cmcx.com was fortunately for sale at the domain trading platform Sedo. But the events leading to its purchase were rockier than expected.
Baseline – The one and only
For years, Rene Kühn used the domain content-marketing-conference.com. It was good that the domain name contained the most important keywords, because this had a positive effect on search engine rankings at the time. But on the contrary, these keywords also attracted the competition therefore causing the costs to rise for a good ranking in search engine advertising. In addition, two hyphens within a .com address does not work in the English-speaking market - they are simply not typed.
Rene Kühn's desired domain cmcx.com, on the other hand, was short, easy to remember and thus brandable. In addition, he would save on the constantly rising AdWords costs and differentiate himself from the competition.
The Negotiation –5,456 miles apart
The domain cmcx.com was for sale via negotiation at Sedo. René Kühn made an offer to the seller, but he did not react at all. In most cases, this means that the offer is too far below the seller's asking price. For an amount in the low three-digit range, it probably wasn’t worthwhile for the owner to react at all.
According to Sedo's offer page, the domain owner was from South Korea - not exactly ideal for a quick conversation. This could be time-consuming, if you can even get hold of the domain owner’s data (e.g. from the WHOIS entries). The bigger problem, however, was the language barrier. But in a bold move, Kühn tries nevertheless on his own fist - unfortunately with no result.
In a last ditch effort, he made a domain brokerage request to Sedo. Jin-Hee Choi, Country Manager for the Korean domain market, supported him from then on. She recalls, "The seller is a long-time customer of Sedo. He has a large portfolio, so he is very familiar with domain values and will only begin negotiations from a four-digit bid. In the case of cmcx.com, his minimum bid was actually 3,000 dollars. For a four-digit domain, this is more than justified".
Persistence pays off
She then proceeded to have several conversations with the owner. "When dealing with Korean domain sellers you must always be polite and in this case, due to the long-standing existing cooperation between the seller and Sedo, it was backed by trust and cordiality. However, in terms of price there is seldom a concession.” Jin-Hee Choi knows that almost all Korean customers are "hard-core" during negotiations. In this case, however, the seller was still softened. How so?
On the one hand, since trust was already established, this helped move things along. On the other hand, there was the strong argument that the buyer was still a young company that had yet to assert itself internationally - not a company with a good footing already. This enabled her to reach an agreement for both parties and Rene Kühn to buy the domain for 2,300 USD.
Although this was more than he initially offered, Kühn is confident about the actual value of the domain. "I am relieved that after 3 years we were still able to get our desired domain, cmcx.com. Otherwise, we would have had to resort to worse alternatives, but the .com variant is the measure of all things for us. The recent relaunch of our English site now at cmcx.com, the only suitable home for a strong internet presence. Our new flagship makes it much easier for us to make a serious impression on international exhibitors, partners and visitors. Right after the CMCX on March 12-13, we will be switching to cmcx.com," says a delighted Rene Kühn.
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