Hi Rick,

The domain industry already know your services, why spend your $$$ to Website Magazine instead of other business community e.g. Maxim, Playboy, Cooking, Real Estate magazine and other verticals to reach "end-user" customers. I think you will get more return of investment.

For example, you don't have to advertise to my blog because I'm using your RSS feeds already. You don't have to advertise in DNF, Namepros, etc because we discuss your services most of the time.

IMHO
EM @ KING.NET

Emil, these ads aren't targetting domainers. They are targetting Internet professionals.

I definitely notice your ads in those magazines when I read them / flip through them - the color, simplicity and most importantly the middle of the magazine location is key.

Do you customize the domains in each ad for the magazine? There were some domains in the recent Internet Retailer that didn't seem to fit in much.

Also - are you doing any online marketing / branding? When I get those magazines, it is often at a trade show where I'll flip through it for 2 minutes and throw it out, or if it gets sent to my work i'll read it on the subway for a few minutes. Sites like searchenginejournal.com / searchengineland.com + some of the individual blogs get a ton of traffic and could really get some attention too...

Thanks for running these ads - having them out there really raises awareness for the industry ....

Noted.

I hope to see your ads in Enterpreneurs Magazine, Inc. Magazine, Fortune, etc. where you can expand your reach to end-users.

Thank you.

Emil,

These non-domainer Internet professional publications do reach end-users. The magazines you are talking about would be hundreds of thousands of dollars per month each.

Thanks for making me feel bad about what should be something which would make people happy. eCommerce, SEM and Web Design professionals don't necessarilly know much about the domain market and they are the MOST LIKELY end-users.

I'm going to go back to pouting now.

There's no need to pout -- you're on target Rick, this is the natural expanded audience for premium domain names, beyond the domainer community.

There's a HUGE number of people who make a living working in the Internet industry who still haven't caught onto domains. (One step at a time, Emil.)

You're doing good. It just a suggestions.

Cheers now.

By the way, how can I put my picture here?

Let me defend my friend Rick Latona:

As things come to mind.

When your ad campaign is targeted to the right audience you get a best conversion rate and you generate more business for your money.

When one target audiences out of the IT sphere for domaining the ROI is almost null. People don't understand the value of domains, a significant percentage not even know what domains are (and it's not a joke) so imagine.

Before convert the masses let's try to convert IT people.

I am the perfect example, I have been working on web design, seo, advertising, design, internet marketing, ... I have been make millions dollars of business for almost 8 years without buy a single name in the aftermarket, simply because I did not imagine one second it was possible to buy if it was already used nor I felt it was strategic to use better names to succeed.

And like me, millions of IT firms and individuals (marketers, designers, graphists, seo people, ...). It's really easier and less expensive to target these people, it cost less money and it gives a better ROI.

Our industry is very small, I will say the core is not even a thousand people and few thousands the second circle.

But when you target IT firms immediately the landscape seriously enlarge.
As an example I succeed to sign up near 100 times more people with PremiumDomains.com I did with Domaining.com with an ad budget less than 3 times superior.

It's very clever to start targeting this audience, they are educated and know about internet, they speak our vocabulary, and often are well funded, we just have to show them the road.

Rick is spending a significant ad budget but he also need his money generates business. This is the only way he can continue investing, not wasting his money stupidely. Rome has not been built in one day.

I really thank you Rick for what you are doing as not only you will benefit of these marketing dollars, all the domainers will benefit.

Rick,

You are doing a good thing for the domaining industry. I agree with you in that many search engine marketers and internet marketers know very little about domaining and the importance of a great domain name.

As they target the next logical pool of potential domain buyers (remember too that the readers of these publications work for; and therefore recommend to; their end-user corporate clients), Rick's moves are in fact the most logical and strategic.

This in only good news for our industry.

I'm glad you advertised in Website Magazine - I had never heard of your company before, and that ad got me to visit your site & subscribe to your RSS. I'm more in the internet marketing field but have gotten into domaining more heavily in the past year. Lots of great articles here.