Effective new age Domain Marketing for D2C Brands

1 in 10 Indians is an online shopper who has the choice to pick between more than 600 large D2C brands and numerous small D2C brands that are currently present in India. What this means is that 9 times out of 10, any new D2C brand will find tough competitors. However, the only way D2C brands can cut through the clutter is if they can carve a unique identity for themselves amidst the vastness of the online world. This is where an effective domain marketing strategy plays a crucial role but it is easier said than done.

The dot com conundrum

All of us might have seen that episode of Shark Tank where the company called Sippline was featured. When the founder was asked why he chose to name his company Sippline instead of Sipline, he said that he was not able to find the sipline.com domain name so he changed his brand name. This is the position many brands find themselves in. According to a Zinnov Report, 57% of all websites in India use a .com domain name and more than 73% of SMBs preferred having a .com domain because they believe it adds trust and credibility to the brand. However, this belief is nothing more than a mere myth.

Performance of a domain name has nothing to do with the domain extension. A .com or a .in has no impact on your SEO results as compared to a .ninja or .link. What matters more than perceived credibility is scalability for the domain name and this is where relying heavily on traditional domain extensions can be a bad idea. So how can you still be perceived credible despite not having a traditional domain extension:

1. Make your domain shareable instead of just being bearable

Just like sippline.com there are numerous businesses out there who make their domain names bearable to the consumers rather than being shareable. Some of the most ridiculous ones I have seen are penisland.net, speedofart.com, expertsexchange.com and many more. I am pretty sure these businesses did not intend to have their brand names misinterpreted but they did not have a choice. A new age domain name could have made them more credible. Penisland.net could have easily become pen.island, speedofart.com could have become speed.art, and expertsexchange.com could become expert.exchange.

Apart from making the brand names more credible, new age domain names can also make them more meaningful and intuitive which increases the chances of the brand getting noticed. Imagine if I ran a broadband service called Fastlink, I would not only find it difficult to get the domain name fastlink.com but it can also make my domain name just like any other. But, fast.link instantly makes it more meaningful, different, and intuitive for my users. This increases the shareability and brand recall for my brand.

2. Make your domains scalable instead of just a label

One of the age-old techniques in domain marketing to increase your visibility is to buy out similar sounding domain names so that any searches related to your brand leads to your brand showing up. While this technique is very effective the problem is many people are using it which has created a new industry of domain hoarders who block domain names to sell them at a premium later on when that domain name is in need.

One way to overcome this is to rely on new-age domain names. Since we now know that domain extensions do not have an impact on your website SEO we can create similar sounding domain names with a different domain extension, this way you can continue to increase your visibility without relying on domain hoarders.

What’s more, with new-age domain extensions, you can also use it in creative ways to guide people to your website. You can create different intuitive links to lead people to your original website. For example you can have a link which says contactshoe.ninja which leads then to your shoe D2C brand.

3. Make your domain relatable instead of being baitable

Another technique in domain marketing is to make the domain name baitable for the consumer. However, consumers have now become very smart. Baitable domain names do not work but what works are relatable domain names. One way to make your domain names more relatable is by using the domain extensions very creatively to make it a short sentence easy for audiences to grasp. One of the most creative domain names I have seen is leap.club, it is not only aspirational, but also relatable to the people who consume their content. And the cherry on the cake is the fact that it is also their brand name and also a full domain name, which makes it a lot shareable and memorable at the same time.

There are a lot of creative avenues with new age domain extensions which can be more beneficial for micro businesses than a traditional domain name. The need of the hour is for us to venture beyond the obvious of perceived credibility and take steady steps towards creativity. Get people to notice you, your identity, and your brand because attention is what we are starved for. So be the extraordinaire among the ordinary, cut the clutter of .coms and .ins and be the voice among the noise.