Expanding to Become a National Chain using Domain Names

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Okay, so you don’t own a global business and think there is not much business impact in owning the correct domain, right?

Well, what if your business was in its infancy, aspiring to stake its claim in a new national market?

How is your newcomer business going to bootstrap in a new market to become the national titan?

Or maybe you own and operate a seasoned, proven business that is poised to make a splash on a national level, capturing and shaking up market share.

There are various approaches in achieving national market share in a new space.

Your business may have to employ a number of marketing and advertising vehicles to stake your business’ claim in a national market.

Most businesses with a national market focus have grown their footprint through a variety of mergers and acquisitions, partnerships, and franchises.

A retail operations business that is a stealthily operated real estate company

Whether by state, province or region, businesses looking to own the lion share of their respective national footprints have long employed scalable systems to ensure repeatable processes.

A great example is the extensive processes and innovative systems designed and developed by Walmart.

As a visionary, Sam Walton led Walmart in creating a simple, repeatable process early in their business.

When the process had been refined, it became the heartbeat of the company.

Now, let me pose something about Walmart you may or may not have noticed.

specifications-logo1 Walmart is truly not a retail operations business as much as it is a real estate company.

Yes, real estate, the physical land in which Walmart establishes its stores.

Not many people know about Walmart’s true business, which is real estate. Walmart silently built a real estate brand through purposeful intent in branding their retail operations.

Walmart capitalizes on its retail operations brand knowing their brand lends itself to bring large quantities of varied demographics for surrounding businesses.

That said, ancillary businesses are willing to lease Walmart’s land directly and their brand indirectly to generate greater customer growth and revenue.

From city to city, state to state, country to country, continent to continent, Walmart is a superb example for one to study for a business wanting to achieve global or national market share in their respective business or niche.

Although Walmart was launched as a retail business more than 50 years ago, the one similarity all businesses share with Walmart is this one timeless and transferable thought:

Businesses have a great need to sustain repeatable and scalable processes and systems.

Brick and mortar businesses of today and tomorrow must comprehend and execute methods to building a national market, taking a page from the Walmart strategy in owning and leasing physical real estate.

How domains share a common likeness to physical real estate

For businesses with an insatiable desire to apply Walmart’s timeless and transferrable methodology, they look no further than domain names.

That’s right. Much of the same rules that apply to physical real estate very much apply to virtual real estate.

Now the different between the two is cost. Do the math and calculate how much it costs to setup and operate your business.

Consider the following costs of a brick and mortar business:

Rent
Property Taxes
Office Furniture
Office Buildout
Utilities
Insurance

And I’m just getting started with the list above, barely scratching the surface.

This is the beauty in owning virtual real estate, rather domain names: substantially lower cost yet exponential ROI.

Outside of an initial one-time fee to invest in owning a premium or valuable domain name, the only cost incurred is an annual renewal fee which is a drop in the bucket in comparison to the list items and their respective values annually.

It takes a creative mind and visionary to set and stay the course to implement this simple, yet sound virtual real estate plan to own the lion’s share of their respective business or niche national footprint.

My business name is my website’s digital presence. Why should I change domains?

At the most basic level, most businesses don’t recognize the value of possessing the correct domain names as a basis for business growth.

From the smallest to the largest industries, most businesses choose to build their businesses around a branded domain.

They spend their hard earned revenue to market and advertise a brand to a point of losing market share rather than increasing it, in some cases.

This is not to say branding should not be important.

However, a branded domain will lose the search battle hands down to the right service or keyword domain.

Why? Well, thank the many millions of online searchers and their online search behavior of searching using keywords or keyword phrases for this.

Even if you choose to use your company name as the domain for your website, why would you not defensively register keyword or keyword phrases?

Not registering keyword or keyword phrase domains ensures that your competition generates greater customer growth and revenue at YOUR CARELESS EXPENSE.

Why Cord Blood Banking could be the next national or global industry

Cord blood banking is another industry in its infancy and there are many domain name opportunities available to domain the space at a national and global platform.

Cord Blood Banking Saves Lives

For example, if you lived in Canada and wanted to build a business around cord blood banking, then you could purchase province-niche and niche-province domains.

Purchased domains could then be developed into educational and lead generation websites for persons and families in search cord blood banking services.

Or if you live in the United States, then purchase state-niche or niche-state domains.

There are many doctors willing to pay more than a pretty penny, rather $500-$1,000 per lead, to receive a lead inquiring to know more about cord blood banking as well as those ready to make an investment in cord blood banking.

Again, to reap the benefits of dominating a market such as cord blood banking, your business will have to make a reasonable $1,500-$2,500 investment to purchase the domains.

But what is your business to do if unable to make an investment into large state-niche and/or niche-state premium generic domain portfolios?

Be encouraged and invest in an exclusive premium domain

Let’s say you’re unable to secure owning CordBank.com due to price, or the owner doesn’t want to lease the domain.

Don’t give up. Try different domain variations. For example, why not purchase one of the following domains:

Even if only investing in one of the aforementioned domains and creating subdomains for states, provinces, regions, your business still possesses great domain power to drive business.

DFW.CordBankUSA.com
NYC.CordBankUSA.com
Florida.CordBankUSA.com
Texas.CordBankUSA.com

In addition, the possibility of creating business powerhouse and dominating an online market space nationally or even on a global platform.

And here is another search engine nugget pertaining to subdomains: they rank very well in search engines when associated with a premium domain name.

Other niche domain, also known as geo service domains, examples are:

State-niche and niche-state domain portfolios can be made highly profitable when owned by the right persons or businesses willing to make an investment and soundly execute their business plan to capture exponential growth.

Why you should shut the door on the competition

Remember, your business owning or possessing such a domain or a portfolio of premium domains keeps each one out of the hands of your competitors.

Talking about playing taps for competitors when they realize your business owns the key to unlocking the door to greater customer growth and revenue.

There is nothing the competition can do about but hope your business loses a few names due to non-renewals.

There is nothing more frustrating, not that I know from experience, as well as a waste of time than waiting on a premium domain non-renewal as a part of your business plan.

This is not sound judgment and likely to put a company out of business at their own expense.

So, once again, when a new industry pops up or is on the verge of conception, think of Walmart and how it pays to own the land that future businesses will want to build their brand and national chains upon.

Alvin Brown

Alvin is a serial entrepreneur and digital strategist with an avid love for domain name consulting. As the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of DNAdverts.com, his assignment is to ensure business and personal brands don't suffer the consequences of common domain name pitfalls.

As a domain investor and business consultant, Alvin actively participates in daily domain auctions. Outside of auctions, he passionately shares his views, opinions, and vision for how businesses should and should not use domain names to generate greater customer growth and revenue.