Selling | Registrars | .tel

In order to ensure high recurring sales and renewal rates, we recommend that you follow these best practices when selling .tel domains.

Clearly separate .tel from other domains by highlighting its unique features, such as free telhosting, SEO benefits and optimization for mobiles
Create and maintain a dedicated .tel landing page
Tailor marketing to your audience
Promote our free .tel applications on the landing page
Drive renewals by demonstrating value and giving real-life examples
Encourage drop-catching expiring domains

To effectively market .tel domains you need to explain .tel differently from other domains and services. The best way is to create a dedicated landing page that highlights the unique advantages of .tel, and embed this information as callouts, links and and other visual means throughout your purchase paths and processes.

Here are the key messages explaining the .tel product offering:

Offer a quick and easy online presence

With .tel, businesses and individuals can setup their own web presence and be found online in minutes. A .tel used as an online business card can be a great first step online, that’s up and running in minutes, and can work to compliment a website to provide SEO benefits and mobile optimisation. Used as a dynamic contact-us page, it will contribute to the business’ online portfolio alongside their websites and social profiles; for an example.

Showcase mobile optimisation

Increasingly, businesses and professionals realise the need for a fast, efficient and inexpensive mobile presence. Because of its unique characteristics, .tel is ideally positioned to respond to this demand.

In addition to looking great on mobile devices, .tel comes with a number of free .tel applications for the iPhone and Android devices that can be used to easily navigate and/or manage data stored in a .tel. These apps improve the customer experience and value proposal, and can be promoted both before and after the purchase.

Explain the SEO benefits

Due to its unique communication purpose and other SEO-friendly features, a .tel domain can be useful both as an independent asset, and as a tool for promoting other online resources.

Mobile search is growing exponentially and Google have recognised the importance to smartphone users that the sites they find are mobile friendly. As such they have introduced a “Mobile Friendly” tag to all of their mobile search results. All .tel domains, by being automatically mobile friendly, qualify for this label which is becoming an important differentiator for mobile users.

Target existing resellers

The innovative .tel service appeals to a much wider audience than traditional domain name buyers. Many .tel owners have never bought a domain before, and the distribution channel needs to cater to this new market.

You need to engage the right resellers from your channel to substantially increase .tel sales.

Make it easy to get started

Just like with registrants, resellers need to understand the benefits and unique features of .tel domains. Supply materials for new resellers to get them set up and selling .tel domains. Share logos, banners and other marketing materials and setup an example reseller site.

Talk to us about working with your resellers, let us take the strain out of educating and training, ask us to look at how .tel could fit with their particular businesses.

To achieve a high renewal rate, ensure that your customers understand the full value of the .tel service. You could include positive quotes from existing customers and emphasise some of the benefits such as:

All-in-one solution for the online space: A .tel is the one central place where people and businesses can publish all their contact information online quickly and easily available for one small annual fee.
Smartphone friendly: Mobile use and searching is still rising rapidly. A .tel is specially designed to display on smaller screens and minimise data use.
Search engine optimisation: A .tel delivers instant online visibility and its structured format is SEO friendly. It is also tagged by Google as “Mobile Friendly” in mobile search results.

We recommend that in your communications to .tel owners you encourage regular updates and sharing of their .tel domains. This will help with the site’s SEO rankings and, as we know, a used .tel will be renewed.

If your sales force experiences barriers from the customer, they may need to explain
.tel further in comparison to other products and services. Click the links below for talking
points that will help re-focus your clients’ minds on how a .tel domain can benefit them.

Comparing to Websites

I don’t understand – you’re saying I’m not buying another website?

The .tel is not a traditionally hosted website. It links your brand name to contact information stored on the internet.

I don’t need a .tel, I already have a website.

The .tel is complementary to a website. It is also mobile-optimized and supports direct dialling of contact items.

This will confuse our customers who use our .com website

No, a .tel is a mobile-optimized online digital profile accessible from any device.

We can do this with our existing website, say tel.brand.com

Yes but as a .tel community member, you get access to our free telhosting platform and mobile apps. With this platform you will have your digital profile online within 10 minutes and there is no requirement for technical skills or developers. If you can use facebook then you’ll find telhosting a doddle.

People don’t know what .tel is, so why would they use it?

They don’t have to – the .tel has built-in SEO features, so that people will see your .tel when searching for your business online.You can also promote your .tel in email signatures, social media groups, contact-us pages and business cards.

Controlling Communications

We don’t want people to contact us easily

The .tel can publish any type of information, including web links to e-commerce sites, or email addresses. You will want your brand listed in a global directory.

I don’t want to list all the TLDs we’ve bought

You don’t have to. You can list only the contact information you want to, as well as hide the contact information you don’t want to share with everyone.

Lack of Resources

This will take a lot of time to manage

No, the .tel comes with easy-to-use editing tools which enable you to be up and running within minutes of putting your contact information and keywords into it. No web design is required and your marketing or communications department can take control of it
with no technical skills required.

Publishing drop list lets registrars offering back ordering services to customers whose first choice names may already be taken. Using the list linked here you can publish some or all .tel domains that will become available for re-registration in the coming days, which will allow you to secure desired names on your customers’ behalf when those names become available. Use this list in conjunction with your own systems to easily re-register expiring .tel names once released.

The droplist is published daily around 11:30 UTC and is currently available in CSV format:

Download tel-droplist.csv