GoDaddy registers over 7,000 .LA domain names since promoting the domain for Los Angeles.
A reader who invested in .la domain names asked me this week if I knew how the domain name was doing since GoDaddy put some of its marketing weight behind the domain.
Here’s your answer:
GoDaddy customers have registered over 7,000 domain names since the company got involved in June. The registrar started promoting the domains in July.
At about $40 a year, that’s around $280,000 in registration fees not including premiums for the best domains.
About half of the registrations have come from people in California.
Is 7,000 good or bad? What does it say about the potential of city top level domains coming to market? Here are some relevant points to consider:
-GoDaddy tells me the 7,000 registrations are more than the number of registrations for .ES, .DE, .EU, and many other domains at GoDaddy during the same time period.
-To market the domain, GoDaddy rented a few billboards around Los Angeles when it started promoting the domain, and also invested in some online marketing.
-Many of the best domains were already registered, as .la has been marketed (albeit weakly) as a domain for Los Angeles for more than a decade.
-This means there was also no sunrise or landrush period.
-The city of Los Angeles has no involvement.
I believe most of the new city TLDs, e.g. .NYC and .London, will see much higher numbers. The key reason is that the cities themselves are involved, which will lead to a lot of press. They’ll also be backed with lots of marketing, and perhaps even door-to-door sales. The sunrise and landrush periods will help, too.
Considering the amount of money that was spent on marketing, 7K regs seems pretty weak honestly.
Brad
I don’t know how much was spent on marketing. Other than the three billboards, it seems that most of the marketing was PR.
There was also promotion on GoDaddy’s site, which could also be relevant to the equation.
i think if its true 7000 is a awesome number, way above my lofty expectations. then means 6900 other names were registered besides mine. Plus they still dont allow transfers, and other hiccups… iLove.LA
They don’t allow transfers between parties or to other registrars? I assume the latter. Same issue with .ws…unless that has changed in the past few years.
actually i was hoping to transfer names TO godaddy…..
Terrible number
since I bet they spent more than $280,000 in the promotion…
I doubt that.
Andrew:
“-To market the domain, GoDaddy rented a few billboards around Los Angeles when it started promoting the domain, and also invested in some online marketing”
Do the Math.
a few L.A. billboard$, for sue they picked good locations
make that “for sure”
I am doing the math, which is why I don’t think it was anywhere close to $280k. Not sure what rental rates are in L.A., but even if they’re 10x what they are here in Austin they didn’t spend nearly that much.
Also take into consideration revenue from renewals
I’ll do it for you :
5 different Billboards (x) 6 Months (minimum contract ) = 30 (x) x,xxx to xx,xxx USD each a month = ? Big Moolah
I do get the point of the renewals, that the beauty of domain registrations for registrars … a recurrent/ fee subscription
Cheers
I Luv ATX
Hook’em Horns!
I believe it was three billboards, and I know many have just one month contracts.
That said, neither of us really knows how much they spent.
The more interesting thing to me are the numbers based on what they did.
The Fat lady will sing at renewal time ;
here is one from hk
http://gotravel.la/