Domain names are not just a rare asset — a collectible or a modern art piece only a few will ever see. The right domain name can save you thousands (even millions) in marketing costs, help expand your brand authority, increase your brand recognition and make you and your company look smarter.

The value of a truly great domain can be so much more important and infinitely more useful than physical space anywhere! In short, a domain name is Everything.

Domain Name Cost vs. Other Media

A $25,000 domain name is still incredibly cheap compared to the value received by almost any other marketing source.

• According to The New York Times’ media kit, full-page ads in the nationwide edition run for about $150,000 before the added cost for color. Buying a newspaper ad in the Los Angeles Times will run you about $70,000 for a full-run, full-page black-and-white ad.
• A large roadside billboard can cost upwards of $30,000 for every four-week period, according to Blueline Media.
• According to Entrepreneur magazine, radio ads can easily cost $8,000 to $12,000 a month for smaller companies.
• The average small business using AdWords spends between $9,000 and $10,000 per month, according to Wordstream.

Let’s try this again, but annually.

• A large roadside billboard can cost upwards of $390,000 annually, according to Blueline Media.
• According to Entrepreneur magazine, radio ads can easily cost $96,000 to $144,000 a year for smaller companies.
• The average small business using Google AdWords spends between $108,000 and $120,000 annually, according to Wordstream.

So what happens the next year?

You get to spend it all again. A domain name, on the other hand, typically has a single fee of less than $100 the second year.

$25,000 is sounding cheap. Because it is.

Whether you own a bad domain name or a good domain name it still needs to be advertised. Our media comparisons above are shown for you to understand how much money is spent on other areas of your business to put the relative cost of a domain name in perspective.

What a lot of people don’t factor in when evaluating the cost to acquire a premium domain name are the intangible values a good domain name also brings, such as:

Higher ROI

When you’re spending your money on advertising it’s important to stay in the real world and keep it simple. The KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) acronym is more important than ever with domain names. For all of these advertising costs, your ROI is going to be better with a better domain.

Why? You are asking people to remember and trust you. And people are not the brightest, let’s be real. Collectively, the human race is not full of Einsteins and Jeopardy! winners. If your domain name includes a hyphen, ends with inc/llc, starts with THE, has 48 characters or is something your employees cannot spell, your customers cannot type and even you get mixed up on, then really … why are you questioning the need for a better domain?

Lower Ad Cost

Many online ad publishers have quality scores built into them. These quality scores help determine how much your ads cost, your rankings and more. Having a better domain name often translates to a better quality score and lower pricing.

Greater Authority

Ron Jackson, of DN Journal, wrote an article on the Castello Brother’s ownership and sale of Whisky.com. One of the best quotes from the article was, “I started out walking around the distillery display tables where you could sample great whisky. I walked up to the table to tell them that I was the owner of Whisky.com and handed them a Whisky.com business card. I told them I would like to have a picture for the website. They would all stop what they were doing and have me come behind their booth to take pictures with me while everyone else out in front of the table asked who I was…I realized this is what happens with a Hyper Domain Name like Whisky.com. There is already a built-in trust factor, and it greets you like a Lamborghini in the fast lane.”

It’s true. Would you trust a doctor from doctors.com or thedoctorclosesttoyourhouse.com more?

Time Is Money

Time is the ultimate currency, and in the business world every minute costs you money. Every minute your employees waste having to spell your domain name, or a customer confuses your domain name with a better version, or how many times it takes for a customer to remember your website . All of these factors (and more) have very real financial costs associated with them.

If you don’t own the very best version of your domain name you are losing money and telling your customers that you are second tier. Using the Whisky.com example above a company could be using aboutwhiskey.com for the last 15 years but as soon as someone contacts them from Whisky.com you can bet the consumer will have interest because the implied authority of being the better brand is built into the domain name.