Selling a List on Flippa – By Someone Who Has Done It

I have been asked by a few people about how to go about selling a mailing list on domain and website sales platform Flippa. I can assure you that the process need not be arduous, all it takes is a little planning and ensuring everything is described clearly in your description. Let’s have a look at my real life example.

Love Letters List sale came about basically as a test vehicle for me to learn exactly was involved in selling a site + list on Flippa. The site itself was a one page landing page with only text and a sign up box that was getting its traffic from a free blog that had not been posted on in years. The work that had been put in in 2008 had meant the site still ranked highly enough that people signed up just about every day.  The site was the absolute bare minimum

The list was almost 1800 people residing on aweber, generally seen as one of the major players with email lists (despite some recent issues and bad PR). The names on the list had received 4 newsletters and remained on the list. I had not emailed them or tried to sell anything to them, so they were a fresh market ready to be hit up by someone who was in the niche or similar.

Get Ready For Sale

Make sure you have all your figures ready for your sales description

For the last 6 months -

• Conversion rate (how many sign up compared to how many visit the site)
• Unsubscribe rate (how many people drop out)
• When they unsubscribe (helpful to tell if your automated content is crap)

The other standard figures you should have are your visits to web page, where it appears in Google for its keywords, any money made from the site, and how much is spent on advertising/outgoings.

Take screenshots of all of those ready for uploading as part of the sales descriptions (make sure you blank out any personal information!).

Go to Screenr and make a quick video also covering all of those points as well and download ready for uploading.

Now write the most descriptive headline and byline you can, this MUST catch the eye of prospective buyers by telling them what is for sale, and its potential. If that is beyond you then it is worthwhile to get a copywriter to do that for you.

Lastly, and this comes down to the essence of auctions themselves. Having an auctioneer in the family (my sister) and running an antiques business for years that relied on buying and selling at auction, has added to my ideas of what should and what shouldn’t go to auction. If you are not willing to let the market dictate the value of your property then do not put it to auction. If you want to determine the value and try to find a buyer then go into private negotiation where you can say yea or nay to any offers.

This means I never put a BIN (Buy it now) amount on auctions – ever.  You will find people will demand you tell them the number…and that comes down to the old adage “he who mentions a figure first, loses”. Auction is for the market to tell YOU what it is worth, anything else is just a wanky form of selling that isn’t an auction at all. Still you can cover yourself if you are nervous about losing the lot to a $1 bid…stick in a reserve but never ever tell anyone what it is, that would be saying the first number and you don’t want to be the loser now do you?

What You Will Need To Stipulate In Your Sales Copy

Make sure you spell out clearly the list host (in this case aweber) and the domain registrar and ensure you say that the buyer must have an account with both to complete the sale. Be firm in saying that that is a condition of sale, there are a lot of new people out there that will want you to do it all for them. While help is fine, expecting you to fork out a years worth of list hosting is not part of the deal, but unless it is written it will be assumed to be the case.

Also mention that their account must be in good standing. Aweber wants to ensure you are not selling to a spammer, someone with too many complaints against them.

When the Sale Is Done

Have a message already set up for the buyer. Here is what I wrote to mine

Hi There

Congratulations on winning the site/mailing list etc.

Please deposit the $X00 USD into the paypal account

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When I have received the funds I will initiate transfer.

As per aweber’s instructions can you also supply your aweber login details and last 4 digits of your credit card. That way I can kick off the transfer as soon as all is through.

Also do you have a GoDaddy account to move the domain, that will be easiest and quickest to get it into your hands.

Lastly could you also supply your email address to send you the zipped up doco from the AR as well as non-compete etc.

Think that is all, grats again!

Allison

On receiving the details I emailed aWeber (help@aweber.com) with my account details,  the list name, the buyer’s login details and the last 4 digits of their credit card. In less than a day the list was transferred. Simple.