More and more people are getting medical information on the web. Surveys have suggested that at least 50% of patients are getting medical information from the web. Direct to consumer (DTC) advertising has been increasing on TV and on the Internet. These trends make for a nice business opportunity.

Medical Symptoms

So with this in mind, I sourced some lists of medical symptoms and ran these through for possible domain names. Some of the names that came up included:

• Mild cough
• Sexual symptoms
• Bone thinning
• Mental changes
• Loss of speech

All of these were available as .com. I choose two: BoneThinning.com and SexualSymptoms.com.

BoneThinning.com

Osteoporosis is a disease where the density of minerals in bone is decreased. Most often this occurs in post-menopausal women. There are a variety of drugs for this condition including Fosamax from Merck. Fosamax sales totaled $3 billion in 2007 and much of it depends on educating the public and through DTC advertising. A common term for osteoporosis is bone thinning and so this should be a nice website for development on this topic.

Lets look outside prescription drugs, over the counter (OTC) drugs such as Tums or Oscal are marketed to those concerned about their calcium levels. Also the alternative medicine groups have not missed out on this lucrative market with many of their own natural remedies.

Finally pre-osteoporosis or osteopenia has been gathering more attention and more and more women are being diagnosed with osteopenia. This is an early condition where bone mineral density is lower than normal but not low enough to be classified as osteoporosis.

All of these conditions can be covered by Bone Thinning.

SexualSymptoms.com

Sexual symptoms covers a nice range of symptoms related to sexual problems and STDs etc. Viagra has become a household word and marriage therapy is common. Again careful development should take advantage of the large ad inventory though the challenge will be the high level of competition in this area.

Keyword Lists

I don’t brute-force keyword lists through domain checks much but once in a while it pays to try it. High ad inventory attracts developers and end user buyers especially since many of the attractive names are already taken. I have tried to walk you through the logic behind buying these domains and it is perhaps trumped by the most important rule of all: invest in what you know.

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I was skimming through an issue of Scientific American and was reading an article entitled “The Medicated Americans: Antidepressant Prescriptions on the Rise“.

Some frightening statistics in there including “Close to 10 percent of men and women in America are now taking drugs to combat depression”. It doesn’t seem like the public will be taking less meds in the future and most likely will be taking more.

With that in mind, I picked up MedicatedLife.com. Could be a blog commenting on this trend or take an anti-drug stance or a forum for people taking long term meds. Medication related ad inventory is good as are natural meds ads for the anti-drug stance. I generally do not do forums as they are harder to monetize.

This is a domain with development in mind rather than just holding the domain. With some development, some links and some history, i think it could turn a decent profit in time.

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Premiumisation (or premiumization) has been a major trend for marketing this year especially in the food sector but also in many other areas. An article on premiumisation in the New York Times today caught my eye (you may need to register for free to read). Perhaps it was the contrast to the horrible financial news today that drew my attention to it. The financial news made this trend all the more relevant today than when I first heard this term at the beginning of 2008.

What is premiumisation?

Premiumisation is the creation of an ultra-luxury version of a product or brand. This trend has been taken to extremes in many markets such as Tasmanian Rain water captured in the rain forest in what is claimed to be the purest rainwater source on the globe.

The rich keep getting richer

The upscale market is growing: “the London-based Datamonitor research firm estimates that the global luxury market will jump 71 percent to hit $450 billion by 2012″. Luxury goods appeal to those who wish to show off their wealth, those who want unique items that distinguish themselves from the crowd, those who like to indulge themselves or those who reward themselves with premium items.

Being indulgent in a recession

What is interesting is that these upscale markets tend to be recession-proof. “Most of the wealthiest people are above the age of 50, and these people have been through recessions and downturns before so they aren’t so bothered by them,” said Milton Pedraza, chief executive of the Luxury Institute, a research firm in New York. “Many are conservative and patient investors who know that things are cyclical.”

Rich people are online

The wealthier a person is, the more likely they are to be on the Internet. Also rich people buy expensive goods over the less wealthy at almost 3:1 on the web. Luxury brands have a challenge appealing to the wealth online as they often depend on sensual immersion in a shop with senses other than sight being important such as smell and touch. Correspondingly their websites tend to be elaborate and graphics heavy trying to make a splash right on the homepage e.g. Fendi.com or JimmyChoo.com and continuing the brand characteristics into the online world.

Domaining and the luxury market

So how can domainers take advantage of this recession-proof market? Looking for domains that reflect this market should pay off. For example, I picked up PremiumChic.com back in January this year when I first heard about this trend. You could think of this being a site reviewing premium luxury products, selling them or blogging about them. If we get into a deep recession, I think these type of domains may become more valuable and I may even become tempted to develop it to test the market.

Are you taking any steps to recession-proof your domaining strategies or portfolios?

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I recently talked about Google Suggest from Google Labs and now this tool is going mainstream. According to the offical Google Blog, this will now be the default for the Google search box. You can turn it off if you wish by choosing Preferences and choosing your preferred option under Query Suggestions.

I think it will be interesting to see how this changes search patterns especially long tail terms. This has the possibility to drive more traffic to the more popular results that are predicted by the tool. Loss of traffic for smaller websites dependent on long tail terms? Only time will tell.

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