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By: OpenSRS Team on August 29th, 2008
Posted in: Announcements
Tags: Holiday Hours
Comments: 0

Monday, September 1, 2008 is Labor Day in Canada and the United States. As a result, we’ll be operating with reduced hours.

• OpenSRS Technical Support will operate as usual, with regular hours.
• Compliance, Payments, Service Bureau and Special Processing departments will all be closed Monday.

Labor Day is widely regarded as a day of rest so we hope you all kick back, relax and enjoy the last few days of summer.

Have a safe and enjoyable holiday!

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By: OpenSRS Team on August 29th, 2008
Posted in: Industry News
Tags: .ORG, .UK
Comments: 0

This week Nominet, the .UK domain name registry, announced they’d passed the seven million mark with the registration of the name tootsdrivingschool.co.uk. From the Nominet news release, “this registration marks significant growth in the registry – an extra one million domain names since July 2007.”

Earlier this week, The Public Interest Registry, the registry behind the global .ORG domain name, announced that more than 7 million domain names are now registered as .ORG. This makes it the third largest generic domain (after .com and .net).

Both registries hit 7 million in the same week and both registries are undertaking marketing activities to drive more registrations. On the .ORG side, they are hoping to extend their traditional non-profit base to attract new registrants to .ORG. Specifically, they are addressing a growing audience of community sites, sites for colloborative content, online political organizing, the “green” movement and empowered citizens looking to further passions or causes. Nominet is executing a .UK renewal awareness campaign “to raise renewal rates by encouraging registrants to think about the value of their domain name and to use their registrar for all aspects of domain maintenance and renewal.” You can take a look at their campaign site at http://www.keepyour.co.uk.

Both .ORG and .UK are available as part of the OpenSRS Domains Service.

photo: Seven uploaded by Kevin

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By: Mou Mukherjee on August 26th, 2008
Posted in: Reseller Resources
Tags:
Comments: 2

When it comes to marketing, we often get tied up on the selling features of our product or service. One important thing to consider past features and benefits, is how our buyer makes decisions.

Instead of selling to customers, think about helping them to make a decision. Amazon does this incredibly well with customer reviews and book recommendations. When I’m buying a non-fiction book at Amazon, I often look at the comments to determine if others found the book useful. I also wonder, “Is this the best book on the subject, or is there a better one?” Amazon helps me with this decision, by showing me what relevant books other customers bought. The great thing about Amazon is you feel you’ve driven the decision. You’ve done your research and come up with the best selection. In the background, Amazon has presented you with what you needed to make a decision and guided you through the process. Some people might think this is sneaky. I think they have made my life easier.

Now think back to your buyers. What do they need to make their decisions? Because what happens when they don’t find what they need? They may postpone their decision, or worse, go knocking on your competitor’s door.

Does credibility matter to your buyers? If so, make sure you include background information on your website. When I’m buying something from a company I’ve never heard of, I’ll look for an “About Us” page. I might also look for their contact information to see where they are located, and perhaps even how many years they have been in business.

Do you have useful materials that have helped previous customers make decisions? Think about re-packaging them into guides, tutorials, or case studies.

Do your buyers need to evaluate your service before buying? If so, offer them a trial or demo account.

Try to think of all the things your buyers need to make a decision, and then think of an effective way of getting that information to them. When you help somebody make a decision, they value it, and that increases the chances that they will buy from you.

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By: OpenSRS Team on August 25th, 2008
Posted in: General
Tags:
Comments: 3

At HostingCon 2008 we asked visitors to fill out a survey about their business relationship with their service providers and some of the trends and changes to the ever-changing Internet. Much like OpenSRS employees, our resellers work and live online.  Earlier today, we released the results and wanted to share them with you.

Our survey findings revealed web hosts are missing significant business opportunities to tap into social network users. Many use social networking tools for friends and family, but not for business. Of the respondents, 60% have their own blog or personal website, and nearly three-quarters use social networks like Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and FriendFeed to share information with friends and family.

Despite the majority of people using social networking services, 81% of the respondents in the web hosting industry do not believe these “web 2.0” or functional-hosting businesses could hurt their business.

This is definitely an opportunity to grow for web hosting companies.

Also, the more people use social media tools to share feedback and experiences, the larger your pool of understanding is to better serve customers. Listening and incorporating information related to your organization can be a business advantage.

The voices of your customers (and your competitor’s customers) are available online in a greater capacity than ever before. Knowing that someone is mentioning your organization online is invaluable. It means that you can respond. At OpenSRS, we monitor to ensure that we are current with the industry news and all types of conversations. We often share findings in our blog posts. Also, we frequently respond to articles and blog posts with our perspective or further details to keep the conversation flowing.

So, what can you do to address this changing dynamic for your business?  First, you can set up alerts using Google, Technorati or other free or paid-for services. These can be simply use basic keywords of your company name or your specific Internet industry focus. There are alerts for blogs and Twitter, too. You can receive these via email, text or RSS. The tools that work for you will depends on the adaptability to your workflow and your business needs. Our team tests lots of tools. Some work for us, and others don’t.

Survey respondents advised that their top complaint about their current provider was poor communication and/or support. Listening (also known as reputation monitoring) can provide another feedback loop for your customers.

Ken (our VP Product Management & Marketing) was quoted in today’s news release about the survey:

“It’s important that as the web hosting industry moves forward, we understand that Internet users are seeking a customized, personalized, Internet experience for both personal and professional reasons. Ultimately, it’s about customer relationships. Providers and resellers need to work together to provide the support, services and infrastructure that give users the best experience.”

Other results of the survey revealed that 73% of all domain name resellers enjoy working with their provider. In addition, three-quarters of domain name resellers believe their provider understands its needs and nearly one-half have no complaints with their provider, but of those that did, the top complaints were poor communication or support and lack of the full range of services their customers want.

Ken said it:

“It’s always great to receive positive feedback from the industry – OpenSRS has made a strong commitment to our reseller community because they have been incredibly supportive of us. By making it easy to sell and manage the highest quality Internet services, we give our resellers the tools they need to be successful.”

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By: OpenSRS Team on August 22nd, 2008
Posted in: General
Tags:
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On Sunday, I got back from my vacation in Nova Scotia to a pile of mail. Amongst the bills and fliers was a “Domain Name Expiration Notice” advising me that “as a courtesy to domain holders, we are sending you this notification of the domain name registration that is due to expire in the next few months. When you switch today, you can take advantage of our best savings.” The letter goes on to list the domain name in question and request a reply by mid-September.

For the record, all of my domains are registered with our own Domain Direct service. The domain in question expires on January 26, 2009.

This is a ploy for transfers that plays on the naiveté of registrants. Reading the letter further, I see they’ve spelled it out, “This notice is not a bill, it is rather an easy means of payment should you decide to switch your domain name registration”.

I bet countless registrants are duped into transfers every day. And that means names are constantly moving away from our resellers to less-than-scrupulous registries.

James wrote about these schemes on our blog back in February.

As an OpenSRS reseller, please consider our suggestions and tips to protect your domain name registrants while countering the aggressive marketing efforts of these companies:

1. Deploy WHOIS Privacy. This is the absolute best protection. It stops the solicitation to transfer practice dead in its tracks as there is no way for to contact the Registrant directly. Encourage your customers to take advantage of WHOIS Privacy and the protection it offers. OpenSRS includes WHOIS Privacy for free with every domain name sold  as part of our reseller domains package.

2. Consider Domain locking. A locked domain can’t be transferred, again, preventing the domain slam. The transfer attempt may generate a support call by the Registrant to remove the lock, in which case you have the perfect opportunity to make sure the transfer is legitimate.

3. Get Proactive about Registrant Communication. Let your customers know about this practice and ensure that your customers know who you are and who their Registrar is. Clearly spell out your communication policies surrounding renewals (i.e. “We never send mail invoices reminding you to renew.”) before the scammers have a chance to spread their mis-information.