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By: Michael Goldstein on December 9th, 2011
Posted in: General
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Comments: 3

A few months ago, we expanded our premium (secondary market) domain offering. We encouraged you to help your customers find the perfect domain by including premium domains in your search results using the OpenSRS API. We recognized this would require some front-end work. We recognized many of you still thought of a domain name as a component of your hosting service, not a revenue stream. We also had our own doubts about whether people would pay a couple of thousand dollars for a domain name rather than settle for whatever-is-available.com. We had even greater doubts that they would just throw it into an online shopping cart and plunk down a credit card without any real human sales effort.

So we took our own advice and integrated premium domains in the Hover search results in early August.

The design approach was a bit different than anything else we had seen in the industry. Rather than break these domains out into some distinct section of results, we simply included them in one long list of available domains. That seems more consistent with the way we shop for products and services that will ultimately play the same role. “I can have this low-end brand for $15 or that deluxe model for $2,400.”

Check out the search results for sandwich.com (in a new tab, so you can get to the shocking results below!). A roll over the star explains that this is a premium domain. A click goes to a detailed page with a video.

The results are shocking. We have sold 29 premium domains in 4 months at an average price of $1,530.

(I also have to mention that just about anybody reading this post has a better base for premium domains than Hover does. About 20% of Hover customers claim to use their domains for business purposes.)

So to put that in the context of your own business, that is 1 premium domain sold for every 853 new available domains (“regular domains”) registered. Said differently, we have collected $1.79 in gross premium domains revenue for every new available domain registered. With your 10% commission, that would be an extra $.18 in margin for every new domain name you register.

For us, that starts to look like real money.

Plus, our customers are thrilled with their new domain names. And, not surprisingly, almost all of them are renewing these domains far into the future and buying additional services on them. Makes sense. These are heavily invested customers. (I am not claiming causality there, stats geeks. The premium domains do not make them more serious about their businesses. But they certainly get them even more excited about their businesses and make other expenses seem less steep by comparison!)

Finally, this has been mostly passive stuff so far. We have not yet begun to really sell these domains. We are just starting to have fun with database marketing. Imagine looking at every organization name among your base to see if any exact matches are available as premium domains. Imagine just looking at every domain name that has a hyphen in it (a classic compromise) and finding the exact same domain name without the hyphen available as a premium domain. As always, we would love to pull these sort of lists for you so you can reach out to these customers with a killer pitch. (By the way, you do not even need to implement the API to do this.) Please let us know if you are interested in these sorts of efforts.

So, in conclusion, once in a while, we are right. And when we are, I will always tell you about it.

Sell premium domains!

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By: Michael Goldstein on June 24th, 2011
Posted in: General
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Comments: 7

Almost every time I meet with an OpenSRS reseller, they end up saying, “Hey, it would be great if you had something to help me deal with (particular marketing challenge).”

And I end up saying, “We do have that! #@!!%! We posted it on the blog five times and emailed you like thirty.” And they say, “OK, calm down, I’m just asking…” And I say, “You’re just asking?! Let me ask you this…” And they say, “Stop pushing me.”

Anyway, since apparently we are reseller friendly, I have been asked to apologize and politely remind you that we have wonderful marketing resources and capabilities you should take advantage of.

Want to make it easy as possible for customers to transfer more domains to you?
We have white label videos and tutorials to help them transfer away from your top competitors.

Want to educate your customers about the value of contact privacy?
Check out our white label video and PDF on the benefits of revealing less in their Whois records.

Want to help your customers understand that it does, in fact, matter who manages your domain name?
We have Tucows Domains badges and a Tucows Domains Promise that you can link to.

We have marketing kits for TLDs, SSL brands and goMobi. We have end user tutorials on configuring our email service with the leading mobile devices. We have tons of end user documentation and videos that we can help you brand as your own. We can help you segment your own mailing lists for transfer campaigns or name-based promotions. See anything you like going on at Hover? We can help you replicate it. Have another marketing challenge that you think we might be able to help with? Ask us.

We are not trying to turn ourselves into retailers. We also understand that the resources listed above will likely not help you solve your most pressing business problems. But we have 11,000 resellers that do have some challenges and needs in common. Many of you do not have the resources that we do. If there are opportunities to find efficiencies and to make your jobs a little easier, we want to do that.

So, please use what we have and please let us know if there is anything else we can do to help. Damn it.

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By: Michael Goldstein on March 31st, 2011
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You work in an intense competitive environment. Customers are always comparing your services and your prices to others’. When you mess up, there’s a pretty good chance you’re going to get defectors. When a competitor messes up, there’s a good chance you’re going to benefit.

So what do you do when a competitor messes up big? Maybe they have a huge outage. Maybe they get caught up in a legal battle. Maybe a senior employee ends up strangling a giraffe to death. Or just smacking around a monkey.

It is really tempting to call attention to the situation and position yourself as the antidote.

Just a few warnings:

• Remember that you had your own mess ups in the past and will likely have them in the future. You will have outages. Maybe you once kicked a pigeon. Avoid inviting scrutiny and retaliation that will ultimately hurt you.

• Be careful not to appear too opportunistic. If you suddenly start donating 10% of your revenues to save porcupines, it might seem more exploitative than generous. Maybe not. Sometimes the outrage is so great and the opportunity is so right. Also, honesty, creativity and humor can go a long way. Just be aware of the risk.

• Stay on message. You work hard to stand for something. Great service. Innovation. Reliability. If you leap to a very different message because it’s trending on Twitter, you could sacrifice clarity and you might not be playing to your own strengths.

Having said all that, a competitor’s stumble is certainly an opportunity to step up your game. Their customers are going to come looking for alternatives. Make it simple for people to switch. Pound home the benefits of your service. Do all the things you likely do anyway. Just think about using this as an excuse to do them a bit better.

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By: Michael Goldstein on January 27th, 2011
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Does everyone know how a Superbowl box pool works?

You have a grid like this. There are 100 boxes available. Participants generally claim boxes by writing their names in them. In this case, I will put your logos in the boxes. Once all the boxes have been claimed, we pick numbers 0-9 at random and put them in that order along the top. Then we pick 0-9 at random again and put them in that order along the side.

Those numbers indicate what score would  produce a victory for the owner of each box. If you have Pittsburgh 3, Green Bay 4, for example, you would be a winner with a score of Pittsburgh 23 – Green Bay 14, Pittsburgh 3 – Green Bay 24 or any other other score that ends in those two digits. Winners are generally declared at the end of each quarter.

Now, here’s how you get yourself a box.

Send me evidence of the following at mgoldstein@tucows.com:

• .CO highlighted in some way on your domains page
• .CO as one of the top two TLDs presented in your search results
• Some sort of flag or highlight on .CO in your search results
• A promotional .CO price
• A campaign to your customers about .CO

Each one of these earns you one box.

Also send me a company logo so I can put it in each of your boxes.

I will post the populated grid by Friday prior to the Superbowl so you know what numbers you have. Watch the game on Sunday, February 6 to see if you win. Watch your sales on Monday, February 7 to see if you win again.

Winners of the first and third quarters get authentic OpenSRS fake sports team t-shirts and $50 Amazon.com gift cards. The halftime winner gets a t-shirt and a $100 gift card. The final score winner (whether that’s the end of regulation or overtime) gets a t-shirt, a $200 gift card and a Service Guy collectible action figure.

Let us know if anyone has any questions. Good luck!

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By: Michael Goldstein on January 26th, 2011
Posted in: General
Tags: .CO, Superbowl
Comments: 0

On February 6, Go Daddy will promote .CO in their Superbowl commercial.

We will no doubt be left pondering the connection between .CO, car racing and cleavage. But one thing is certain. Demand for .CO will go up.

Tens of millions of Internet users and publishers will become aware of .CO for the first time. Millions who were already aware of it will now regard it as more credible. Many will come to your front doors looking for it or at least more willing to consider it than they were before.

This is the upside of having a competitor like Go Daddy. There are times when they will subsidize our marketing efforts and help drive our businesses.

So, what can you do to capitalize on this opportunity?

• First, just make sure it is clear that you offer .CO. Put a .CO banner on your domains page. Move .CO results up in your search results. Maybe flag them with a NEW banner. (“As seen on TV” is probably a bit cheesy.) Reach out to your base with the message that the domain name they couldn’t get in .COM is likely available in .CO. Check out some of our marketing suggestions from when .CO first launched.

• Offer your own “what” and “why” around .CO. The Go Daddy spot will likely leave consumers titillated but slightly confused. Explain in the most honest, helpful way that .CO is simply a great alternative to .COM. Internet users are getting more comfortable with it. Google acknowledges it as a global (generic) domain. And, most importantly, it offers millions of great available domain names.

• Consider taking advantage of our promotion to offer a small limited-time discount. I am not encouraging you to try to compete with GoDaddy on price. You already know not to do that. A price promotion just creates a bit of “do this now”. And, with the promotion, you can achieve this without even eating into your margins.

Every once in a while, external forces push some business in your direction. I think this will be one of those situations. (By the way, I also think Pittsburgh will top Green Bay 24-7, propelled by a defense that returns two turnovers for touchdowns.) Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help you make the most of it.