By: James Koole on June 20th, 2012
Posted in: Events, OpenSRS Services
Tags: goMobi, Publishing Service, Webinar
Comments: 0

If you missed the webinar I hosted last week with Chris Campbell of goMobi, it’s now up and ready for on-demand viewing.

Chris did a great job presenting some super stats about the state of the mobile web in 2012 and about how goMobi provides an ideal solution for both resellers like you and your customers. He also took a look at some of the new features that were added to goMobi recently, and he gave us a bit of a sneak peek at what was on the roadmap for the next couple of releases.

Click here to head straight to the archive page. No signup required!

By: James Koole on June 19th, 2012
Posted in: Reseller Resources
Tags: marketing, selling, SSL
Comments: 3

“Assess and suggest”. That’s the best approach to offering SSL certificates to your customers because it ensures that you start with an understanding of the customer’s need, and end with selling the correct SSL certificate for their application.

Providing that bit of education and assistance – helping the customer to understand the various product differences and features – will go a long way in ensuring the customer ends up with the right solution.

Often times customers start the down the purchase path by looking at price first, and then features. Given that many of your potential customers don’t really know much about SSL other than knowing that they need one, price is going to be the biggest factor in their choice. That may mean they spend less, but it also means they will likely end up with the wrong SSL certificate for them. Unless you help them make that choice.

Offering the right solution, not the cheapest solution

There is a tendency to assume that the customer will only consider the least expensive option. That’s not the case. It’s really up to you to make sure that you present the right product for the customer.

I’ve heard from resellers that they feel dirty suggesting higher priced certificates to their customers, and that all SSL products are the same. While it’s true that the encryption provided by a domain validated certificate is as secure as what an extended validation certificate provides, it’s also true that there is much more to SSL than just encryption. Learn more.

Would you put one of your mid-sized business customers on your cheapest shared hosting packages? Or would you suggest the right solution for their needs even if that was a more expensive VPS or dedicated server package?

Selling a basic, domain validated certificate to a mid-sized business that transacts online through their site is doing them a disservice. That business could reap real benefits from using a Symantec Secure Site Pro, which includes the well-recognized Norton Secured Seal that is proven to reduce abandonment and lift consumer confidence.

The customer may not know this, but you should. They come to you for advice on what is best for them. Educate yourself, understand the products, and then assess and suggest the right solution to your customers.

Assess and Suggest

Here are some tips for how to help your customers get the right SSL certificate. The net result will be an increase in unit sales (because customers will feel confident in dealing with you), more sales in the higher margin products (because customers want to buy the right product for their application) and happier customers (because customers will feel informed and empowered).

Assess: understand the customer’s need.
Are they a small business? Do they use their site for transactions? Would they benefit from the Norton Secured Seal? Is the site public facing?

At this stage you are looking to develop an understanding of where the customer fits on the SSL product map. Remember that inexpensive domain validated certificates have a place in personal sites and internets, but also remember that small- and mid-sized business really should be using an organization or extended validated certificate.

Suggest: offer the right SSL certificate for their needs.
Your customers look to you for advice and expertise. Provide it to them and make sure you are offering the right solution for them.

If they are a small or mid-sized business, they should be using an organization validated certificate like a GeoTrust True BusinessID or a Symantec Secure Site Pro. If they have a shopping cart and do high volumes of transactions, then an extended validation certificate will help decrease cart abandonment and lift sales. Suggest a Symantec Secure Site Pro with EV and they can benefit from the Norton Secured Seal.

By: Erik Bartz on June 11th, 2012
Posted in: Announcements
Tags: ccTLD, Promotions
Comments: 4

To celebrate the expansion of ccTLDs to the OpenSRS system, we’re putting a new ccTLD on sale every week for the rest of 2012. No rebates or sign ups required. Every OpenSRS reseller will automatically receive these discounted prices on new registrations every week from Monday to Sunday.

Fir.st up will be .ST for $20/year; normally $45.

You can follow along with the ccTLD-of-the-Week promotion by checking out this page, or following us on: Facebook, Twitter or Google+. We will be changing the ccTLD every Monday morning.

Have fun exploring ccTLDs from all around the world!

By: James Koole on June 6th, 2012
Posted in: Events, OpenSRS Services
Tags: goMobi, Publishing Service, Webinar
Comments: 3

Mobile Internet usage continues to grow and your customers are likely looking to you for ways to ensure that their websites are mobile ready.

On June 14, 2012, I’ll be hosting a free webinar with Chris Campbell, Director of Business Development, Afilias (the people behind the .MOBI domain extension and our goMobi mobile website solution).

Chris will provide a state of the mobile web to ensure that you have a good sense of where things are at in 2012, as far as mobile in concerned.

We’ll also show you some of the great new features available in goMobi. Version 1.6 was released earlier this year and boasts some pretty neat new stuff like mobile commerce, improved themes and custom icon support, and more.

Like all OpenSRS webinars, it’s free to attend. We’re offering two sessions to accommodate resellers around the world. Take your pick – the content will be the same for both sessions.

Register now!

I hope to see you there!

By: James Koole on June 5th, 2012
Posted in: OpenSRS Services
Tags: Offers, Ting, Webinar
Comments: 2

Last week I teamed up with Scott Allan, Director at Ting, to host a webinar to talk about the addition of Ting to our OpenSRS Offers service.

For those who aren’t aware, Ting is a new mobile phone service that Tucows launched in the US earlier this year.

Through OpenSRS Offers, we’re providing our Resellers with a way to bring Ting to your customers and get a nice reward in the process. Your customers get $50 off their first device purchase, you get 25% of the net revenue that they generate as a Ting customer for the first two years.

If you missed the webinar, don’t worry. We recorded the whole thing, just like we do for all of our monthly webinars.

View the recorded version on-demand.

Over the course of the hour-long presentation, we covered how Ting works, what makes it different, and we explained Ting’s unique approach to billing and customer service. Plus we provided some tips on how to marketing Ting, what kinds of resources we offer and some guidelines about Ting trademarks.