Posts Tagged ‘goMobi’

goMobi v1.5 Now Available

Over the weekend, our goMobi mobile website publishing service was updated to v1.5. This new version brings some significant new features and also some really nice enhancements and improvements to existing features.

Here’s a run-down of the most significant changes that came with this release:

New Features:

New design templates to provide more options to style goMobi sites.
Seven new icon sets to choose from.
Integrated shopping cart feature in the Products section including payment integration with PayPal and Google Checkout.
YouTube video embedding.
Reviews/Testimonials integration with social networks like Yelp.
Custom form feature to allow for the collection of customer feedback or questionnaires.
Redirection code generator built in to the Site Builder.

Enhancements:

Enhanced QR code flyer creator.
Improvements to the site templates including additional site colour options.
A new ‘Click to Call’ icon has been added to the site header.
Google Maps now displayed for all locations with improved directions feature on supported devices.
Better WYSIWYG editor including the ability to insert images, links and easily customize text
Additional time-zone support.

More Information

We’ve updated the goMobi marketing page with more information on the features and benefits of goMobi. If you are already selling goMobi, be sure to let your users know about this exciting update to the service. We also have a complete rundown of the updates and new features in PDF format with screenshots and more. Click here to download.

For those not yet offering goMobi mobile websites, this update makes an already powerful and feature-rich tool even better. At just $2.50/month goMobi is a very affordable way to get customers started on the mobile web.

goMobi v1.4 Update Coming with Analytics, New Icon Sets and more

[NOTE: goMobi v1.4 is now live for all users as of July 10, 2011]

On July 10, 2011, the next version of the goMobi mobile website builder will be released. There’s nothing you need to do either as a reseller or an end-user – the update happens automatically across all goMobi accounts.

Existing sites will be unaffected by the changes, but you might want to let your goMobi customers know about some super new features that are part of the 1.4 release.

Major new features:

Analyze traffic with complete site analytics
Create and print a QR Code-enabled marketing flyer
Upload images to a new hosted image gallery

Enhancements to existing features:

More icon sets
Support for multiple locations and coupon codes
Ability to connect with popular location-based services (foursquare, Facebook Places, Google Places, Yelp and Gowalla
Better social network support (especially on higher end devices)
Improved color choices for backgrounds and text/titles

…and many more fixes and enhancements.

You can read more about the changes on our goMobi features section, including screenshots for some of the new features.

Available in Test Environment Today

The Horizon Test Environment is connected to the goMobi Test Bed system which has already been updated to v1.4. You can log into your OpenSRS Horizon Test account and see some of the new features of the Site Builder first hand. Log in with your usual OpenSRS credentials here.

goMobi Updated to Version 1.3 with Better Full Website Features

gomobi_iphone

Version 1.3 of goMobi has just been released and is now live for all users of the service.

Included in this update are a number of new features that will be of interest to resellers and end-users, along with a series of bug fixes and backend changes that won’t be visible, but will improve the experience overall.

Here’s the rundown of the changes that will be visible to users:

Better handling of full website transcoding

Currently the “Full Website” feature is hidden in the Control Panel unless a source domain is either provided when provisioning the site, or added via the “Advanced Features” section.

As part of the goMobi v1.3 release, goMobi is making the full website feature visible all of the time to users within the goMobi Control Panel. This allows site owners to enter or change their source domain (the desktop site URL) without having to know to visit the Advanced Feature section.

The site owner also now has the ability to transcode their desktop website and display it in a mobile friendly version for their site visitors. That feature is enabled via a checkbox in the Full Website section of the Control Panel.

Here’s what that feature looks like now:

full website

This “Enable content adaption for mobile phones” check box is checked by default. This means that the desktop site will be transcoded into a mobile friendly version (using dotMobi’s Instant Mobilizer technology, and formatted for the specific device being used to browse the site).

New full website interstitial page

In addition, when site visitors to the goMobi version of the site click on the “Full Website”" feature, an interstitial page is now displayed to offer visitors the choice between a mobile-friendly, transcoded version of the full website, or the standard desktop version:

interstitial

This gives more options to users on devices with different capabilities. For example, users of larger tablet devices, iPads or even those with Android or iPhones will have the option to see the desktop site as opposed to the mobile version. Visit our own goMobi-powered mobile site to see the new features in action.

Updates to goMobi are automatic

There’s nothing resellers need to do to enable v1.3 for all users. Software updates to the goMobi service are performed by goMobi.

Tips for Selling and Packaging goMobi to Your Clients

Many of the resellers we’ve spoken to agree that goMobi is a perfect complement to existing webhosting packages. Over the past couple of weeks, we had some fairly in depth discussions with interested resellers around how they might package and price the goMobi service. I wanted to share some of these learnings with you in this post.

If you look around, you’ll find the retail pricing for goMobi in the range of $5 to $9 per month with some service providers offering a slight discount when paid for a year in advance. Using an average price of $7, with a cost of $2.50, OpenSRS resellers can expect to earn around $50 in profit per account. That doesn’t take into account any fees you might charge your client for setup.

Some of the main consideration points our Resellers had about goMobi:

Will we offer the service on a monthly basis, or one year paid in full at sign-up?
Should we offer a discount for 1 year paid in advance?
Will we offer initial setup of the mobile site? Will we charge for it?
Does it make sense to bundle goMobi with an existing service, or sell if as a standalone product?

The answers our resellers came up with largely depended on the kind of business they run. If they’re an agency focused on web design, they might build the service differently than a webhost or Internet Service Provider. Each business has their own way of doing things, and we can’t pretend to have all the answers for you. But we do have some insight and high level ideas based on conversations and feedback from service providers in a similar position to you.

Payment Frequency

We bill you on a monthly basis for the goMobi service, but how you bill your clients for service is up to you. If you’re a webhost and already billing a client monthly for service, it might make sense to bill goMobi on a monthly basis as a line item on your client’s invoice. If goMobi will be part of a larger site design, say a complete corporate re-design that includes professional services, then charging upfront for 1 year probably makes sense and will have a negligible effect on the overall price.

Offering Initial Setup

The goMobi service is extremely simple to setup, but some customers appreciate having their mobile site setup for them based on their existing corporate site. If you’re an agency already designing the client’s main site, then setting up the mobile version is probably a no brainer. Charging a fee for setting up the mobile site is a relatively easy option that can help increase revenue. Remember, if the client would prefer to set the service up themselves, this is always an option, but we’ve heard from several resellers that clients are asking them to take this work on, despite the easy setup tools.

Discount for Term Commitment

We’re seeing this from most service providers. A reasonable monthly fee per month, with a discount if the client pays in advance for a year. All of the service providers we surveyed offered a yearly discounted rate and a couple didn’t even offer a monthly option.

Free Trial

It’s an easy foot in the door and an opportunity for the puppy dog close. Not much to say about this one, except that it seems to work with clients unsure about the benefits until they actually see their mobile site in service. And once they have it… they’re hooked!

Bundling

You know the old saying: “You can’t compare apples to oranges”. One of the best ways to sell a service is to make it difficult for interested prospects to compare your service offering to that of your competitors. One of the ways to do this is by bundling. If you’re an webhosting company, bundling goMobi into your packages adds a differentiator to your existing package. A client comparing your service package will be forced to consider the merits of the entire package when looking at your competitor.

Learn More

We have an upcoming webinar hosted by James and Le Quan that will focus on these ideas and others. If you’re interested in participating on January 27th, you can sign up for free here.

What do you think? Do you have a unique perspective or experience to share? The ideas above are by no means an exhaustive list and as we learn more, we’ll be sure to pass them along. At the same time, if you’ve had success selling goMobi, I’d love to hear your story!

Get Your Site Mobilized & Win!

We’re giving away 100 absolutely free one-year subscriptions to the new OpenSRS goMobi service!

The first 100 OpenSRS Resellers to create their own goMobi site through OpenSRS and tell us about it will be credited a full year of goMobi service – that’s a $30 value.

All the details can be found here.

And remember that your first month of goMobi is already free, so it won’t cost you anything to create your goMobi site and keep it for the first month even if you aren’t one of the first 100 Resellers to submit your site.

Use Your New goMobi Site as a Great Sales Tool

Once you have your goMobi site up and running, make sure you show it off! That’s really the very best way to demonstrate the value of the goMobi service. We know that once your customers see your goMobi site, and learn how inexpensive and easy it is to setup a goMobi site, they’ll want one of their own.

Make sure you’re ready: grab the marketing resources that we provide (in six languages) and you’ll be all set to explain goMobi to them. There’s videos, HTML templates, email copy and PDF sell sheets available for download.

Marketing goMobi Webinar

If you want even more help getting started selling goMobi, then plan to attend our Marketing goMobi webinar on January 27, 2011. We’ll have two sessions – 9:00 A.M. EST and 2:00 P.M. EST – to accommodate resellers around the world. Go here for more information and times in your timezone, and to sign up.

Extra Bonus!

While goMobi doesn’t require a .MOBI domain name, we have noticed that a lot of people are opting to use a .MOBI name to host their goMobi site and this new .MOBI domain promo gives you a great way to offer a bundle deal to your customers:

From now until the end of March, .MOBI domains are available at a registry cost of just $2.99. Full details on the cost break down and the terms of the promotion, along with the signup form are available here.