6 Ways for Web Hosts to Stand Out in a Saturated Market plus 1 more

6 Ways for Web Hosts to Stand Out in a Saturated Market

Posted: 09 Aug 2010 01:53 PM PDT

Look around the web hosting industry and you'll run into a lot of similar looking websites offering similar packages with similar costs. So how is a webhost supposed to stand out amongst the crowd and attract new customers?

To help out, we're presenting a webinar on August 26th, 2010. Adam Eisner, who heads up our domains business here at OpenSRS will take you through six tangible strategies that you can use to differentiate yourself in a crowded environment. He'll bring you real-world examples along with data from our Reseller base that will provide you with practical ways to fuel growth and attract new customers.

As with all of our webinars, it's free to attend and everyone is welcome. We'll hold a pair of sessions on August 26th at 9am and 2pm EDT (that’s 1300 and 1800 UTC) to accommodate attendees in different time zones. Register today so you don't forget. And, keep in mind that registering ensures that you'll automatically get an email with a link to the archive after the webinar ends, so even if you can't make it to the live event, it does make sense to click the link below and signup.

A Simple, Proven, Neatly Wrapped Promotion For You

Posted: 09 Aug 2010 12:28 PM PDT

When I came to Tucows about a year ago I promised on this blog that I would be "…experimenting with our Hover (retail) business, largely in hopes of sharing any successes." For a while, I was doing more experimenting than succeeding. (I don't have to tell you. Retail is tough.) But we have recently launched a few successful initiatives – marketing campaigns, improvements to our user experience (built on the OpenSRS API, of course) and innovations in our customers support – that can all be imitated fairly easily. We are thrilled to have you do just that. We will start putting together simple case studies to let you know what we did and how we did it so you can benefit from our experiences.

This is the first in that "series."

We recently launched a very simple domain name promotion to encourage our current customers to register their own names (firstnamelastname.com) and put them to immediate use. We suggested available TLDs, offered tips on complementary services, highlighted real examples and extended a 15% discount off our standard domain name pricing.

The results were outstanding. We sent an email that got a 33.3% open rate and an 8.9% click-through-rate among opens. 14% of those who clicked purchased. 43% of those who purchased attached an email service. These metrics all surpassed our past marketing efforts. (You might have even tighter customer relationships and enjoy better open rates, CTRs and conversions. You can therefore assume your numbers would look even better.)

The links below offer everything you should need to repeat this promotion, including a much more detailed breakdown of what we did (from database query to subject header test to coding the links in the email) and the zipped up HTML email that we sent. You can take a look at the landing page here. We have also added these materials to our new marketing resources section.

If you are an OpenSRS reseller, swipe, borrow and steal anything you want. That's the idea. (If you are not an OpenSRS reseller, don’t!) If you have any questions at all or want some help on the implementation, let us know.

Click here to download the detailed case study (.pdf)

Click here to download the HTML email (.zip)

Click here to see the landing page