What do you think makes your company stand out? What are you most proud of?
In the field of web hosting it is hard to stand out with so many competing businesses. We put an emphasis on offering a great uptime and fast support while balancing affordable prices. Most proud I can say I am of our entire team that delivers services to customers from different parts of Europe, from the tech guy that configures a firewall to the tech support girl that finishes a conversation with a smile.From your experience, what are the most important things to build a highly successful website and online business? Please explain each in detail.
The most important “thing” in a company is not the tech – even if we are a tech company 🙂, but the people and creativity that they bring as well as sharing the same vision for our business. Building the Tech and Support team was indeed the hardest part in our journey. It was easy to find the tech skills, but it was hard to find the right people that vibed with our goals.The most important “thing” in a company is not the tech – even if we are a tech company 🙂, but the people and creativity that they bring as well as sharing the same vision for our business.
What’s the one key lesson you’ve learned about building a website and business that you wish you knew when you started? What’s the story behind this realization?
Well, we all learn from mistakes, so making them and fixing them got us here 10 years later. There are a lot of unknowns that will hit you down the road, and costs with the infrastructure were underrated in the growth business plan and we struggled financially at times as the infrastructure expanded a lot faster than provisioned.In your opinion, which aspect of running a website tends to be most underestimated? Can you explain or give an example?
I think most of the startups do not comprehend the competitor element and how hard it will be along the business journey to compete with them in an ever evolving technological environment. I mean you do have a sound business plan and a good growth plan when starting, and that’s great but please try to analyze your competitors first to see if you can really make a difference and what will make you stand out from the “other fishes in the ocean”.What strategy has been particularly effective in growing your website audience this year?
Besides regular CPA, CPM and email marketing, I think human referrals. Why? Good services are referred to by friends, acquaintances and business partners.💡 A Nielsen study found that 92% of consumers trust word-of-mouth referrals from people they know. This is one reason why referral programs can also be more cost-effective than traditional advertising.
For example, PayPal offered a double-sided referral incentive, where both the referrer and the new user who signed up received $10 each. That was a powerful incentive for users to refer to their friends. This referral program helped PayPal achieve an average daily growth rate of 7-10% in its early years and was critical to reach 1 million users just 2 years after its founding in 1998.
If I asked you to share the key ingredient in your “secret sauce” for inbound marketing, what would it be?
Incentives for old customers, like free extra months on renewal or promo % discount code for a product a customer had with us for a long time. This perks together with a great customer service will help us keep old customers from switching to a competitor. 4 reasons why customer retention is crucial to any business:- Studies show that acquiring a new customer can be 5-25 times more expensive than keeping an existing one.
- Existing customers who are already familiar with your products are easier to convince to buy again.
- Loyal customers are more likely to refer new customers to your business, and referred customers have an average 16% higher lifetime value than those acquired through other channels.
- Increasing retention rates by just 5% can boost revenue by 25-95%.
