Review Tch!

[Head Guru]

Every once in long while, we ask the TCH users to take a moment out of their schedule and place a rating about TCH on a respected Web Hosting Review Site.

 

If you like what you see here at TCH and would like to spout off about it, please use the following link to tell the world how good we really are.

 

Here is your link.

 

http://www.findmyhosting.com/addrating.asp?id=5330

 

Users are allowed one rating per account and are allowed to place a review once every 6 months. If you have already have left a review I would like to say thanks.

 

Thanks

 

Bill

[Head Guru]

If you know of other ways to promote TCH to posible clients, please chime in. We are always looking at ways to bring on new clients!

 

Thanks!

 

Bill

[Virtual Imager]

One thing that might get noticed is to be one of the "sponsored links" on search engines and also on other sites that have site searches. For instance, I just did a search for "webhosting" on the PC Magazine site to see if that might be a good place for you to get reviewed. There were no matches for "webhosting" on the site, but several "sponsored links" came up.

 

Don't know if that's in your budget, but it is another way to promote TCH.

 

Rock Sign

 

VI

[Virtual Imager]

Another thing you could do that won't cost anything is to pay "referral fees" (in the form of a month's free hosting) to existing customers who refer others that sign up.

 

Most of us around here refer you anyway, but there must be thousands of customers who don't frequent these forums who you could reach out to and make the offer. Just send an email to all your customers telling them of the promotion.

[Head Guru]

Could you give an example of such a fee?

 

Just wondering.

[Deverill]

I would guess something like one month free for every customer you refer who stays for 3 or more months. That could be a bookkeeping nightmare so either one month for every customer your refer up to a limit or one month for every X customers you refer. There are shortcomings to them all as a creative person could scam their way into free service, thus the limit idea.

 

Any other ideas out there?

[Virtual Imager]

There are multitudes of ways to structure such a promotion. I was thinking you could give a free month for every three new customers brought in who actually sign up. Creating a time/retention requirement (like Jim suggested) is a good idea too. You could also give upgrades in liue of (or in addition to) free service.

 

I'm not so sure about the limits. If you are going to reward people who meet a certain criteria, why not reward them each time they re-meet the criteria? They will be more likely to actively work at achieving the goal if they know they will be rewarded again. And people who actually do what you hope they will do are the very ones who have proven themselves capable and willing... why discourage them from repeating their performance? They are your best recruiters. Instead of limiting the reward, you might actually want to increase it (say, two free months the third time they meet the goal).

 

You could even make it a contest with a really good prize for the person bringing in the most new customers in a given period.

 

The bookkeeping doesn't have to be a nightmare. After all, you guys are computer geniuses! I'm sure crediting a customer's account for one month's service is no big deal. And keeping track of referrals can't be all that difficult. Many companies do similair kinds of promotions. There must be software out there. I remember at one point there was an offer of upgrades for beta-testers. So you probably already have some system in place to keep track of who gets credits and to deliver those credits.

 

HTH,

VI

[TCH-Thomas]

I have heard that those "Tell a friend" things can be abused, but if you find a way which makes it non-abusive, why not one of those?

 

I´ll be back when I have more ideas.

[Virtual Imager]

Speaking of "tell a friend;" there's also "tell a friend" or "recommend us" links you can put on your site... people click on it and get a place to fill in the friend's (and their own) email address and you do the rest... sending promo information that actually comes with a personal note from the person who did the recommending. I'm sure you're familiar with it.

[TCH-Thomas]

I ment one of those, VI.

 

This might be a wild idea, but I remember reading something about TCH gear once, such as coffee cups, t-shirts, bumper stickers etc (I dont remember what was mentioned in that post). That might be an idea.

[AlanV]

My old webhost gave 20 MB space for every person we referred who signed up.

 

However, that made me refer people just for the space, not because I particularly recommended the service (especially after things went downhill)

 

I think TCH should be recommended because people love it, not because they want some reward for doing so.

 

Of course, the flip side is rewarding referrals would result in more active recruiting (I actually got friends who weren't even thinking about getting webhosting to sign up just so I could get my 20 MB).

[Virtual Imager]

My old webhost gave 20 MB space for every person we referred who signed up.

 

However, that made me refer people just for the space, not because I particularly recommended the service (especially after things went downhill)

 

I think TCH should be recommended because people love it, not because they want some reward for doing so.

 

Of course, the flip side is rewarding referrals would result in more active recruiting (I actually got friends who weren't even thinking about getting webhosting to sign up just so I could get my 20 MB).

Just goes to show that a reward program works. TCH is probably more interested in getting the referrals than it is in your motive for referring. Satisfying your referrals once they sign up is their job, and they're very good at it! The fact that you referred them just to get a reward won't matter at all. That reflects on you, not on them.

 

If you refer a friend to a service that you don't actually recommend and they don't actually need, that is a problem between you and your (soon-to-be X?) friend.