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Branding Your Hosting Business

By: Douglas Hanna
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[ Posted On: 2006-06-27 ]

In any industry, a company’s brand is extremely important. In an industry as competitive as web hosting, a company’s brand is critical to success. Building and maintaining a great brand is extremely important - brand management should be a key component in your company’s marketing efforts.

A sub-par brand can have an adverse effect – it may discourage potential customers from signing up, cause other companies to hesitate when partnering, lower employee morale and affect so many other things that are important to a hosting company. Having a bad brand is bad business, and having a bad brand can make selling your key product or service (such as web hosting) much harder.

What your brand covers.

One of the most important aspects of branding is considering what exactly your brand covers – everything. Every bit of your company from customer service to your web site is a part of your company’s brand. A more complete list includes:

Your company’s email messages and other written communication such as letters, official forum posts (both announcements and regular posts made by employees), all pre-defined responses, welcome emails, billing reminders, emails sent by front-line employees, emails sent by management/executives, press releases, written statements, interviews, etc.
Explanation: What you write has a huge effect on your company’s brand.

How, over what methods, when, etc. your company provides customer service and other forms of support. This includes all of your FAQs, your knowledge base, and anything else you’d list on your "Support" page.
Explanation: Though subtle, these areas are important to your company’s brand.

Your company’s web site including graphics, all of the text (as well as tone/spelling/grammar/punctuation), the order process, etc. Explanation: If you own or run a hosting company, chances are that your web site is one of the biggest elements of your brand.

Your logo, slogan, and similar images/items. Explanation: Your logo, slogan, value proposition (i.e. better service, but more money), etc. are very important aspects of your brand.

The uptime, reliability, etc. that your service provides. Explanation: No matter how fancy your logo, your emails or your web site, your company won’t do well if your uptime, reliability and similar features are bad.

What control panel, software, etc. your company uses. Explanation: Do you use a complicated control panel or a simple one? It shows what type of market you are or should be after.

What software your company uses for its forum, helpdesk, live chat, etc.
Explanation: More savvy Internet users know the difference between free and paid software. Generally speaking, the paid software represents a more professional and serious brand. Often, though, the functionality of the paid and free software is the same, but it’s not "brand name" software.

You can understand from these points that your brand covers a lot of areas. Almost everything related to your company that you have any control over is a part of your company’s brand. When you realize what exactly your brand covers, you’ll have a good idea of what needs improvement.

Be consistent.

One of the most common "themes" of branding is consistency. All of the elements listed above should have a consistent theme. Examples in the hosting industry are:

Rackspace - Everything they do is about top-of-the-line customer service. They’ve stuck with that and have modeled everything from their pricing to the mediums they provide customer service over to keep customer service the number one priority.

Dreamhost - Dreamhost has maintained a brand that represents how laid back they are, but that they still know about hosting. Their corporate blog is very "honest", their web site copy represents a laid back and fun attitude, and they have stuck with their brand.

1&1 - 1&1 is gigantic and their brand represents just that. They’ve made it very clear that they’re a big and reliable company. They aren’t going anywhere and their 6-page ads in magazines with pictures of their company’s sailboat and large office building show that. Their web site is very professional and very corporate. Obviously, it’s working.

These companies have kept their brands consistent throughout the whole organization and every part of their brand. Rackspace’s welcome emails represent a dedication to customer support, Dreamhost’s are a bit more fun, and 1&1’s are very professional and corporate. It’s what each company has chosen to make one of their main selling points.

Obviously an overall brand statement can’t cover everything. Dreamhost is more than just a fun and laid back host – they also think uptime and customer service is very important. Rackspace values a top-of-the-line network. 1&1 also values customer service and uptime. The company’s ability to provide their main selling point is always debatable, but their brands show they value it.

(Note: These are just my observations – it’s hard to be 100% sure of a company’s overall brand statement or what exactly they’re dedicated to.)

Be pro-active.

Be pro-active with your brand. Look at your brand as a potential customer, an existing customer, a potential partner, an existing partner, a front-line employee, etc. and you’ll probably be able to make a long list of things that should be worked on.

Try and signup for hosting yourself – is it a difficult process? Does it take long? Is it clear? When you email your customer service department, do their responses represent what your company stands for and believes is important? If not, there’s room for improvement.

If you don’t seem to be getting anywhere, ask a sample of the appropriate groups for their input and suggestions. Ask your customers, employees, partners, etc. what they think about your brand, your company, your customer service, etc.

After you do some exploring, you’ll have some idea about what you need to improve. Be sure to continue to remain pro-active with your brand management – ask customers, employees, etc. regularly about their satisfaction and ask for feedback as you make changes.

The visual elements.

The visual elements of a brand normally consist of a web site, logo, stationery, business, cards, etc. All of these elements should be consistent. For example, the logo on your business cards should be the same as the one on your web site. If it’s any different, people might get confused and your brand won’t be as strong.

When designing the visual elements of your brand, make sure they represent your company. Do they represent the corporate and professional-type look or does the logo represent something that’s more laid back? The same goes with the other elements of your visual brand, especially the web site.

Start small, and then go big.

If you already have a brand, try and start small when you first redesign it. Don’t completely redesign your web site, your logo, and everything else. Do the relatively uninvolved changes such as:

Starting a blog to inform your customers. - A lot of companies have blogs, and when done properly, they pay off. Start a blog and inform your customers. Include things they’ll find useful (such as tips, coupons, etc.) so they keep coming back.

Have an active forum. - If you haven’t already, start a forum for your company. Having members active at a forum is a great way to reinforce a company’s brand.

Reword pre-written communication. - Reword all of your pre-written communication such as welcome emails, pre-defined responses, live chat, canned responses, etc. These represent what you think, so they should reflect your brand accordingly.

Work on your web site. - Work on improving your site. Start small with just improving the web site’s copy (be sure to keep tone/spelling/grammar/punctuation in mind) and then go up to bigger things like the site’s colors and overall style. Don’t go for a total re-design in the beginning.

Work on the support section. - Try and improve everything in your support section. Expand on FAQ’s that are vague, add to your knowledge base, make it easier to contact you, etc.

Be sure to ask for feedback as you do each step. Getting, understanding, and acting on feedback are extremely important. Once you’ve done the smaller steps, the feedback you’ve received will make it clear what the next steps should be. Then, as you get time and enough money, you can continue on improving your brand.

Best of luck!

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: Douglas Hanna -- is a writer who specializes in writing about customer service, branding, and technology. In addition to writing for HostingTech, Mr. Hanna writes for Service Untitled, a blog about customer service and the customer service experience.

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