The first ever event in India dedicated solely to New gTLDs – the ResellerClub New gTLD Summit was a brilliant experience and we loved having our resellers, registry representatives and other interested stakeholders over for what turned out to be a very productive day!
The response to our registration process was tremendous and the turnout at the event was equally great! With enthusiastic participation and a flurry of questions all through the day, here is a peek at the major talking points:
Who was there:
- Anand Vora, Donuts
- Sandeep Ramchandani & Neha Naik, Radix
- Gajendra Upadhyay, .SHIKSHA & Affilias
- Ravin Ohri, .DESI
- Brian Unruh, Endurance International Group
- Nivu Hussain, .CLUB
- Shridhar Luthria, ResellerClub
- A lot of ResellerClub Resellers!
Key topics that were discussed & ideas that came out
Awareness & Current Growth Drivers:
- Currently awareness is too low, but increasing
- Educate the customer & educate yourself
- Brand Protection & Search for valuable domain names are the early drivers of registrations
Marketing Ideas to boost awareness:
- Effective Bundling – cross-selling with other domains, bundle with hosting packages
- Prices & Promos
- Getting Marquee brands to adopt – perhaps a .BMW as Nivu suggested or a Facebook
- Use the case of Google, Amazon, BMW, Reliance, Dabur having signed up for new gTLDs as a vote of confidence
- SEO Impact – not visible yet, but will certainly happen (Anand revealed that Registries are in conversations with Google and it is only a matter of time as content on websites mature)
- Name pool availability and additional value of the extension to the brand name should be the key pitch
Panel Discussion
The highlight of the ResellerClub New gTLD Summit was the Panel Discussion which had all the big guns from each participating Registry debate the big question on every attendee’s mind – “Will New gTLDs make a dent in the established domains market in India?”
With Shridhar driving the discussion with pointed questions, the panel threw up a variety of opinions and at times drew a lot of questions from the attendees! The panel agreed that new gTLDs had yet to make a dent, but that dent could be identified once the number of active hosted websites on new gTLD domains increased, as Sandeep stated. Awareness creation was the prime mover that the panel asked every reseller to focus on.
One of the attendees cited the abnormally high parking rates for new gTLDs as compared to .COMs to which Anand Vora brought up the valid point that it was hardly an apples vs apples comparison – domains purchased in the same time frame for both TLDs would, according to him have a much closer rate of activity in terms of live websites.
As a part of a company that had a very significant stake in the overall growth of the domains market, across established and new gTLDs, Brian stressed on the importance of patience and sought more time before issuing a verdict on the success of the new entrants. He gave the example of .CO and .ME which were quite late to the gTLD market, but have carved out significant niches with t.co and about.me as success stories.
No event is complete without some wacky quotes and this was the best one of the evening – “.COM is the Ambassador car of domains, when people see slick Marutis and Hyundais on the road, they’ll switch” was a line we overheard and could not help laughing at!
You can check out photos from the event below:
What is next
We absolutely enjoyed hosting you at the event and came away with a lot of great ideas, opinions and data. We hope all of you found it productive too and we look forward to putting into action the insights we garnered. We look forward to seeing new gTLDs zoom up the sales charts! 🙂
Let us know what you thought about your experience at the ResellerClub New gTLD Summit through the comments below.
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