44. You’re in my manor now

Domain names are incredibly important; they can affect how well you will perform. Try not to choose a name that makes people snigger and point at you in the street!

It is essential that you protect your name and online brand with the same vigour and determination that you would a physical building – security, alarms and paying your rent on time…

Think About The Future

Whilst all the psychology books will try to convince us that having a God complex is quite bad, there is something to be said for having a bit of ambition. Put simply, even if your business plan clearly dictates that you’ll only ever operate in your home country for a predominantly domestic audience, don’t let that stop you buying all the extensions you might want to use one day. If you meet any resistance from other staff, explain that it’s better you own the other extensions than allowing a competitor to buy them and pass themselves off. Whichever domain names you eventually choose to buy, be sure to document the dates of renewal, and always buy the maximum amount of time that you can.

There Are No Rules

You might feel morally ambiguous about this, but wise indeed is the company that puts out a search on competitor domains with a view to buying them up as soon as they lapse. Now it probably would be somewhat immoral to keep hold of those domain names should they enter your possession and deny another company (even if they are a competitor) the ability to trade through their own site – but just the act of giving them back, not-for-profit (well, if I must), is a magical PR opportunity that is well worth the tiny investment. Let’s face it; there may be thousands of people trying to do exactly the same to you…

If you want people to shop at your site again and again they must learn to trust you. You’ll achieve this over time mainly by offering a good web site and good service. If users like your site they will tell their friends and the cycle will begin once more. So you have built up a strong brand (www.clampcity.com) that people trust and then some low-life competitor buys up the same name with a different extension (www.clampcity.net). What they end up doing with this domain name is irrelevant – but it will cause you to lose customers, either because their service is better or because it’s worse and it mistakenly reflects on you.

Another Dot Something

New extensions are being created pretty much every year. Some are simply ridiculous (.me.uk) and some are very clever (.tv). But you must stay on the ball and pre-order your domain with the new extension as soon as you can. It is, of course, possible to ‘win’ back domain names from companies or individuals obviously ‘passing themselves off’ in a court of law, but why go through the hassle when, for the price of a sandwich, you can register the name yourself? Domain names have dropped in price considerably and will continue to do so. Shop around for all the domain names that you may possibly want to use in the future; even if you never get round to building anything, it stops others using that name.

And?

It is not uncommon for company names to include the word ‘and’ or include an ‘&’. These company names were usually formed long before the internet was a glint in the scientist’s test-tube. The knock on effect is how is the name represented as a domain name? The options include:

• www.clamp-company.com
• www.clampandcompany.com
• www.clamp_company.com
• www.clamp&company.com

The answer? You will have to buy them all and point them towards your main site (the site address or URL you use in promotional literature).

How did it go?

Q. It looks like our competitors have got wise and decided to adopt coded shipping numbers. Our numbers guys are questioning how useful the exercise is for us. Do you think they’ve got a point?

A. Even if you are unable to determine your competitors’ sales figures, you can still mark them on other points. You can monitor their ability to confirm your order/s, confirm despatch and follow up on any customer service queries you may have; and if you return the product/s, how good is that aspect of their service?

Q. Will ordering from competitors tell us anything else?

A. You will also be able to see what, if any, marketing deals have been struck with third parties. Are there any flyers contained in your delivery advertising banks, or credit cards, etc.? Where else are your competitors earning revenue and can you do the same?

Here is an idea for you…

When I was at Amazon I was given a budget every week to buy books on the internet from our competitors. Why? Well, I’d like to believe that Amazon were incredibly benevolent employers and they knew how to retain a bibliophile; however, the real reason was much more clever, and nothing to do with me at all. Every Monday morning I would place an order with five competitors and over the week the orders would arrive. On each of the shipping notes/invoices there was a shipping number or reference – and all of these companies were using sequential numbering. So, for relatively little cost, we were able to see how many orders the company had ever shipped, calculate an approximate value of their entire business and see the number of orders they received a week – priceless.

If you use sequential numbering on your invoices/receipts – stop! Have this altered immediately; someone out there is monitoring your business. If you can, place some orders with competitors and see if they are – this intelligence is frightening, both in terms of what you can learn about your competition and how easy it is to obtain.

Defining idea…

‘There is always more spirit in attack than in defence.’

Titus Livius

Defining idea…

‘The aggressive spirit, the offensive, is the chief thing everywhere in war…’

Baron Manfred Von Richthofen