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Thread: Corporate memberships going up
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02-03-2015, 03:09 PM #26Web Hosting Master
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Let's go down the list of things corporate memberships currently offer:
· Reduced Ad Forum Post Waiting Time - This is the best thing.
· Free Industry Announcements Forum Posts - What is this? Isn't it available to everyone?
· Additional Keyword Alerts - Ok? Google does the same thing for free pretty much.
· Occasional Ad Forum Upgrade Discounts - I've never seen a forum upgrade discount. Has anyone?
· Discounts on HostingCatalog.com Advertising - Useless.
· The Brand New Company Account feature. - ??? Useless.
· New Benefits Coming Later This Year! - Like ? Again, useless.
So pretty much, we're going to be paying $1400/year to advertise more often, even though the number of potential customers on WHT has gone down significantly over the past few years. Sounds like a great deal.
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02-03-2015, 04:04 PM #27
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02-03-2015, 04:07 PM #28Web Hosting Master
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Yes, for what you get it honestly is not worth it IMO. The only thing of value is the reduced ad posting time for Google links
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02-03-2015, 04:08 PM #29Web Hosting Master
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02-03-2015, 04:16 PM #30Managed VPS Experts
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I was discussing this with another WHT member right after they were purchased. We suspected that the prices will go up especially for corp members.
If they increase the WHT stickies than a lot of customers will also cancel those. The ROI is not what it used to be.
- Daniel
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02-03-2015, 04:20 PM #31Web Hosting Master
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02-03-2015, 04:39 PM #32Web Hosting Guru
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I think they should introduce the new benefits at the same time of the price increase.
Respectfully,
Mr. Terrence
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02-03-2015, 07:56 PM #33Problem Solver
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02-03-2015, 08:23 PM #34Disabled
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We were letting ours lapse already, ads generate very little in sales not to mention the quality of the clients we do get is god awful. We have a near 100% retention rate from all of our other channels whereas with WHT it's probably well under 50%. I'd rather spend $200 per client on adwords. They'll stick around and go for the upsells.
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02-03-2015, 09:27 PM #35Poooooonnyyy :*
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How long you lads think until pins go up?
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02-03-2015, 10:22 PM #36Integration Specialist
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02-03-2015, 10:27 PM #37Poooooonnyyy :*
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02-03-2015, 10:33 PM #38Web Hosting Guru
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Ads Count, but company owners can't.
The new owners at Penton need to fabricate some actual new features or benefits (good luck). The list of new things was mainly more advertising (which this site doesn't need more of). That's all the acquiring company cares about and what content these days is, a means to collect ad income.
The rates for the stuck / pinned ads are embarrassing. I can't blame iNet for it, I blame hosting companies who insist on robbing themselves. Folks must run the numbers at least quarterly to remain sane, and to detect changes in the market.
If anything rates for membership and ads should be DECLINING. Because the customers aren't here in quantity or aren't converting for a lot of people. Is it an indication of WHT slumping? Or is it larger global economy? Doesn't matter, less costs less, and forget all the hyper inflation must increase rates stuff, because that isn't sound economics nor sustainable.
Hey it's not all bad. Penton is hiring in mass:
http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/...spx?c=qgl9Vfwp
Whole lot of monetization and content analysis roles listed.
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02-03-2015, 10:43 PM #39Managed VPS Experts
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02-04-2015, 11:31 AM #40Web Hosting Master
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I think the value of the corporate membership isn't necessarily the features that come with it, but perhaps the "exclusivity" associated with it. The badge I feel was designed to instill a bit more confidence into prospective buyers. The fact that not everyone can afford or is willing to pay the fee alone creates the exclusivity and not seeing every member say "Corporate Member" is a plus.
But I feel it's reached the stage where the effect the badge has, has seriously deteriorated. The prominence of the badge leaves a lot to be desired and the effect I think corporate members would have liked for it to have no longer exists. Raising the price won't do anything in terms of increasing that exclusivity because it exists already but the fact that the badge is easy to overlook defeats the purpose of exclusivity in the first place.
The membership colour is only a slightly darker shade than premium members and speaking honestly, that's just no good. It needs to stand out properly with perhaps a better more distinct colour. I myself and can see others as well have opted out of having it in blue in the first place and that could be for the reasons above.
It's at the point where I'm struggling to justify the cost of it. Affording it is one thing, nobody wants to throw away money and if you cannot justify it or you begin to question its value, then that's when you'll start seeing people cancel. It won't be in protest of the price increase, it won't be protest of a WHT policy, it will simply be a very easy business decision.
@stablehost, I totally agree with the value of sticky's.. they are nowhere near what they used to be and iNet did a good job of devaluing sticky's while increasing their price. Before it was a max of two sticky posts, now it's 7-8 of them.
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02-04-2015, 11:39 AM #41
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02-04-2015, 06:57 PM #42Corporate Member
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If it does indeed reduce some of the postings in the ad forums then the price raise is a great thing! The ad forums are already swamped as is.
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02-04-2015, 07:07 PM #43
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02-04-2015, 07:41 PM #44
Absolutely agree with you. If the higher price means fewer corporate members, that in itself adds value to the corporate membership. Right now an ad in dedicated offers drops off in under a day unless you post on a weekend. For example, if you cut the number of ad posts in half, that itself would nearly double the value of posting. I'm in favor of the higher price. There's not much in between corporate membership and full blown banner or sticky advertising, so I don't mind the higher price as I feel that Corp membership is already a great value for people who know how to make the most of it. For those who aren't seeing the results they want from WHT ad posts, feel free to post less often =D
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02-04-2015, 07:45 PM #45
Meanwhile I could spend $200 on AdWords and get nothing out of it. Every marketing channel can work if you know how to make the most of it. It's a lot of work to master one marketing channel, nearly impossible for a small business to make effective use of several marketing channels at once.
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02-04-2015, 08:35 PM #46Disabled
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That's because adwords is not a good place to market your product (unmanaged dedi) on a small scale.
I wouldn't touch that one.
Some marketing channels simply do not work for some things. I don't care how smart you are, you're not going to do well selling dedicated servers in the yellow pages. And the ROI on here is just not very good anymore for what we do. Especially when it comes to corporate membership and ad postings.
I'm sure there are exceptions (if you have brand recognition and/or constant recommendations in the main forums) but none of them apply to us at this point, so I'll save the $1,200 or $1,400 or whatever it is and spend it elsewhere and probably double or triple it.
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02-04-2015, 08:52 PM #47
Obviously some channels are better than others given whatever you're trying to sell, but the point I'm making I still stand by, that to make effective use of a given channel, you need to put the time in to know how to take advantage of it properly. Often that time is more valuable than the dollars you put in to the advertising, so sticking with whatever works best for you is usually the way to go.
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02-04-2015, 09:03 PM #48Disabled
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Well, point taken.
And I probably haven't put enough time into trying to make WHT work, but at this point I don't care to put too much into it when I have other options that make money rain down from the sky in comparison - with even less investment than what I have put into WHT. Hell, forget the cash, time is money too and I have well over a thousand posts on here.
That being said, I actually do have some plans to make WHT work for me - but they have nothing to do with buying a corporate membership.
Once we have some more brand recognition, I may re-evaluate.
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02-05-2015, 07:15 AM #49Web Hosting Master
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After reading this thread i have a question a straightforward question "Is corporate membership really worthwhile now a days?"
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02-05-2015, 08:59 AM #50Disabled
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