HostingCon Metrics Panel

12 Uncommon Metrics for Web Hosting Profitability

Introduction
My Background
1997 to 2003: ISPcheck co-founder, Web Hosting Magazine publisher, Web Hosting Expo producer
2003 to 2006: VP Communications at EV1Servers, developed/managed “private racks” products
2006 to present: Marketing consulting + lots of networking at 10+ web hosting related conferences
Have sold to/written about/worked with 1,000’s of web hosting companies
What I’ve learned
Many companies excel at tracking “surface level” metrics (advertising spend per new account, average hold time on support calls, etc)
Few notice missed opportunities on following pages

1. Search Volume for Favorite SEO/Search Marketing Keyword Reseller Hosting Dedicated Servers Intel Conroe Virtualization Are you optimizing your website/ad campaign for out of favor keywords?

2. Search Presence for Company Ideal combination is having your own voice with support of 3 rd party opinions * Calculated based on top 20 Google search results for company name 0 0 6 1 Negative 18 0 2 ThePlanet 16 4 0 Web.com 0 8 6 GoDaddy 1 4 14 1&1 Unrelated Positive/Objective Own Sites

3. Search Presence for Execs Don’t forget to do the same lookup for other execs – and all public facing employees * Calculated based on top 20 Google search results for CEO name 14 6 0 Doug Erwin 0 18 2 Jeff Stibel 3 12 5 Bob Parsons 1 6 13 Andreas Gauger Unrelated 3 rd Party Own Sites

4. Effectiveness as Media Outlet Blue = TheWHIR.com; Green = 1&1.com; Red = DreamHost.com TheWHIR monetizes each website visitor multiple times. What are you getting out of website visitors who don’t sign up?

5. Utilization Of On-Site Real Estate Source: GoDaddy control panel Customer control panel messages have higher conversion rates than email newsletters and off-site ads – yet so many companies keep pre- and post-login pages totally blank!

6. Share of Operations
SMBLive: “running a business = maintaining 5 conversations”
Personal productivity
Intra-company collaboration/data sharing
Transaction/inventory management
Contact management
Sales/marketing/networking
What % of customers’ requirements does your service…
Directly support?
Seamlessly integrate with?
How to compete (or interoperate?) with…
Google Apps & Office Live?
Standalone SaaS apps with open APIs
Broadest platforms win, while oversold hosting accounts reduce your profitability

7. Add-on Deployment Ratio “ What improves retention? Not newsletters. Not follow up calls. The only thing that works is convincing them to use multiple services.” - Hostway VP Marketing John Lee Service usage drives stickiness, even when customers aren’t paying extra for add-ons

8. Time-to-Usefulness “ If I can’t get something up and running between my 5-year-old’s bedtime and midnight, it’s probably a lost cause.” - Wash DC Small Business Owner Most customers are more concerned about time than cost; bandwidth/webspace are even less relevant

9. “Lost Cause” Ratio
What % of customers have…
Never logged into account after sign up
Stopped logging into account after first week/day/month?
Showed no account activity in last 30/60/90 days?
Showed sudden decline in time on system or resource usage?
Salesforce.com EMEA Co-President says…
Employees should be compensated based on not just customer acquisition, but ongoing customer activity
If software becomes shelfware, cancellations likely imminent

10. Value Enablement Index
How many…
Customer blogs do you subscribe to?
Customer stores have you made purchases from?
Customer apps have you tried out?
If the number is non-existent or negligible…
Is there something wrong with the tools you provide? Too hard to use? Not flexible enough?
Think about sites/services that do interest you; where/how are they hosted?

11. Rate of Information Recycling
What % of sales inquiry/support ticket responses are being captured for reuse?
How much has your knowledgebase expanded over the past year, in terms of content and customer readership?
Saves time
Customer self service = immediate satisfaction
Frequently updated and publicly avialable information archive is great for SEO

12. Clarity of Product Development Crystal Ball?
Will the new product/feature you’re working on…
Attract new customers?
Generate interest among existing customers?
Have a noticeable impact on volume of sales inquiries? Support calls? Cancellations?
Adam from ServerBeach has details on how to estimate/quantify. See slides for session #404.

HostingCon Metrics Panel

by isabelwang on Jul 26, 2007

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