brand quandary...

[theLarry]

there appears to be some marketing muscle here so...

to review our situation, we have a local hands-on design and web master service. we are also resellers for "the other guys" and currently send all of our face-2-face customers to our reseller brand there. We also cross-promote a great deal and feel we need to keep this co-marketing approach. we opened and alternative brand (cheaper and more geared to folks outside of our normal niche) here as good business practice since things with "the other guys" are becoming troublesome and concerning. Since doing this we realize RSP needs to be our main push. Here's the quandary....

We want to leverage our long term brand at "the other guys" but feed new F2F people over here without seeming like we're wishy-washy and not supporting our promoted brand.

( Side bar at this point... since "the other guys" went to cpanel, we can only sell US data centers)

We're thinking of launching a sister reseller here under same brand but call it "Our Brand UK" and use the same brand domain but with a .UK. We would use UK datacenter and make it look "correct". Then for our F2F that are aware of our brand, we can put them here, just saying "if you don't need CPANEL we can put you on our UK brand and give you better performance but put you right here in a US data center".

We're thinking the result is we can continue our long standing and heavily invested brand with "the other guys" but leverage that same brand trust to move NEW F2F folks here.

The idea would not be to really promote the UK brand, but who knows, we could adopt a UK city and do some local SEO since we are limited to US with "the other guys".

Thoughts? Suggestions? Snide Comments?

-THX

[clivejo]

One point would be that Nominet (.uk registry) seem to be getting tighter on if the registered owners are actually IN the UK. I registered a co.uk for a company recently and the address was only slightly incorrect and they blocked the registration until it was sorted.

[theLarry]

hmmm that would be a deal breaker huh! We could probably accomplish the same objective with Canadian .CA? Other than that what do you think about the play.. might you have another way to accomplish our objective?

thanks!

[clivejo]

Do you hide the fact you are a reseller for "the other guys"? If not, then just market it as an alternative service provider, and just be honest. Tell them why you have concerns about "the other guys" and say you have another service provider you are happier using or might suit them better. Chances are they have the same reservations! Every service has its pros and cons, the important thing is to match those to your customer/end user.

I use other service providers all the time, some are cheaper, some are easier to use, some just offer a totally different product than whats available here at RSP.

[theLarry]

Thanks clivejo. Almost all "other guys" resellers try to keep anonymity and downplay reseller status for two main reasons, a) many hate "the other guys", b) we cannot compete on price with them... our brand prices are on the high side anyway. We're also considering your position of just launching another brand and pointing our new F2F people there... much simpler, but being very careful not to appear that we have concerns about the brand we promote heavily. We were just thinking we could somehow get some brand-love from our 10 year history marketing the "other guy" brand over here. Simplicity may very well win the day.

[iads]

Please clarify for me, do the "other guys" offer a White Label program like RSP? If so, switch over to RSP and pre-advertise/promote it as an upgrade of hardware and software. Keep your personal brand out front and never mention the "other guys", nor RSP ever.

[The Stealthy One]

Do "the other guys" rhyme with "ho maddy" or "mild fest romaines"?

[theLarry]

Do "the other guys" rhyme with "ho maddy" or "mild fest romaines"?

well...

[theLarry]

Please clarify for me, do the "other guys" offer a White Label program like RSP? If so, switch over to RSP and pre-advertise/promote it as an upgrade of hardware and software. Keep your personal brand out front and never mention the "other guys", nor RSP ever.

Thanks iads, Yes "the other guys" offer "mostly" white label, though they are sloppy and have brand leaks. we heavily market this reseller brand and will continue to do so. We're not moving or switching. Our brand there is tied to them. Just as our main brand here is tied to here.

[iads]

I once tried to build my affiliate base by marketing a domain that I owned, ResellerPanel.com (note the lack of an s). RSP quickly put an end to that. I thought that it was just clever marketing, but I guess it's against the TOS. I liked the idea that when someone followed a link or print ad they might not notice the s, and perceive me as more legitimate and not just another affiliate.

[clivejo]

Do the "other guys" allow you to be reseller for a competing company? I thought their TOS was very restrictive ?

[theLarry]

I once tried to build my affiliate base by marketing a domain that I owned, ResellerPanel.com (note the lack of an s). RSP quickly put an end to that. I thought that it was just clever marketing, but I guess it's against the TOS. I liked the idea that when someone followed a link or print ad they might not notice the s, and perceive me as more legitimate and not just another affiliate.

well, "clever" is one way of looking at that. In that case it was more Trade Mark violation... you're domain contained their's. I've had a couple people taken down that tried that with one of our brands.

[theLarry]

Do the "other guys" allow you to be reseller for a competing company? I thought their TOS was very restrictive ?

Ya, that's not a problem. The crazy thing is we are not really supposed to publicly promote ourselves as "Other Guy Resellers"... yet they leak their $%^#@* links and brand all over our stuff. That's one of the reasons we felt the need to develop an alternate brand over here t begin with.

[iads]

well, "clever" is one way of looking at that. In that case it was more Trade Mark violation... you're domain contained their's. I've had a couple people taken down that tried that with one of our brands.

....but I am affiliated with them....

[theLarry]

....but I am affiliated with them....

that wouldn't matter, they cannot have any sort of brand dilution or people thinking their working directly with RSP when its really you. Try that with any company, web services or not and you'll pretty much get the same result. (love the emoticon!)