On 13-14 October in a cold but sunny Trondheim, CENTR held one of its best-attended Marketing workshops with over 40 participants. The event was kindly hosted by Norid (.no).
The meeting’s agenda expanded over two full days and included many highlights underlining the increased creativity and proactivity of registries dealing with a steady declining growth in domain name registrations.
Participants shared knowledge on various activities they were working on, which included the launch of interactive platforms & studies to help SMEs & different target groups with building their online identities, how to communicate a policy change, promotional activities as well as improved collaboration with registrars. Participants also assessed the need for a better understanding of their markets in the domain name industry, as well as their coexistence (complimentary or not) alongside important social media platforms.
In general, the workshop reflected a refining of techniques to improve domain name sales by collaborating more closely and effectively with registrars, but also by launching direct campaigns and by producing target-specific studies and data to support decision-making. With increased competition on the domain name market, a trend to create more synergies among ccTLD registries can be observed through the setup of cross-registry task forces addressing specific issues or topics, more elaborate registrar-focused events and activities, as well as some diversification in products & services, all with the overall goal of positioning the registries’ role in the market and support efforts to increase domain name registrations.
