It seems only a brief time since the last HostingCon in Chicago, but HostingCon 2009 has now arrived. On Saturday I went out to get a jump start on things near the Gaylord Hotel which is the show hotel just outside Washington, D.C. A short shuttle trip takes you into downtown Washington near many of the nation’s monuments and national museums such as the Smithsonian.
In the evening on Saturday I met my first fellow HostingCon attendees at a local piano bar. The owners of UK hosting company 34SP.com – who had traveled to Washington, D.C. from the United Kingdom. and also some friends from SpamExperts – who had also traveled from overseas to attend. We talked a bit and enjoyed a great night of piano playing and fun.
On Sunday I took it easy and eventually decided to register for HostingCon at the now open second floor registration desk. The sign up process was very fast – I completed mine in literally a few minutes. While registering I met Sharon Koifman, who is the president of a consulting company for IT outsourcing and business developer called Empire Consultant. Sharon is a great guy who has been in and around hosting for many years. He presented ”Double Your Revenue without Getting One New Customer” at 9:00 on Day 1 of the conference. The main points that Sharon covered were:
You can have an internal focus and still add revenue – He mentioned a new focus on SEO by creating new keywords. He stated the importance of this by mentioning, ”We all fight over the same keywords”. Mr. Koifman also stressed the power in word of mouth to grow your brand. He suggested that hosts add products that make things interesting for the customers. The idea of asking questions and then listening to your customers was recurrent throughout the presentation.
The second session I attended in the morning was on ”Cost Cutting Strategies for Web Hosts” presented by Sojish Krishman with Bobcares. Mr. Krishman honed in on getting the most efficiency out of your support staff. Mr. Krishman is a member of the Executive Team at Bobcares.
HostingCon is continuing over the next few days. The show schedule calls for speakers and exhibits from today Monday August 10, 2009 through Wednesday August 12, 2009. According to show organizers there are currently over 1,200 attendees registered this year – a 10 percent increase over last year. The exhibit hall is scheduled to open tomorrow and according to show organizer Troy Augustine, CEO at iNET Interactive, the exhibit hall floor space is completely sold out. That speaks to the power of the web hosting model even in a down economy.
Various parties and activities are slated throughout the event. You can visit the official HostingCon website for updates at: www.hostingcon.com.
About Derek Vaughan
Derek Vaughan has been actively marketing on the Internet since 1995. His extensive online marketing experience includes the online direct marketing of books for $300 million per year NYSE traded book publisher Thomas Nelson. Mr. Vaughan also marketed products online at the Walt Disney Company as the online marketing manager of ecommerce for ESPN.com. He was also the marketing manager for the launch of the NASCAR Online Store in October of 1999.
More recently Mr. Vaughan turned his attention to online marketing for the Affinity Internet, Inc. family of companies - which owns a broad portfolio of web hosting brands. Additionally, Mr. Vaughan served as Vice President of Marketing for Aplus.Net and helped them establish a strong position in the web hosting field. Derek has also serverd as the VP of Marketing at HostMySite.com.
Derek Vaughan holds undergraduate degrees from both Indiana University and Purdue University, and has earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the Owen School at Vanderbilt University.
Through his theWHIR blog, Derek will touch upon online marketing in the Web hosting space, web hosting events and industry trends.
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