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SingleHop Featured on Technorati.com

November 17th, 2011 by Kevin Swan in Announcements, Poindexter in the Press, Social Media | No Comments

I recently had the chance, while at BlogWorld Expo, to sit down with a writer from Technorati. His pen name, Just para-DOX (He’s writer and music producer, which explains the unique name). As a huge follower of Technorati, I was thrilled to talk about all things SingleHop. His first question though, caught me way off guard, “So, you guys make beer?” I almost fell off my chair as his delivery was completely deadpanned. He was thankfully kidding. Funny enough though, I do get a lot of Google News alerts for SingleHop that are beer related.

To read the article click HERE

-Kevin

Crowdsourcing & API Development

November 15th, 2011 by Kevin Swan in Announcements, Events, Social Media, Solutions | No Comments

We recently attended BlogWorld Expo in LA, where we experienced all things Social Media! Please check out the video to get a glimpse into the future of crowdsourcing and API development in web hosting solutions.

The Crowdsource Marketplace is one of the most unique features of LEAP3.

The Importance of Crowdsourcing and API Development

SingleHop at BlogWorld Expo

November 6th, 2011 by Kevin Swan in Announcements, Events, Social Media | Comments(1)

As we continue to grow, so does our event calendar!

This was our first time attending BlogWorld Expo but I’m sure it will not be our last! The entire conference was social media driven – blogs, vlogs, podcasting, tweeting, you name it and it was discussed! It was a very unique event in that it was not industry specific like HostingCon or cPanel’s Bootcamp. The list of exhibiters ranged from mom-and-pop shops to huge companies like Ford and Southwest Airlines.

The best part of working our booth was being able to educate attendees on not just SingleHop but the world of dedicated web hosting. Explaining that once their blog becomes more robust in size and functionality it is time to leave the world of shared hosting and come our way!

We definitely received the questions “when do I know when it’s time to make the move” a lot throughout the event. The response usually something along the lines of “there is not magic point of traffic” that constitutes a time to change. There are far too many variables.

Is your site just a blog?
What the traffic?
Do you have a database(s) or a shopping cart?
How fast do you plan to grow?

This is why we suggest prospective clients work with our hosting consultants to find the best solution for your business.

Oh, I forgot to mention we were also able to give sneak peaks of LEAP³, which will be released tomorrow at Cloud Expo!

Advertising vs. Marketing: Solidifying Your Message

October 10th, 2011 by Dan Ushman in Industry Insights, SingleHop Leadership, Social Media | Comments(1)

Hello again!

In my last blog, I did my best to clear up the initial confusion between the terms advertising and marketing, and this time around I’d like to dive a bit deeper into how the two relate to each other.

Believe it or not, marketing often starts with operations and service. It involves spending a lot of intimate time looking at your products and services in context of your competition. What benefits do you offer? What advantages do you have? How are you different? Finding these points of differentiation is key to being able to execute an effective marketing campaign, and yes, advertising.

So what do we do at SingleHop? We look at our website, our products, our control panel, and our personality as key marketing points. If we didn’t embark on the process of inward reflection before going out to the marketplace, we would not understand what makes us different and thus our messaging would be boring. In other words, it would be lost in the crowd.

Our key differentiation point is our LEAP platform and how it automates all aspects of deployment, management, and maintenance for dedicated servers and cloud computing instances. We focus on our original strengths, priding ourselves on the knowledge that LEAP can be accessed from any device, and that we focus on speedy, timely operations. Every customer interacts with the same group of staff members and never ends up dealing with outsourced support. For us, marketing means a.) identifying the differences between us and our competitors, and b.) using every means possible, including paid advertising, to promote these differences. This self-awareness is the often missing link for many businesses.

Lets be real for a minute here. How many web hosting providers have you seen that advertise the same boring points? For example: “We have 24×7 support and 99.9999% uptime!!” Yes, SingleHop also offer these things, but we don’t make them our primary marketing tool. We wanted to go against the grain. Customers should (and do!) demand these things, so they are no longer selling points, but prerequisites to do business in the first place.

So make no mistake about it: poorly executed campaigns, or companies who buy advertising and think that it is marketing, without doing the early leg work, will be lost in the crowd and will not get good results. After you figure out what exactly is different or better about your firm, then you can design a campaign around it.

The moral of the story? Don’t buy advertising until you’ve thought through your messaging and crafted a marketing campaign that is right for you. Don’t settle on something that doesn’t feel right. Really think about what makes you different before crafting a marketing campaign. It’s all about differentiation in the end.

In my next blog, I’ll talk about designing campaigns and how you can use your messaging to your best advantage!

Dan

Co-Founder & CMO

Advertising vs. Marketing: The Nitty Gritty

October 6th, 2011 by Dan Ushman in Industry Insights, SingleHop Leadership, Social Media | Comments(2)

One of the biggest mistakes many companies make is confusing the terms advertising and marketing and assuming that they are interchangeable. Though they are practically cousins, they do have their own individual meanings and uses.

I know many people do comprehend the difference between those terms, but on online forums like Web Hosting Talk I see a lot of misunderstanding. And I often see post after post of people asking some form of “How do I advertise my business?” So with this first blog in a new series on advertising and marking, I’d love to clear up some of the misconceptions between those two terms, and offer some initial insight on how to take advantage of them!

Dan’s Guru Statement of the Day:

All advertising is marketing, but not all marketing is advertising.

Essentially, marketing campaigns will often involve some component of advertising, but is more than just pasting your company logo and special offers across every billboard, banner ad, and teddy bear t-shirt you can get your hands on. Advertising is an attractive way to do get your name out there, but marketing definitely has some sub-layers beyond shouting the name of your business from the highest mountaintops. (I’ve tried it. It’s exhausting, and incredibly cold up there.)

So! Let’s break down the definitions, shall we?

Advertising is when you place or purchase ads on websites, newspapers, the radio, or any other medium, to promote a product or service.

Marketing is crafting a message, crafting a campaign, and the underlying reasons why someone should pay attention. Then, executing it on all levels of your organization (not just advertising, but service, quality control, etc.) It’s all got to line up.

Think of it this way: if advertising is the sugary frosting, then marketing is the delicious cake underneath. Without a strong marketing foundation, all you have is something that “tastes” good, but it isn’t going to have much lasting value.

Advertising can be very skin deep, so marketing always has to be rooted into your business on all its levels. Anyone can buy advertising, design a banner ad, and pay someone to put it online or to print it on their newspaper or read it on their radio show. But all of these spends will be wasted if the messaging in the advertisements is not in-line with an overall marketing campaign. On top of that, it has to relate to the company culture, vision and direction. If your company’s website does not carry the same message that your ad carries, you will not generate tangible, accurate results.

So, basically, the first step to advertising is putting together a solid marketing campaign that truly represents your company’s ins and outs. Once you have that down, you’re free to put your name out there and advertise like crazy! Simple as that.

In my next blog post I’ll talk a bit more about online marketing campaigns and give you a glimpse into how we initially crafted our SingleHop campaign.

Dan Ushman

Co-Founder & CMO

SingleHop to Attend cPanel’s Bootcamp

October 3rd, 2011 by Kevin Swan in Events, Social Media | No Comments

Everything is bigger in Texas, right? Well if that’ the case, this year’s Bootcamp is going to be huge!

A number of SingleHoppers will be in Austin next week for cPanel’s annual conference. If you or your company is attending, please let us know. We would love to connect. This event is always a great mix of education, networking, and a good time too!

http://bootcamp.cpanel.net/

Make sure you check back tomorrow as our CEO, Zak Boca is kicking off an executive blog series!

Interview with SingleHop CEO at the Inc 500 Conference

September 26th, 2011 by Kevin Swan in Announcements, Poindexter in the Press, Social Media | Comments(1)

An insightful video of our CEO Zak Boca at the Inc. 500 Conference

Click Here

SingleHop in San Francisco

September 12th, 2011 by Kevin Swan in Announcements, Events, Social Media | No Comments

Day One:

We hosted a very impromptu happy hour for our bay area clients on Thursday evening at a great craft beer spot, 21^st Amendment in San Francisco. We have never been shy about our love for locally made brews, so this was a perfect place to meet our clients face-to-face.

After we settled in, I noticed a young guy looking around the bar for a while, checking his phone for details. It was very clear he was there to meet someone he didn’t know who. Me, being the nice guy that I am, hopped up and asked him if he was here for the SingleHop event.

“Oh yeah,” he said. He seemed relieved as he pulled up a chair and took a seat. We got him a beer and did some introductions so he could meet the team. It was a great start to the night, until we started talking about our company. A confused fog rolled over his eyes.

“Wait, who are you guys?”

“We are SingleHop, the fastest growing company in Chicago.” (We didn’t really say that last part) We could all tell at this point our newly found client was not a client at all. We all got a kick out of it and he got a free beer out of it. He was actually there for another tech company gathering – only in San Francisco folks.

After our faux-client left, we did get the chance to hang out with an actual client, Jeremy Robin of Hitpost.com. A former Chicagoan, sporting a Cubs hat, he is the founder of a killer sports oriented photo-sharing app. Check it out!

In an industry where IM and phone calls rule the world, it was great to be in the same room with a client. We covered everything from tech specs to the importance of continuity within a brand.

Dan Ushman, one of our co-founders, made the trip and loves the startup vibe, so these kinds of interactions really get his blood racing. He was literally bouncing off his bar stool talking about the importance of bootstrapping from the beginning.

Day Two:

Still feeling the startup love from the night before, we arrived at AT&T Field Thursday afternoon for The Pitch Event. It was 7 hours of nonstop pitching, but not of the baseball variety. Startups from around the world, over 90 in total, had their products/services/apps on display for all 2000 attendees to see!

We were not there pitching as much as we were there listening. As principle sponsor of the event, we had great exposure throughout the entire venue. I will admit to being a little weary of having an event at a baseball field, but it was perfect!

The mix of attendees was eclectic to say the least. There were VCs, Googlers, developers, a fairy (I’m not kidding), lawyers, doctors, and even a seal (See Giants Mascot).

“So what do you guys do?” was a question fired our way all afternoon. It was so refreshing to be able to speak about SingleHop to an audience we love to be around. As we continue to grow and expand westbound, I know that “Who are you guys?” is going to turn into “We love you guys!”

Pics and videos soon to follow on Facebook and Pitch

Adrienne Wicklund

Account Consultant

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