Marketing Experts Reveal Top Strategies To

Welcome to the e-commerce marketing podcast everyone. I am your host Arlen Robinson and today. I’m very excited. We have a very special guest with us Shreeja Jamdar who is the senior marketing specialist at .STORE domains which is a new domain extension created specifically for retail and e-commerce with the retail industry moving online getting the perfect short domain name for your business has become very important and that is a huge challenge today.

Give. Most good domains on a are already taken that store gives you a powerful alternative a short Innovative name that also Associates your site with retail and e-commerce store is managed by Radix a domain registry that owns eight other extensions and has over 2 million domains under its management.

Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? Thank you so much. That was a vain. Introduction and I’m doing very well. How are you doing? I’m doing great. We like to definitely welcome you on the podcast and thank you for joining us. And you know for people that don’t are familiar with that store and a little bit about what you guys do.

Why don’t you first I guess tell me a little bit about your background how you got. Into doing what you’re doing is with regards to marketing for that store and the Radix company and where you are today, you know, it’s funny that you mentioned in let that people knew about dot store and that’s exactly where I was when I took up this job.

I mean I had no idea about. Domains and new domain extensions. I mean they want really a thing that you think about actively right. I mean we’re so used to the internet that we just kind of everything into Google, you know, click on the first thing that comes up or you know you in times of unfortunate circumstances you go to the second or third page.

I mean, you don’t really look at the domain name. So that was actually something that really intrigued me when I got this job. So before Radix, I was working with uh, two other top tech companies in India, and it was doing. Sales marketing for them and uh what really drew me to Radix was the fact that this was literally something that was changing the face of the internet, right?

I mean before this we only had your regular extensions like.com. Too many options out there in the market and I hadn’t really thought about it. But when I got the call from the HR, I was like hey, this is actually something that’s pretty cool, you know and you know in in a few years maybe this will actually take off and we won’t be at this stage.

We’re like, oh, what’s the dog store? What’s the dot Tech? Is that really legit? Trying to scam me know? Yeah. I mean definitely right. I mean, I mean, I’ve had people asking me at. Those are you guys shit kind of made it to an expo legit. Yeah, so I mean to give you a little brief. I mean you already spoke about Radix and about direct time.

So I’ll just give you a brief into how we came into the domain industry. There’s not a lot of players in the market right now. And Radix is actually the fourth largest domain the new new domain portfolio registry in the world with two and half million domains. It’s all been going and apparent company actually goes way back, you know.

18 years ago. So in 2001 actually director, which is the parent company it became the first company in India to get an icon a Krypton. So what is I can write I can is the governing body that basically governs the entire internet namespace and you switch to 2012. That’s when we launched radek. Uh, this is actually when I can decided that they open up new domain extensions.

So that’s actually what we call it like the technical term for your or your whatever comes after The Dot is a domain extension. Uh, that’s when I can invite it to launch these and Radix apply to a bunch of them. I think reply to. 20 of them or 30 of them. Okay, uh, we got the rights to operate nine the way to get these domains is through an application and if there’s more than one applicant you get you have to option.

So we basically one nine two Mains and one that brings me to you. Arlen is dot store which as you said is created for e-commerce and Retail so that story so far. Okay, great. Well, that sounds awesome. And I think the whole opening up of the registry. Or other extensions was really timely like you said, it happened in about 2012 and you know, as most business owners can attest to his what I mentioned in the intro is that it can be a struggle finding the right because you know some of the good no Mains are taken and I mean we experience that internally here when we’re looking to with Omni star when we are looking to launch a new Venture a new website or.

Put something else out there. It’s it’s quite difficult. And you know, one of the things that I know a lot of businesses deal with is with the limitations of just the you know, you kind of limited and you don’t want to have something that’s too similar to another company. So that’s that’s a struggle.

I know a lot of businesses struggle with so I think these new extensions are really a great idea and that really I believe in a catch on. You know and spread a lot more than they have so far because uh, yeah, it’s really really very timely so, you know, since most of my listeners and our listeners here today that listen to the podcasts are always looking for ways in which to improve their e-commerce business or interested in different Ecommerce marketing strategies.

How would you say an e-commerce business can really benefit from these new domains, you know, they probably seen them they’ve heard the. You know the intro but they’re not quite sure how it can fit into their business. What would you say so, you know, it’s funny that you mention, you know that it’s being difficult to find the domain name since we’ve been in the industry for so long.

We’ve done a bunch of research and we’ve actually found that 65% of the time domain name check availability, which is you know, you basically enter domain name fails because it’s unavailable, you know, it’s 65 percent of the time and that’s a very very high percentage as you rightly mentioned, you know.

These you domain things open up a new opportunity and really happy to be able to give businesses that opportunity because you know, you see a lot of people going with really clunky domain names, um domain names and just not memorable that I just not they aren’t really brandable as well. And businesses have to go with them because until now we only had we had the country code TLD, uh, which is like a or you know back where we are from.

So let’s just I’ll just tell you a bit about how basically these new domains can can can really have businesses with their branding and with their wins ability online it down to really what a domain name is, right? Okay, so it’s basic. It’s very cool. You remove all the Frills. It’s your internet address, right?

I mean, it’s. People find you online, you know, you tell me I can come down two blocks out. I mean, I’m not sure how addresses work in the States, but I’m guessing I’ve heard a lot of blocks in movies. So everything is really down to the block. Yeah go down. It’s the same throughout the u.s.

Everything is done on a block. That’s correct. Yeah, so like fifth grade 2nd Vlog I’m guessing that’s what your address is. And you know, I’m going to have a really clunky address. No one’s going to really remember. Right, right the best addresses at least back in Bombay as well or where you know, really the fancy names are and that’s what a domain name also does domain name is your first brand touch point, you know is how your customers find you it’s what you display on.

And on your links on on your display bar. That’s the first brand touch point, which is what brings me to the first benefit that domains give you new domains give you which is branding now traditionally you would have had to include the word store or you have had to include the word. Let’s say in your domain name to help people understand what you’re doing, but you domain name.

You don’t have to do that. Uh, so for example, I’ll give you a real example, right and it is a pretty famous Airline and what they had Emirates right now without a dog still remain name. What they could have done was they could have done the amulet store.com or they could have done Emirates or stored or the America.

It’s just pretty long and pretty clunky as far as Snappy as an ambulance tour, which is what the. We actually uses right now. Okay, it really helps with creating an online brand with establishing the fact that this website deals with online shopping, but brings me to my second point which is that a store remain name would basically tell people that.

You know, you’re shopping online on the other hand a domain name like a press for example would immediately convey that this website has to do with journalism say in the you also have a lot of country for location-based tlds. Like we have dot London. We have the Melbourne we have dot NYC and these really helped with telling your customers buy your based out of for example, I mean, you know, let’s talk with say amazing rights the same Macy’s has a dog and they see that NYC is one of the.

Online markets and just go ahead and get a Macy’s Snappy. It’s it’s pretty direct. It’s relevant and it makes a lot of sense. So it really associate. I think these new domains would really help is to associate your website with what you’re doing. Right, right. Yeah. You were saying something. Yeah.

So the. Those are great benefits. I can definitely see how it can really when somebody sees that dot store domain. If you’re an e-commerce business it puts you in that mind frame and you know, okay. This is a store dealing with e-commerce. So yeah, I can definitely see how a brand associating with it can be, you know beneficial to them in many ways.

What do you think are? Innovative ways that a business can actually promote with these types of domains with regards to you know, like some of the other advertising because I would imagine it’s still is gonna because we’re still kind of in the early days of these new extensions. I believe there’s still a little bit of Education process.

So people are you know, like you said don’t see it and think okay. Is this really the correct domain? What are some innovative ways that a company can get the word out? And kind of expressed that okay, this is us. This is our new branding domain would have you experienced dealing with companies superdogs the biggest use case which we actually did not anticipate when we launched was we seeing a lot.

Companies a lot of influence a lot of celebrities actually use the domain to separate their main website from their storefront. So for instance you have I don’t know if you follow YouTube Arlen, but that these famous influences called dude, perfect. And uh, they have their online. A site on dude perfect.

And we have a store on Dude Perfect store. Okay fact, in fact, you know, this just happened today Arlen. We know Swedish House Mafia, right? I mean the music trial. Yes. I’m familiar with them. Yes, so they actually just I mean we just saw this today and we were pretty excited in the team. They just started promoting 0-3 store which is basically the date of the Union.

Oh 25th. Yeah, and they are very promoting that on social media as. You know the union date and they’re selling the merchandise on that on that domain name. Okay. So that’s one of the ways in which we think major brands use it right the second way. We seeing brands use it is to own a category. This is one of the innovative ways that we I personally like a lot so, you know, okay for example, right if you go with okay, I’ll just give you a real example, right We Know Better Homes and Gardens and that’s from the Meredith house right with the I’m actually done is that they’ve taken of the domain name magazine?

And that is like a central online store for all the magazines and you can get all all magazines from the mirror cooperation on that one website. So when they generally do essentially doing is that they’re owning the fact that they sell magazines. So tomorrow when you search for magazine, very buying online magazine should turn up right on top and we see a lot of Premium domain names in the industry.

We call these premium names because they’re so generic and they apply to a lot of. So we’ve seen a lot of these taken up to for example, we had a hoodie Tecna. We had a t-shirt stocks or taken up some of the examples that you know web browsers can use them to own a category. In fact, you know, you can you know, I’m just thinking about the top of my head right now.

You could possibly even by a Black Friday store and you know have your Black Friday sales on that particular domain name. Yeah. Yeah, right. That’s definitely a good idea. Yeah, I see what you’re saying. Well, you can actually a company or brand can can really almost like you said own an entire category.

So when these extensions are more widely used than yeah, it can be very powerful. I definitely see that. Yeah, you know now this line be some know, you know, I know that premium domain names are pretty expensive and maybe not everyone will want to buy these. So I do have one use case which I think would apply to your audience.

So I’m guessing that a number of you know, you guys are listening. You know, you probably already have your domain name or you want to really get a DOT and you just you know, maybe you’re not convinced but you’re open to the idea of using a DOT store. So one way we’re seeing a lot of uptake is actually in branded links.

So what is the Branded link? Right so it’s basically for example you get your own domain name on a or but you. Different domain name which is like a DOT store. For example, let’s let’s take a nail. Let’s see Arlen Arlen. What do you like to do? You like shoes Arnon I do. Okay. So let’s say only gets his own in shoes.

You trying to promote a particular product page? Okay. So you’re trying to promote Arlen shoes. Calm new collection, you know, like moccasins and a way to use Brandon links is to basically just do Arlen shoes Okay, and then you have moccasins. So it’s pretty similar to how you you know, how you use bit Brian.

Yeah, sorry and uh, we’re actually seeing a lot of companies use branded links to promote their new products or to promote a new promotion that they’re carrying on or even to even promote. Especially Groupon or for particular product page. So I think that is relevant use case for someone that’s that wants to just dip their toes in to the new domain industry.

Yeah, that’s that’s definitely for sure. I can see how especially even I was just thinking, you know for print advertising because with these new DOT store domains, you have the flexibility of being able to do things that are lot shorter because there’s more availability, you know, you don’t have to add a bunch of other words onto the domain name, too.

You know to find one that’s that not already registered so for like a print ad or even for a radio ad if you have something short, like you mentioned the example of the Swedish House Mafia where they their domain is there the date of their Union and you know, that’s something catchy where if you saw that and let’s say a print ad it was something that was stand out and so yeah, I can definitely see that being very powerful for business and it’s a great way to kind of innovative least and out.

From other brands that totally totally makes sense. Yeah, you know, in fact Arlen mentioned print ads and I was seeing I was doing some research on domain names right when I joined Radix and I actually saw that in I think last year’s NBA I think yeah, I think it was last year’s NBA to me. A lot of friends were actually using domain name.

Or hashtags to promote themselves. So basically they were using Snappy domain names to ensure that you know if the seeing um, oh wait, I think it was in the Super Bowl. Yes think it was and to ensure that people that are seen the ad don’t just see the hashtag but know where to find the product right?

So we’re actually seeing this interesting shift in the industry where domain names are now being used as a marketing tool and I think that your new domain specifically can be really really helpful here. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I think the main thing is all of these different forms of media and advertising are they’re kind of merging and I specifically if you were talkin about the Super Bowl commercials in the ads and the Super Bowl what a lot of these companies realize is that these days, you know, everybody of course has a smartphone I think the statistics show that when people are watching TV and even especially a live event nine times out of 10.

They have a smart phone in their hand or within like a two feet distance from them. And so we should see different commercials, you know, they may own out because the game is not playing and then you know, they’ll catch a little bit of a commercial but they’re probably on social media Facebook Twitter.

Maybe they’re on the web. And so that’s how they understand that people are you know in a way multitasking where they’ve got either a laptop or a mobile device with them or nearby? So it’s very important to have that company’s domain branding apparent In Those ads so, you know, someone wants to take.

Except find out more about the company or purchaser products. They can easily do that and get to it quickly, you know with a short domain. Yes exactly that and so with companies that are looking to you know, get into the space and register some domains, you know, are there some general best practices?

I think other than I know one of the big things right now like you said would be a replacement for let’s say, you know, a lot of companies you’ll go to their main website and they’ll go. To get to the store Pages. It’ll be like forward slash store /op is a I guess a good starting point just doing something like just their domain store and just putting their entire store on that domain rather than doing the forward slash store or shop and there any other best practices other than that?

So in terms of picking your domains, we generally have like a rule of three and we you keep the domain name short as possible don’t include any hyphens or unnecessary characters be make it as descriptive as possible. So I know it’s really fun to have like a, you know, your brand name in the domain name and it could be something really random like Loop like I don’t know what Loop is, but I’m just interested the first word that came to my head.

So you have a loop and it can be anything but. A descriptive domain name really helps with your branding also heads with your SEO. It would be to basically keep it very memorable and Brandenburg something that can easily slip off the tongue of people easy to ride easy to speak can use it on print ads you can use it on your on display as so that’s what we try to generally tell people when they’re buying a new domain name.

Okay. Gotcha. That’s great advice for a company that you know is interested in trying this out for the first time. So, you know if you could give one final. Piece of advice shree to an e-commerce business that is considering using these domains that would it be so give you a state of the industry right now Arlen, there’s actually 1200 domain that are available and I understand that it could be a little, you know overwhelming for a new business, uh to kind of try and grab.

All the domains are they have related their name? Because hey, let’s prevent cyber squatting. Let’s prevent cyber, you know any sort of brand jacking about, you know, I want to know I want companies to realize that domain names are new, you know, their subscription based service. You have to keep paying for them every year, uh-uh.

It’s also a lot of management. So I think my biggest advice three commas businesses would be to buy the extensions that matter right? So, you know, it’s perfectly. Okay, you don’t get. The extensions but only get the ones that matter the green that you can really use in your marketing and your branding, uh, the ones that have the highest chances for uh cybersquatting or brand jacking.

Okay? I think that would be my final advice. Okay, and I just wanted to add on that. I know what I realize. I did not speak of one very important aspect, you know, they’re to domain names that we get a lot of people asking us, which is SEO. How does this you know, how does this new domain effect?

Yo, because. You know, they pretty unconcerned about it affecting them. Negatively. Yes, so, you know Google actually had put out a Blog long time ago, I think back in 2012 or 2013 telling people expressly that new domains will be treated the same exact way as a traditional domain would so in terms of search engine rankings or your indexing a new domain is not at all going to harm you when comes to your rankings.

In fact, we had this there was this contest that. The website builder had launched a while ago. It was the SEO hero challenge where the invited participants’ to create a website that was optimized for the words SEO hero. Okay, and the winner was basically decided basis, I think a full month period and the winner was actually on a dog tag domain name.

It was SEO. – Hiro and that had the highest SE of all the entries so I think I hope that that helped, uh budding e-commerce, uh, entrepreneurs kind of, you know, just their fears when it comes to make sure I’m glad you mentioned that I was thinking about that as well myself. I was I I really didn’t know how Google treats these and you know, it makes sense.

It’s just a domain just like any others so, you know really wouldn’t make sense since for them to treat it any differently. But yeah, it’s a good. Concern because I know many businesses out there wondering the same same thing, you know, is it going to hurt them negative leaves or anything?

Especially they need to do with regards to SEO. But you answer that quite well and one thing that you did mention and I don’t really realize that you said there’s 1200 domain extensions possible extensions that you could get. Is that correct? Yes that with us though. I think could have increased or decreased.

Wow, that’s hot. So yeah, you can’t pass. I mean, I guess you could get all of them, but it’s not necessarily necessary to actually get all of the extensions for your domain. I’m sure most of those would just be sitting on you exactly so it doesn’t make sense basic sensitive just focus on those ones that are important to your business.

Well, I definitely appreciate you joining us here on the e-commerce marketing podcast your Insight. Information regarding these new domains specifically the dot store domains is very insightful and I would urge our our audience to to take advantage of these new opportunity of weight in a way to Innovative brand their business with this because I can see that things are definitely going towards these new extensions.

So if our audience wants to get in touch with you, how do they reach you reach out to me if my person my work address you can reach out to me at which is. HR W EG ad Radix radx and I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have or you can just read us and we’ll get back to you can find this at get dot store on Twitter and should be able to help you out.

Okay, that sounds awesome. Well, thanks again for joining us today. You have a great rest of your day. And we appreciate all of your Insight. Thank you so much. Linda had such a great time and I really hope that my insights. Head for dear audience. Most definitely take care of thank you. Thank you for listening to the Commerce marketing podcast to access eCommerce videos and other resources to help your business.

Grow. Please visit get forward slash videos subscribe to us on iTunes by searching for e-commerce marketing podcast, and please leave a rating and a review. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

Podcast Guest Info

Shreeja Jamdar
Senior Marketing Specialist at .STORE Domains