How do we make free beer better? A road trip into your soul

At Name.com we’ve been trying to figure out how to maximize our marketing efforts. And that doesn’t just mean increasing the number of domains we can sell, but rather finding out how can we be better members of the tech and local community. People and companies talk about community all of the time … but are they really doing their part to benefit it?

So we’ve been doing these buyouts. For example, we go to Portland Startup Week and buy all the beers for a few hours at the bar. BUT HOW CAN WE MAKE FREE BEER BETTER? That’s a hard thing to do. So on our road trip to Durango, we tried this thing with coffee in Salida, CO. We bought the caffeine (and quiche; Cafe Dawn has brilliant quiche) and, in exchange, we asked people to donate to the nonprofit of choice. And by “choice” we mean the charity that would agree to work with us. Because charities get hit up by for-profits all of the time to be their benevolent facade.

SPOT (Salida-area Parks, Opens space & Trails) was game to partner with us and it worked out quite well. They got some cash to build some more trails, and we got to meet a lot of people who had no idea that Name.com is based right in their backyard.

Then, we went after two more marketing quandaries:

Quandary 1: How does one get more exposure?

The answer is bacon. You probably already knew this, but bacon makes people vulnerable.
Using this psychological profile of the average breakfast-time carnivore, we cut a deal with a local Durango radio station to let us come in and promote Hack the Dot. I provided bacon and they let me go on the air. It was very effective. I was on the air for an almost awkward amount of air time (15 minutes).

Side note: While on the air, we did a trivia contest. The winner had breakfast delivered by us. That place turned out to be an office full of marketing people who just so happened to be interested in a new domain registrar. We didn’t plan this, so it has less to do with strategy and more to do with the power of breakfast burritos.

Quandary 2: How does one become more involved in events?

Beer. You may have already known this, but people like beer. Now this works well for reeling participants in for Hack the Dot (where there’s always an abundance of free beer and pizza), but on this occasion, the power of beer also snagged us a partnership with the Durango Chamber of Commerce. We didn’t have the cash to outright sponsor the event, but we did have the knowhow to offer a free presentation and, afterwards, buy the beverages.

So thanks for the experience, Durango. You can count on us being back.