As a leader in the domain name registration industry, Xinnet formally ushered in its 12th anniversary in 2013 and launched a series of celebration events for the anniversary. One of the key events is the special offer activity that sold the .cc domain at an unprecedented price of RMB 28 /year. Many users are immersed in the joy seeing .cc finally abandoned the “high, rich and handsome” packaging, and began to approach the “grass roots”. They seize time by the forelock to make big fortunes in the ocean of domain names. However, aside from excitement, let us take a look at the sources to the quick popularization of the .cc domain name from a macro perspective. As we know that many insightful industrial insiders have gradually taken the marketing road of Xinnet, being full of admiration for it.

I. Discount promotion: to pave the way for the mass

In the past, .cc was too expensive for the mass, which was its most prominent feature. Although the market is increasingly proving that .cc has huge potentials to explore, RMB 400-500 /year price still prohibitive to people. It is definitely not wise to shelve a product if you want to have it accepted by the mass. How to improve the market share of .cc domain names? Xinnet turned out to be a blockbuster, and adopted the discount promotion strategy – selling .cc domain names at an unprecedented price of RMB 28 /year. Learning about this good news, many users who used to be interested in it but was reluctant to buy it exulted, because it means that they can take home their favorite premium domain names simply at the cost of a meal at KFC. It is no exaggeration to name it an unprecedented heavyweight big event in history.

As we all know that inexpensive things always have a strong force to stimulate consumptions. Under the guidance of market economy, product homogeneity leads to price wars in market competitions, and the price war is an inevitable phenomenon in a mature market economy. While counterparts are blindly raising the prices of .cc domain names due to costs and other considerations, Xinnet made a miraculous move and launched the price reduction campaign, quickly catching the market’s attention with a price of RMB 28 /year which is almost equivalent to a free offer. It is indeed a remarkable undertaking.

II. The new model: creativity is the first productive

In marketing, as the primary productive force, creative ideas are always the dearest. They are expensive because not everyone can reach them. It takes great efforts to make ingenious design and planning, in order to make the product attractive to the audience. This is where creative ideas are distinguished from the ordinary bombing advertisements, as they can pierce into the “heart” of people once the move is made. Of course, creative ideas are very cheap. Compared with the costs of media publications, an idea or a few ideas are much cheaper, but as long as they can function properly, the effect is never to be underestimated.

Looking back at the whole process of the preferential delivery of .cc domain names, we find that before the start of the campaign, Xinnet had entered the stage of early warm-up, including the introduction of the slogan “unprecedented in the history of the Internet worldwide”, which has successfully tempted the appetite of the outside world. It provoked people’s curiosity: what on earth is the big event? What kind of surprises Xinnet will bring to users on the occasion of their 20th anniversary? Just when such a curiosity was getting more and more inflated, they officially announced that the .cc domain names that used to cost dear would actually be sold at a discount of 300%. This will naturally generate a huge effect, and quickly set up barriers to competitions. It is far more interesting and powerful than the straightforward declaration like “.cc price goes down”. In addition, as Volkswagen CC cars are at the peak time of hot sales worldwide, it is more appropriate than ever to take advantage of their influence power and launch the homonym “.cc” domain name campaign, which also makes it easier to push open the door of the market.

Let’s look at a few successful examples of marketing. The brand culture of Haier which is now being sold worldwide started from Zhang Ruimin smashing a refrigerator, and founder of Aokang, Wang Zhentao, burned counterfeited shoes at Wulin Square in Hangzhou; both were out of the smart strategic planning. The original and creative branding planning paved an avenue towards success. Today, if you do not have enough strength yet to place ads on TV, or if your products are not suitable for being advertised on TV, why not learn from Xinnet, and gear your focus of attention to creativity?

III. Weibo marketing: from product enhancement to branding

What is most noteworthy of mentioning is that another important element – weibo has also been incorporated in the creative marketing of Xinnet. Centered on the warm-up and promotion of the campaign, Xinnet launched a series of fresh and interesting “wei” activities on its official weibo:

“The 1000th successfully registered new order at the price of RMB 28 will be directly offered a Zhijie G5 virtual machine with a service period of five years, and the 2000th will receive the same gift but with four-year service, and pro rata. The 5000th will be offered with the machine with 1 year service. Users can choose the operating systems, databases, etc. as they wish.

“If you add @Xinnet and forward it to three friends, click on the “lucky draw” page to win a limited edition of the Xbox360 war machine”.

These communication ways are out of doubt unprecedented in the industry of the industry, which are very refreshing and eye-catching. In the meantime, the attraction of prizes for forwarding the weibo content and other feedbacks has strengthened the power of advertising and enhanced brand awareness.

Up to now, the number of forwards of the weibo about gift offers has reached 611,320, breaking the 600,000 mark, and the comments have hit 386,357. The enthusiasm of net-friends in participating in the activity is amazing.

And in the timely replies and earnest and active communications, as representatives of the company, Xinnet’s staff has established a good image of high efficiency and courtesy in users’ mind. This kind of operation is more important and more profound than the sales of products at separated times. It indicates how wide and how far a company can go.

According to statistics, 71.7% out of China's online community users are using weibo. With such a high popularity, weibo is naturally a battleground of marketing. Weibo-marketing has become a new idea for B2C operators to broaden the market; however, the number of people who have put it into practice and achieved actual successes is limited. The ample reward reaped by Xinnet in this small scale test proves that such a marketing model is worthy of learning and long-term investments.

In brief, while exploring new ways of marketing, Xinnet has also verified an important thing for us – the significance of weibo marketing goes beyond providing a new marketing channel; it is rather a foreshadowing for the profitability of a brand.