Love Dreamhost, but you can't be serious - you offer a GREAT birthday special like that but your loyal customers can't apply? I would love to move yabber.org over to a plan like that with SSL etc. Any other specials coming up for existing clients…?
Thanks for the link… I didn't think to check the off-topic forum… Grumble… Just have to wait I guess.
The pricing will always remain in effect; the disclaimer just means that we can end the promotion itself early.
Unfortunately, it seems to be a common thing for Marketing Types to concoct schemes that penalize loyal customers in favor of newbies, on the grounds that the loyal customers are already a captive audience and don't need to be given anything special.
This is also being discussed here, in case anyone missed it. That might be the same as the 'short link' that was already posted, but for some reason that site didn't come up for me.
Well, technically I'm not in Marketing any longer (a while back I moved into Support, but the way things work here I still have some input on Marketing endeavors).
While I have some slight reservations in the way this was presented (ie. perhaps we shouldn't have linked this to our birthday), I think I can shed some light on the thinking that went on prior to the sale.
This wasn't just a promotion, it was a test. There was a decision to push the limits (and PUSH we did!) on what we can offer and see if it would still be profitable in the longer term. Once we have a good idea what will result from this, we'll use that knowledge in deciding how to forge our future plans.
We're a little insane at times, but we're not stupid. To have extended this to all of our existing customers without a 100% firm grasp of what would have resulted could have jeopardized our company and put us out of business if the bet didn't pay off. It made much more sense to "test the waters" in as extreme a way as we could and take only a nominal hit if our expectations were off the mark.
So far, so good. While I can't guarantee that we'll be able to match the same level that this promotion offered (honestly, that seems unlikely), we're not going to rest on our laurels and keep our current plans as they are forever.
captive audience and don't need to be given anything special.
I do think that you're a bit off the mark, though. It was us Marketing Types who have consistently made new plans available to existing customers at current rates every time we upgrade - often simply adding those benefits to everyone's (current, price-frozen) plan for free without them even having to ask.
We're also responsible for our customer-friendly "Price Freeze Pledge", "30 Day Money Back Refund", and "No Upgrade Fee" policies. We're usually the ones who have pushed Admin to add features asked for by current customers, we are the ones who participate in this forum when we're not required to do so, and we try to right any wrongs done by our company in the normal day to day operation of our business. We're also responsible for making it so that people can cash out their DH Rewards, which provides absolutely no business benefit to our company other than our current customers seem to like the option. When I was still in Marketing, we were also pretty much solely responsible for this forum even existing, which (I think) most companies would be very hesitant about offering as most prefer to keep communication going in one direction.
Also, there is nothing captive about our audience. People can and do leave us on a day-to-day basis, and customer retention is something that we take very seriously. This is a very competitive business that we're in, and to say that we don't care about our current customers is very inaccurate. We do almost no advertising whatsoever, and over half of our sign-ups come from referrals from existing customers. I believe there's a reason for this, and it's not just DH Rewards.
Yes, in hindsight I'd have liked to see us do things a little differently. Maybe adjusted what we offered a little bit, and possibly not have linked this to our 6 year birthday (making it a "regular" sale).
However, we can't just sit still and not do anything proactive to grow our business, and to do anything substantial in that way requires some market research. Sometimes, the only way to get that kind of valuable information is to run a sale for new customers and see what happens.
Far from it - Josh  is the mad genius behind this… and given that the promotion was successful (in terms of signups), I imagine we'll be seeing some other changes to existing plans in the future.
 One of the 4 honchos.
The $80/mo plan (Strictly Business) for $10/mo (3 days only) & for new customers only.
Well, I've been lurking, but things have been pretty busy over the last month. I'll try to be a bit more active, though.
No new guys in Marketing, just movement of myself and another guy to Support. The idea being that at the time at least we needed more support people than marketing people (largely at the request of some of our customers).
Right now, we have one guy (Brett) handling day-to-day Marketing stuff. However, the rest of the company - myself included - and our Honchos have a say in what happens as well.
Trust me, you don't. Customers who (erm) express their opinions and concerns with great enthusiasm are absolutely fine, and even a welcome challenge. Strong personalities are what make what would be an otherwise anonymous crowd of users and put a face to them.
That's pretty scary stuff, and something that keeps people in our industry awake at night.
I actually had a chance to look at the Netcraft report mentioned at the end of the article the other day, and it was definitely eye-opening. Suffice to say, compared to a lot of people in our industry we've been very lucky (so far).
So let me get this straight. It wasn't a promotion to get new customers. It was basically a test to see how much you could give customers and still make a profit.
So instead of choosing someone who has been here for a couple of years (and spent hundreds of bucks here) you choose individuals who (I know several) were just passing by and happened to see the special?
So I'm paying 10 bucks a month and trying to stay within the 200mbs while using redirection to have 'more' domains while someone who just joined now has 1400 more mbs than I and 15 domains, not to mention 5 call backs?
Hopefully some of those features will trickle down to us suckers, errr, old customers. That would be nice and maybe take some of the sting away.
After all, the last few newsletters haven't had much in the way of improvements, the hosting business has gotten more competitive, and support has taken a dive over the last few months.
I have been with Dreamhost since '99, and I've known them to be very generous with old skool types. They gave me a terrific offer on a plan upgrade out of the blue a while ago and I am very happy. I'm not miffed at the birthday promotion thingy in the least.
I can't promise you'll get the same offer, of course, but just hang in there. I'm sure they're aware that the birthday offer might have caused some dissention in the ranks.
I completely agree delgirl. Though I did find it a little funny about the way they chose to 'test' the new plan, I have no problem with it, and my post was part humorous (though I'm sure it didn't come through).
Sure I'm jealous, but I also know there are people who have been here a lot longer than I, you being a great example.
I do hope a few features trickle down, but I am a happy dreamhost customer. I could get more elsewhere, but not hosting with the quality I get here. I had a deal else where with tons of space. It does you little good when your site is down half the time.
Probably the biggest pat on the back I can give dreamhost is that they leave less than wonderful posts such as mine up for all to read. I've hosted sites elsewhere with 'boards' that would delete any posts not 100 percent positive.
I don't blame DH for their marketing efforts as they have to compete in a very wide market and pulling in new customers is very important.
But it's true that as someone who has had a Strictly Business account since 2000 knowing that a bunch of new folks get the same account for $10 stings a bit.
Other hosts support sites by offering free or discounted hosting to sites in exchange for sponsorship brand placement but I know that this is something DH has said they cannot do. Maybe this promotion/test will help them determine whether that sort of sponsorship is possible for them.
The sting comes from the fact that a "beta test" of this sort of promotion would have been more valuable for existing clients.
I'm here because of the $9.95 offer.
AND I've already got credit from someone referred.