Enterhost gets the conversation going at Connections Conference

November 7, 2011 By admin

“Does this shirt make my code look big?”

That was the conversation starter that attracted numbers of attendees to gather around the Enterhost booth at the Connections Conference. Since the event was held in Las Vegas, we figured we could bring some humor to the exhibit floor by creating a standup mannequin resembling a young Bill Gates to model our giveaway shirts.

Everyone did a double take as they walked by our booth. We were glad to see so many people interacting with Bill because it tied in perfectly with our conference promotion. Anyone who emailed a picture to sales@enterhost.com with a picture of themselves wearing our t-shirt or standing next to Bill would receive a coupon code for $100 off their first cloud or dedicated server purchase.

Bill served as a perfect ice breaker – the attendees found Bill so hilarious that they flocked to our booth. From there, we led the conversation to talk about the Enterhost cloud and our unique offerings.

Within the first hour of the exhibit hall opening, we had a line of people snaking around our booth waiting for their t-shirt and picture with Bill. It was crazy!

Enterhost saw the Connections Conference as a perfect match for us since we would be speaking directly to web developers. With Enterhost, they wouldn’t have to handle the worries of a datacenter and could host all of their Windows applications with us. Our cloud solutions include mobile application infrastructure, SQL server, SharePoint, Exchange, Lync, and really any other Windows application that you can throw at us.

We came back the second day of exhibiting just as strong as day one. We flew in David Harris, corporate magician, to perform magic tricks and engage the conference goers.

Attendees gathered around our booth in large numbers. We even started to see repeat visitors of our booth. At one point, the exhibit hall was completely empty except for our booth where a group of about 20 people were watching David’s show. David did a phenomenal job of getting people’s attention and spreading the word about Enterhost’s cloud services.

By the third day of the conference, we saw attendees walking around in the Enterhost gear we were giving out. Aside from the t-shirt, the hats were the most popular!

Thanks to all of the hype around our booth, we brought the cloud conversation out in full force. What we found was that even for the most tenured, tech savvy developers and IT pros, the cloud remains quite fluffy and ambiguous.

The people at the conference were primarily collecting information about new industry trends, asking lot of good questions and some even a little cautious about broaching the cloud topic at all.  The cloud is something that seems far off in the future for many users.

Our goal is to bridge the gap between their current operations and future goals by making the cloud a reality. At the very least, we were highly successful in setting in motion the cloud conversation at Connections Conference 2011.

–Carissa Cotner, Marketing Coordinator

Filed Under: Cloud, Conference, Tradeshow Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Channel Partner Program Launch at MSPWorld

September 19, 2011 By admin

 

Enterhost exhibited at the MSPWorld Conference in Austin, Texas last week (September 13-15, 2011) as a Silver Sponsor. We decided to launch our Channel Partner Program at the conference and in honor of this debut, we offered an incentive for all attendees. Anyone who signed up for the program at the booth or online automatically joined the program with Silver level benefits, rather than registered.

You may be wondering why we waited until this conference to introduce our channel program; we feel that MSPs are a good fit for our offerings and MSPWorld provided the opportunity to speak directly to that audience.

Now more than ever MSPs have the opportunity to provide cloud services as their clients and potential clients look into migrating to the cloud. An article on Channel Insider points out this chance for MSPs to capitalize on this trend in the ever-changing industry.

Building your own infrastructure to provide cloud services is no easy task, which is why Enterhost is offering its existing and established network for MSPs to take advantage of and present to end-users.

Our team headed down to Austin to set up on Monday. Assembling the booth went smoothly with the help of David from Skyline, who was involved with the order of the booth hardware and graphics.

On Tuesday, Enterhost sponsored the refreshment breaks and a workgroup session.

Rob Scott with Scott & Scott LLP spoke about cloud contracting for MSPs. The room was packed by the time the session started but people kept filtering in! Later that evening, the exhibit floor opened with a network reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. where the attendees were introduced to our booth and Channel Program for the first time.

Wednesday was our longest day of exhibiting, from 11:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. The news about our channel program had gone out the day before, and we found out that our program had been featured on the MSPMentor blog. Additionally, our news release was posted to the MSPNews home page, the main distributor of information related to MSPWorld.

At the end of the day, we had a small breather to go out to dinner and experience the Austin evening scene. It was a good opportunity to get to know the employees from our other offices that I don’t see on a day-to-day basis.

The last day of exhibiting also meant that we got to raffle off our giveaways! The first winner of the drawing opted for the Xbox with Kinect, which left the Bose Noise Cancellation headphones to the second raffle winner.

Our team packed up after the exhibit floor closed on Thursday and headed back to Fort Worth. We received so many compliments about the design of our booth and successfully got the word out about our new channel program. We look forward to starting the journey with our new partners, gathering feedback, and becoming a leading Channel Partner in the hosting industry.

–Carissa Cotner, Marketing Coordinator

 

Filed Under: Channel Partner Program, Conference, Tradeshow Tagged With: , , , , , ,

HostingCon 2011: Industry Event of the Year

August 15, 2011 By admin

In its seventh year, HostingCon was the place to be for anyone plugged into the web hosting industry. This year’s attendees showed up in record numbers boasting more than 1,800 web hosts in the technical, business owner, and marketing functions.

The conference, held at the San Diego Convention Center, was a memorable experience—it wasn’t just about escaping the Texas heat! It was a great opportunity to connect with our partners and old friends in the industry.

Obviously cloud was a major topic at this year’s conference. The industry seems to be in an interesting place right now, with many hosts expanding their offerings while others are still waiting to make the move.

After the first day of conference sessions, I was excited to walk the exhibitor floor. Since Microsoft exhibited at the conference, I got to meet Paul, the Microsoft representative who has been working with Enterhost for a number of months. One of the benefits of attending events like this is the opportunity to do some face-to-face networking with people that we work with across the country.

We also met a local Microsoft contact, Joel Stidley, a hosting specialist for Microsoft. He’s a one-of-a-kind resource in our local market and covers all hosting companies in the North Texas region. We are excited to start this new relationship and look forward to his visit to our datacenter next week.

Tuesday night we attended a Microsoft sponsored event at the Hard Rock Hotel. Microsoft raffled off some giveaways and the proceeds went to the YMCA. But before all that excitement, I went for a jog along the San Diego bay and enjoyed a fantastic view and cool weather.

Wednesday presented the final day of conference sessions, where I witnessed presentation by William Toll with Yottaa, who I have been engaging with over Twitter pre-HostingCon.

Overall, I was impressed with the number of exhibitors and the quality of the conference sessions. With such an array of attendees, there were numerous panels that covered a variety of themes and topics.

Keep an eye out for more information for next year’s HostingCon, which will be held in Boston.

–Carissa Cotner, Marketing Coordinator

Filed Under: Tradeshow Tagged With: , , , , , , ,