Whether you’re a trailblazer or an advocate, you purchased your .SUCKS domain for a reason. Maybe your .SUCKS site is helping you fight a political or social cause, or perhaps you use it as part of your customer service department. Regardless of what brought you to .SUCKS, by now you’re aware that a snappy, memorable domain name is an essential tool in any digital marketing strategy. If you are unsure about whether or not you should renew your .SUCKS domain—or find that your management, legal or marketing teams want to know the ROI of renewing—you’ve come to the right place.
Owning Your Criticism
Criticism isn’t going away. In fact, it’s reaching companies quicker and more directly than ever before. A .SUCKS domain is a useful tool because it can funnel criticism to one location where you can react to and manage it accordingly. You can also offer people a place to vent in whatever format is most useful to you: a comment section, a survey or a private message, for example.
Often, constructive customer feedback can lead to innovation. Collect and manage criticism so that you know how and where to invest energy and resources in the future. This will become an important tool in your marketing and sales strategy. A productive feedback platform can help you improve products or services to better serve your customers, and inspire new ideas from the people who are directly connected to your brand.
Being silenced sucks, so let your customers be heard—and use your custom .SUCKS domain to stay on top of any bad press.
Keeping Your Domain Out of the Wrong Hands
Even if you don’t want to use your .SUCKS domain, you sure don’t want anyone else to have it. It’s always better to lock down anything that can potentially damage your image or your PR strategy. Be sure to protect domains that your competition or a disgruntled customer might use to hurt you in the future.
We can all agree that giving in to bullies sucks. Make sure your company’s domain name stays out of the wrong hands.
Protecting Your Backlinks
Do you have content elsewhere on the web pointing back to your .SUCKS domain (from social media posts, other websites, ads or web banners, email newsletters and so on)? If you don’t renew your domain, you will lose the potential traffic from these various sources. Worse yet, someone else (whoever scoops up your unclaimed domain) could benefit from all of your hard work.
Google search sucks when your brand doesn’t show up on Page 1 of the results. Hold on to your hard-earned traffic as you work your way up in the search results.
Building On Your Progress
You’ve put a lot of time and energy into your current .SUCKS domain. Even if you aren’t adding new content daily, you probably have some great work on display. You don’t want to give up your domain only to realize in a few months that you’ve made a mistake. If it was worth putting time and money into, it’s probably worth maintaining—even if you’re just covering your butt.
Bad business sucks. Keep your company thriving by building on the groundwork you’ve laid out, rather than throwing it all away.
The Takeaway
Make sure to claim, and keep, the best domain for your present and future customer service efforts. It’s the best way to be aware, engaged and flexible as you incorporate customer feedback into your ongoing corporate strategy.
Starting up a website with a custom .SUCKS domain is just the first step to a long and healthy online public relations strategy.
Photos: Shutterstock / wavebreakmedi, Shutterstock / Jacob Lund, Shutterstock / Rawpixel
