BigRock pushes $4 .biz domain deal to get Indian SMBs online
After Google's India Get Your Business Online program and GoDaddy’s Cup of Coffee campaign, BigRock joins the bandwagon by rolling out an integrated media campaign to build awareness about getting businesses online.
Big Rock, one of India's leading domain registrars and Web hosting companies, wants to promote .biz as a preferred domain for small businesses in India.
For the campaign, BigRock has joined hands with Neustar, the registry operator for the .biz TLD, and offers a complete online presence for businesses that includes a .biz domain, Web hosting, hosted e-mail for their .biz domain and Google Adwords coupons worth 2,500 rupees, all of which are integrated with an interactive Web site builder priced at INR 199 (about US$4.20).
Elaborating on the campaign, Bhavin Turakhia, founder of BigRock said: "Since we launched BigRock a few years ago, we have worked hard to bring home the message of why being online matters to Indian businesses through our unique messaging. For this .biz program we have just launched, we wanted to appeal to a small business owner's intrinsic pride of ownership in her or his business--which is something we believe connects every single business owner out there, whether big or small."
"As a business owner myself, I am proud to associate myself with .biz and feel that our tagline for this campaign, '.biz--when you are proud of your business', adequately captures this emotion," Bhavin added.
In a recent interaction, Ricky Kapur, director of enterprise sales for Asia at Google, explained Google's focus on Small & Medium businesses (SMBs) in India in recent times was in line with the industry: "India is home to around 47 million small businesses, yet only 1 percent of these businesses are online. Our initiatives help these businesses get online and grow the entire ecosystem."
The huge opportunity is stemming from the penetration of the Internet and growth of the digital economy in last few years in India. Already, India has the third-largest Internet user base globally, presenting exciting opportunities for businesses that were once unheard of.
Shashank Mehrotra, general manager and business head at BigRock, did some interesting crystalball-gazing on the India's internet scene. "By industry estimates, we are activating upwards of 50,000-70,000 smartphone users every day in India and these constitute the vast majority of the new Internet users coming online. Rapidly accelerating trends in mobile data usage amongst our population means that in 24 months' time the Indian Internet scenario will be even more exciting than it is today."
"We look at growth in other mobile led geographies such as China where the increase in domains and web presence by businesses has been unprecedented in the last few years and draw inspiration from this trend. We believe a similar trend will manifest in India in the next few years. We look to both educate and build strong value propositions with our .biz program for our customers across India," he added.