The 71st training session of the Asia Pacific Top Level Domain Association (APTLD) was held in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on March 2-3, 2017. It was attended by representatives from country-code Top Level Domain registries (ccTLD) in 27 Asia Pacific countries, as well as Europe. Delegates from the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ shared their experience in marketing and promoting the.RU and .РФ domains.
Participants in the session titled Marketing: The Net Effect discussed how registrars use social networks for communication with various communities and their role in marketing strategies. A report was delivered by Mikhail Anisimov, Deputy Head of Information Department at the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ.
“Social networks are a very useful tool for communication with the internet community, primarily for positioning our organization as a domain regulator and an expert on registration systems and related issues, such as information security, infrastructure and the legal aspects of working on the internet,” Anisimov said.
Anisimov also attended a session on marketing policies called Haggling and Straggling. Delegates exchanged experience on changing prices and analyzing market flexibility. In particular, a delegate from Vietnam’s registrar said they revised their domain registration policy and almost doubled registration prices last year. Participants from Hong Kong told an interesting story of price fluctuations for registering .HK domains: the price went back to its initial level after being reduced, but it turned out that the changes in the number of registered domains did not depend on the price but on the season, the national currency’s exchange rate, the economic situation, and other factors.
The session participants agreed that demand is rather inflexible on the domain market, and price changes, including a 100 percent hike or 50 percent decline, have little influence on the market. Mikhail Anisimov reported on the Coordination Center’s demand flexibility survey, after which it decided to increase registration prices and extend/transfer .RU and .РФ domain names in July 2017. He also presented a forecast of the situation in the .RU and .РФ domain zones in late 2017.
The Coordination Center delegation also held a meeting with representatives of the Vietnam Internet Network Information Center (VNNIC) on the session’s sidelines. They discussed cooperation plans in marketing, statistics, infrastructure development and information security.
