That's interesting... I'm very surprised that you didn't get a single sign up! Did you get traffic but no sign ups, or just no traffic?
When I did it before it seemed to do OK based on several domains, there were about 20 domains and you could pick which one to check availability against. I advertised it through Adwords and that's where I picked up customers from.
Times have changed though - with free Gmail (although with ads) it's much less of a valued commodty. Gmail was around back then, although with smaller inbox and by invite only (but everyone knew where to get invites).
But if you were offering @smith.co.uk and your name was Bob Smith, surely you'd be happy to pay over for
bob@smith.co.uk ?
Dunno - I suppose it's a case of suck 'em and see. The plan would be to keep the setup cost very low anyway. It's not as if the script is that complex anyway so it's not going to be a lot.
Thanks for the info anyway.
Having looked at your site I'd suggest the following to perhaps help get some signups. Not sure if it'll make any difference but here's my thoughts. Not criticisms, just thoughts and suggestions
- Advertise on Google Adwords based on Chislehurst as a keyword
- Show some screenshots of the email interface and emphasise benefits
- Maybe explain things a bit more, not everyone knows what POP3/IMAP is, the key point being that you can have webmail OR you can access your email through Outlook etc. You could even charge a tenner to nip round to the person's house and set it up in Outlook for them (5 mins work).
- Have a customer testimonial or two
- Tell people who you are and where you're based, there's no name/address on the site, this would put me off
- If I click on the T&Cs it takes me to the apply page, that's odd. I love small print
- Give an instant sign up, it's a bit odd that I have to wait up to 24 hours to get up and running.
- Maybe add a forum to the site to get people in the community talking, although you may have missed the traffic boat if you've already done the leaflet drop. A nice Sky affiliate advert may be a good earner on the forum.