The Sold Out HEXONET Cruise Review

The first Vancouver HEXONET Domain Cruise was two years ago, which was fun, very well attended, and mainly domain industry folks (80%). For this year's cruise we wanted to raise our game and have more attendees that were from outside the domain industry who wanted to learn and benefit by meeting HEXONET and our sponsors. HEXONET achieved and exceeded our goal and attracted many new companies, businesses, and individuals to this year's cruise. Here's the breakdown:

• Completely sold out event with 175 tickets reserved, 35 ticket fees waived including sponsors
• 135 attendees on the day of the event
  • New business contacts: HEXONET's 2018 outreach programs - Lunch/Learn, Tradeshows, Speaking Engagements (40%)
  • Local business leaders from a wide spectrum of related industries (30%)
  • Domain industry insiders (20%)
  • HEXONET customers (10%)
• 140 tickets were sold, raising $2,800 CAD, every penny to be donated to a local charity
• HEXONET matched the funds raised and donated $5,600 CAD in total to the BC Children's Hospital Foundation!

During the three hour cruise, attendees were given the opportunity to network with fellow passengers and sponsors, participate in a popular upscale photo booth (sponsored by our friends from dotME), snap photos in front of the sponsor wall, enjoy beautiful Vancouver water views, and learn from the 45-minute domain panel that included panelists from Amazon Registry (Stacey King), Afilias (Chris Campbell), Donuts (Mariah Reilly), HEXONET (Tony Kim), PIR (Rick Terry), dotME (Kelly Hardy), and Weebly (Chris Sheridan), and moderated by NamesCon founder, Richard Lau. Special thanks to our prize sponsors dotASIA and dotCA. The evening proved to be a wonderful success, with scenery and domain-related conversations lasting well through the evening.

For sponsors, we also wanted to "Raise Our Game" and do even more in terms of sponsor value and exposure in return for their support. Amazingly, all sponsor spots for the cruise were snapped up within 48 hours of first contact. I'm so very thankful that our sponsors view us so positively and am very proud that we have the reputation of always trying to do things right. Taking it up a few notches this year, all sponsors were invited to a private room dinner at one of Vancouver's premier restaurants, the Blue Water Cafe, for a fantastic night of great conversation, good food, and an inside look at HEXONET - what we're doing, where we're headed, and how we are different. Also, on the day of the cruise, each sponsor was invited to individually meet with HEXONET's leadership to discuss custom strategies and tasks we can both do better in the coming quarters.

The cruise was a smashing success for HEXONET, sponsors, and attendees. I am very proud of the work our Marketing team did in planning and executing the event, as well as, for meeting the difficult challenge of reaching outside of the domain industry. An article on the cruise from Ron Jackson, editor and publisher of DNJournal.com, in particular the closing paragraph and especially the last sentence, perfectly summarizes everything we wanted to achieve:

*"In closing I want to thank Hexonet for being such gracious hosts. It was not only a pleasure being back in Vancouver, it was great getting to better know CSO Robbie Birkner, CMO Tony Kim, Marketing VP Marie Lanyon (who I had just met for the first time in January at NamesCon) and other members of the talented Hexonet team. They are doing great work in building recognition of domain names and explaining their central role in online success to the mainstream business community - an effort that benefits all of us who are part of this extraordinary industry."* - Thanks for noticing Ron, your words brought a smile to my face.

HEXONET is committed to spreading the good news about domain names and the industry as a whole. We encourage anyone with good domain names, partnership or marketing ideas (whether for inside or outside our industry) to contact our awesome marketing team ([email protected]). Let's get the discussion going and see how HEXONET can help.