Guest Blog by Chris Sheridan, Vice President of Business Development for eNom
I am truly excited to let the cPanel community know that we have been working together with the cPanel team to build a new TLD module that can be seamlessly added to your cPanel control panel. Our shared goal is to give you access to the unique opportunity to participate in all of the initial phases of the new TLD launch, including the Sunrise and Landrush periods, from within the platform that you access every day.
Our teams have been working together for some time, and we are committed to helping you understand what this historical change means for your business and your customers. Through the module, we are creating an opportunity for the entire cPanel hosting community to participate and be positioned for SUCCESS.
When you log in to cPanel – you will see the “New TLD Plugin” which installs a JavaScript-based widget that lives seamlessly within the cPanel license. It is free to install and is configured directly from your WHM.
Here are the four key modules that map to how new TLDs are coming to market. The first is the Watchlist Module, which goes live immediately. The purpose of the Watchlist is to help gather your customers’ interest in new TLDs. This is how it works: customer enters a list of specific domains or TLDs they want to track, without any commitment or billing information required. This benefits you because it gives you insights into which new TLDs your customers are interested in – helping to inform how you approach them in future marketing and sales efforts. Bottom line, this is the first step in converting customer interest into registrations!
The next three modules are activated as each phase of the new TLDs comes to market. Here is a quick overview:
Sunrise Module: During this phase, brands claim their trademarked names through a standardized process that runs through the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH). Everything related to billing and communication is handled from within this module so there is no work for you!
Landrush Module: This is the second phase and the period for customers willing to pay a premium for names not claimed during Sunrise. Again, all billing and communication are handled within this module.
General Availability (GA) and Management: This is the third and biggest phase, during which customers can now take their remaining list and convert them through standard registrations. As a hoster, you will be able to keep all new registrations, renewals, and management of domains within the portal and keep cPanel as its container.
In addition to all of this, our eNom team will be helping you with marketing kits, pre-registration access at GA and customer support.
Download the plugin here: http://www.enom.com/cPanel/tld-portal/default.aspx
We look forward to keeping the cPanel community updated and continuing to work with the cPanel team.
