BEDFORD, Texas, Dec. 8, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- In the 6 months that a 22-year-old Illinois man has had "C I Host" and "Managed Web Hosting" tattooed on the back his head, the company has counted 500 new customers who bought C I Host's services because they saw the tattoo.
"This has been a tremendous success," said Christopher Faulkner, CEO of C I Host. "Jim Nelson is a great salesman and we are happy to have the 500 new customers who have come from his marketing efforts and the publicity generated by the tattoo."
As part of the contract Nelson signed with C I Host, he must travel around the country promoting C I Host and keep the 5-inch-square, blue, black and orange tattoo visible for five years. He must hand out business cards and flyers and learn a 10-second C I Host sales pitch.
"He is the best sales person I have - he passes out flyers, talks to people and does not ask for a salary or commission," Faulkner stated.
After C I Host won the auction on eBay for Nelson's services, other companies copied the marketing strategy, but with temporary tattoos. Nelson auctioned off the back of his head to get cash to start his own business.
C I Host, with more than 200,000 customers in 182 countries, is well-known for its unique and effective marketing strategies.
In the past, C I Host has brought Howard Stern back to Dallas radio, put its name on the back of Evander Holyfield's boxing trunks, sponsored a NASCAR race car, held a contest to send the winner to the edge of space in a jet and put a 25-foot high Santa on the roof of its headquarters.
"Whatever we can do to reach our target market and get the word out about C I Host, we will do," Faulkner said. "It's similar to the extra mile we go to bring our customers the most up to date technology and give them the best service."
About C I Host
C I Host (www.cihost.com), based in the Dallas/Fort Worth market, is a Web hosting and Internet solutions provider, domain name registrar (DNR) and application service provider (ASP) serving 200,000 individual consumers and businesses in 182 countries worldwide.
C I Host creates business-class Web hosting solutions for the small- and medium-enterprise (SME) market, with the broadest portfolio of managed hosting and value-added services in the industry. C I Host is accredited by ICANN to register domain names.
C I Host is HIPAA-compliant and has passed the SAS70 audit.
C I Host has been ranked #1 in speed by the Adoloma Web Hosting Guide. C I Host has been consistently ranked among the Top 5 Web hosting companies out of 16,000 around the globe by cnet's Ultimate Web Host List, HostPulse, WebHostsOnline.com and HostChart.com. C I Host was named among the Top 25 Web hosting companies by HostIndex.com.
C I Host offers turn-key services ranging from initial domain name registration to custom dedicated servers for e-commerce on today's Web. The company offers innovative packages and services to the Internet community.
C I Host operates three diverse data centers across the United States, with its main facility and Network Operations Center in Bedford, Texas. C I Host also has offices in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and London.
All telco-grade, tier-1 data centers are wholly owned and operated by C I Host and consist of redundant diesel generator backups and a temperature-controlled secure environment with fully redundant UPS capability. All server hardware is fully tested and configured for optimal performance. Daily Web server backups and full fire protection guard against any data loss. To deliver speed and reliability, C I Host's servers are connected to two OC-12 fiber connections, five DS-3 and two OC-3 lines from five diverse Internet backbones for a total of more than 2.6 Gigabits of available bandwidth.