Poll Shows Link between Brand Reputation and Reliable Web Hosting Underestimated

London, UK – 14 April 2008 – A poll conducted by managed hosting provider NetBenefit has revealed that even though online marketing now plays a very important role in the communication strategies of most businesses, only one in four (28%) companies consider going to an external company for managed hosting services from an experienced solutions provider.

The survey, which was carried out amongst delegates at the recent Technology for Marketing and Advertising show in London, asked respondents a series of questions about online marketing campaigns. Over three quarters of respondents (80%) run an online campaign monthly or quarterly, with 86% running email marketing campaigns, 78% website banners and 75% specific landing pages for particular campaigns.

Worryingly, in view of the significance and spend on online campaigns, many are not considering how best to ensure the hosting platform behind their online marketing activity is reliable, robust and can stand up to the peaks and troughs in traffic that online campaigns attract.

Commenting on the findings of the research, Jonathan Robinson, COO at NetBenefit, says: “Online marketing campaigns will continue to increase in popularity and levels of sophistication. Those companies that do not take hosting seriously enough risk issues such as slow loading pages or even downtime. This can lead to considerable damage to brand reputation or revenue generation.

“Marketing departments need to give consideration to the relationship between brand and revenue protection and a truly robust managed hosting platform that can provide guaranteed availability backed up by 24x7 support.”




About NetBenefit

NetBenefit is part of London listed Group NBT plc (LSE: NBT.). Established in 1995, NetBenefit is an experienced provider of Managed Hosting services in the UK, with a range of services to suit every level of business. Its world-class network infrastructure allows it to guarantee resilient, available and secure Managed Hosting for businesses that need a hosting provider they can depend upon.

Group NBT plc is a leading provider of domain name management and Internet-related services through the six trading brands, NetNames, NetBenefit, Easily.co.uk, Speednames, Ascio and Envisional. Group NBT has over 200 employees and is based in London with offices in Copenhagen, New York, Nice, Frankfurt, Munich and Madrid.

For further information about NetBenefit or GroupNBT please visit www.netbenefit.com or www.groupnbt.com