ASCII Atlantic City 2014: What's New for ASCII Members

The ASCII Group has plans to launch additional private executive rooms to its forums, connect members with developers and integrators, offer early access programs and generate leads through a new program.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, the independent community of resellers and MSPs on Thursday at ASCII Atlantic City 2014 laid out what it has planned for its members going forward. The event, which was designed to bring marketing and sales tips to the doorsteps of MSPs, is being held this week at Bally’s. Nearly 200 solutions providers and more than 40 vendors are in attendance.

ASCII offers its members lead generation tools, outbound marketing, PR and market exposure, sub-contracting opportunities and mentors in the field. The group additionally aims to help its members lower operation costs by resolving channel-related issues.

“Our group represents a lot of business, and we leverage that in the marketplace,” said Jerry Koutavas, president at The ASCII Group.

Here’s where ASCII plans on taking its members going forward.

Private executive rooms. ASCII has plans to build out its forum even further. “We think we can take it to the next level,” he said. “Some people would like to have conversations in a non-competitive format, so we’re going to be building that.”

Developers and integrators. “We feel that we need access to good developers for this group,” Koutavas said. He said ASCII is working on finding ways to collaborate more with developers, with the hopes of providing members with additional development and integration resources.

Early vendor access. ASCII wants to work with vendors before their channel programs hit the market for everybody else. “We are looking for companies that are just now entering the channel that have good products that we can get access and a price concession early enough before it gets mainstream for the group,” Koutavas said.

ASCII is also working a new lead generation program for its members called Google AdWords Co-Ops, which is now available to members based out of Los Angeles. The service is designed to drive traffic back to ASCII members by leveraging long-tail keywords to generate content on landing pages. The group charges its members $100 a month for the service. 

Keep checking back to MSPmentor for updates, insights and rumors coming out of ASCII Atlantic City 2014. Email Senior Editor CJ Arlotta at cj.arlotta”at”penton.com with tips.

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