Advertising?

[chrishaley]

Hello all,

I have a general question. What have you done for advertising to get your name out there and clients signing up? I've been hosting for almost a year now and can't seem to get any new clients past what I have now (About 15 or so) and it's becoming a financial drain on me.

I've tried Google AdWords, Yahoo, and WebHostingTalk.

What I'd like to know is, a lot of you are running very successful companies..what did you do to get there?

Any help is greatly appreciated! :)

[MACscr]

I dont even know how you think your going to eve be able to turn a profit with those prices. LOL, mine are 6 times that for the same package. I get a lot of my clients based on word of mouth. I also give a decent commission to sales people. Id also recommend cleaning up your site a little to make it more informative, yet professional. Your header looks good, but your content area is very lacking.

My advice stops there as I havent even marketed my company yet. LOL. I dont even have a frontend website for it yet.

[Harrison]

I'd advise some of the free directories. I've been told they work well. Even if one client signs up, your advertisment was free.

[MACscr]

I would also like to add that i do market to my local area a lot. Again, just talking to people about it, but it works. Exceptional and personal support is very important as well. Ive lost 2 customers in the 4 years I have been in the hosting business and only 1 of those was because of a mistake that i made, but it was in the first month I had started.

[Roger]

Hey Chris, from a fellow Kentuckian.... I think the goal is to get your site traffice and business to where it's self sustaining. Word of mouth as MAC mentions will greatly pickup as clients have enjoyable online experiences with your company.

One thing I tried that was pretty cost effective was to advertise on a popular site. nuke-scripts.com. Who is also a Kentuckian by the way. Anyway, like 8.00 per month for a standard 480x? whatever height it is banner. That site is well traveled. I got a lot of traffic from it. A lot more than what I thought I would.

I also sponsor a lot of faith based sites with a "Hosted by" banner on them. I'm sure there are a million viable ways to draw and keep business.

BTW, I sell 500mb at $4.95 a month. I target (try to) the high school kids etc that want to try their hand at a web site. I personally think anymore than that is not competitive. I remember many years ago having a 250mb account that I paid like $12.95 for. Those days are long gone. Disk space is cheap. Todays market is Quality, size, quality, speed, quality, support, quality. Get the idea.

Guys, I think this is a good thread/subject to share in.

[MACscr]

Yeah, i target the small businesses that usually need a little extra support, plus i dont oversell, so another reason for the higher prices. I also use premium server hardware as well, no single cpu or celeron servers here.

[Adam]

Hey,

I'm about 80% word of mouth, which is good on my end as I don't pay for it :)

The other you just want to get your name out on the web. Sigs, web blogs, forum posts so other search engines can pick them up...

From,
Adam

[chrishaley]

Thanks for the responses everybody! :)

After some careful consideration, I've re-vamped my pricing schedules, so once things do get rolling, it'll help with getting closer to paying for itself.

Now I just need to do something about my content... :P

[kingmoore]

A bit of advice about your website:

get rid of the hosting.php page. Have your "hosting plans" link directly to the shared hosting page. Have another link to the reseller plans or something.

I had to click around your site a few times before figuring out how to actually see the prices and plan breakdowns. At first I didn't even realize the shared hosting and reseller hosting on the hosting.php page were links.

[wehostem]

I'm actually offering help building some of my clients sites and helping them with their scripts (customize it). I am hoping that will get me a better word of mouth out there.
I visit there sites from time to time just to ask if everything is ok and if there is anything I can do.

I am at ends on what else to really advertise at. I am thinking a local papers and stuff for business sites maybe.

[generic]

chris, make your "ORDER" button/link bigger so its easier to see and click ! tht may help..