Greetings all,

I own a part of a web hosting company and right now, we decided to spend approximately $1,000 on marketing and promotion for 1 month.

Could anyone list the most effective way(s) this money could be spent for marketing of a web host co? Print advertising? PPC SEs? What else?

Boris

bribes!! Word of mouth is your best tool, and having a good reputation!! (especially on this board) :)

Originally posted by Dogma
bribes!!

LOL!

$1000 marketing for the month.

First you need to determine what your goal is (spending $1k). a) name recognition; b) new customers

Second, you need to determine the best source for your customers. a) trade show; b) retail customers (newspapers, flyers, etc..)

Third, be prepared for limited results. $1000 does not go far at all!

I tend to agree with the other posts since you are limited to $1k

You may want to allocate those funds and give cash incentives to existing customers / contacts as REFERRAL BONUSES (CASH)

With a limited budget you need to focus your efforts to create the maximum impact possible.

It is a common truism in marketing that it takes 3 separate exposures to an advertisement or marketing message in order for it to register in the consumer's mind.

Whatever you do plan to do, do it over a 3 month period and focus your efforts in your local area.

For example, you could choose to target a specific type of SME customer: florist, restaurant, real-estate agents, printers, etc.,.

Next find out how you can speak to a large group of them at once. Real-estate agents in our experience are the most interested in websites and email. Find out if there is an association in your area and then approach it. Offer them a %age of all revenues generated in return for exclusive rights to market to their members.

The secret is to have other people do your selling.

Given a choice I would always recommend direct mail on a targeted local basis over mass-market advertising. :)

Little off the subject, but how the heck did WHT manage to attract the president of hostopia?

Didn't know BIG hosting companies (big in terms of, I've heard of them and so has the semi-average joe) hung around here.

Haha, ok, sorry.

You can start an ad campaign for as little as $50.00 with Google's Adwords program: www.google.com

I've had more success here than other forms of advertising, but you won't necessarily get more results by spending more here.

You have to make sure you are very SPECIFIC with your choice of keywords. Don't just use the words "web hsoting", as you'll quickly spend your advertising dollars and get little results. It's better to be very specific and spread out yuor campaign over a longer period of time.

Good luck!

Rob.

Try some cunning viral marketing. A recommend to a friend script costs nothing and will bring you some targeted traffic.

Secondly, why not offer a month's free hosting for sites who are willing to put a small 'web hosting by Host Velocity' text link on a static, search engine accessible page. This may bring in some small amount of direct traffic, but by keeping tabs on these pages and submitting them to the major search engines, you will increase your link popularity and ranking. This is especially true of Google. It does need to be a text link, not a banner, though.

PPC SEs are one way to go. Unfortunately, you are in one of the most competitive fields. Check out the top bids for 'web host' and 'web hosting' at Goto.com and weep. Sign up at www.wordtracker.com and find some highly searched but less competitive keyphrases to target and you should reap the benefits.

You could also try SEO (Search Engine Optimization). There's plenty of quality companies out there who are able to optimize your site for certain keywords and phrases to get all that search engine traffic. There's lots of dodgy companies in this field, but I would look at www.mannixmarketing.com or www.makemetop.co.uk for two examples of the best.

Cheers

Mark

Originally posted by IntraHost
Little off the subject, but how the heck did WHT manage to attract the president of hostopia?

Didn't know BIG hosting companies (big in terms of, I've heard of them and so has the semi-average joe) hung around here.

Haha, ok, sorry.

Jeff,

Is there a better way to learn about what the customer wants than to hear it from the source?

I am a hand's on person who loves to speak with customers and I get my best ideas from conversations like these.

Thanks, I think.

Franc

With a limited budget you must have a fairly complete plan in place before you do anything. You are going to to want to spend extra time identifying exactly who it is you want to reach and design you campaign to apeal to this group.

Since you are only sending $1000 your target market is likely going to be small. Think sniper marketing. Since converting leads into sales usually takes 3-6 contacts you are going to want to be able to define your target so that you can afford to reach them at least 3 times (including follow up phone calls, repeat mailings, etc. Otherwise you will be more-or-less wasting your $$.

I am a firm believer in community building and networking. There are many ways to leverage community events to your favor, thereby gaining exposure, and leads. I am in the process of developing a couple of lectures/seminars for people interested in this type of approach.

-Brandon

How about a static ad at hostsearch.com

Since Hostopia has, no-doubt, experience with Direct Mailing, I was wondering if you could share the typical number of responses you receive for a particular number of mailings?

We are thinking of investing into such a program to target small local Businesses and this is a question no-one seems to be comfortable or able to answer.

Franc?

Anyone?

Thanks in advance!

Aloha,
is it just hosting ??
if so one thought that is very cheap and may get a few hits going is to talk to local web developers and see what and who they are hosting with.
I think quite a lot of developers rely on good hosting relationships and can bring you in some business.

depends on where the servers are located to you or the designers ?

this may be one small part of getting a bit of a foot down on the ground.
of course this depends on what kind of hosting you are doing and what platform planned price range and services.

as others have said reputation and being in forums etc...

best of luck

Originally posted by inet7
Since Hostopia has, no-doubt, experience with Direct Mailing, I was wondering if you could share the typical number of responses you receive for a particular number of mailings?


Thanks in advance!

A really good direct mail response is generally from 1-2%.

An exceptional piece is anything that results in a 2% or greater response.

Keep in mind that these figures are based upon no followup procedure. You can easily quadruple the effectiveness if you make followup sales calls to the people on your list.

A standard practise is to include some type of limited time offer to create an impending event and increase urgency.

Hope that helps.

Franc

Great Feedback Franc!

The Numbers I've gotten so far suggest the ROI is break-even after 30-45 days. Not bad.