Alright, so most of our advertising consists online and I want to branch out and start selling hosting locally around my city and various other people's cities. So, my question is: what's the best way to go about doing this on a small budget? When I say small budget, I mean under 100 dollars. I'm looking for details, so please provide any success stories.

A method I use is similar to what you see here in the forums.

I'll go to a local business that sees a high flow of business traffic and offer to host their site for free it they'll put my ad on their counter or something like that.

Some examples would be a downtown food area where business people take their lunch breaks, coffee shops, etc...

This is challenging ... I recommend making up a big placard .. something really bright .. with a nice advert on what you're selling .. preferably with a promotion offer.

Then like what croakingtoad mentioned above, talk a walk during lunchtime with the placard.

Dress up a little (with a theme) and you'll attract attention.

Alternatively, just run an ad in your local papers.

or try telemarketing. :stickout:

Try yellow pages and get a good spot there.

Originally posted by maestrosdelw
Try yellow pages and get a good spot there.


Try yellow pages and contact everyone in there until the cost of your phone calls = your budget... probably get 4-5 per hundred

You'd really go through the Yellow Pages and just call people? Isn't that frowned upon?

What about going to local businesses with your business card and chatting up the manager?

Advertising Locally (for cheap)
Keep wishing!! No advertising is cheap! For local contacts you could try cold-calling on businesses.
Your local chamber may prove to be a good start too, but most have pretty *high fees* for joining. Its best to get the word-of-mouth going, whether it be local or otherwise.
Best of luck...its not easy.

Cost Effective Local Advertising

Pay attention to the advertising booklets that end up in your mail box as well as all local newsletters et al. These, usually black/white, newsletters/pamphlets/ads et al tend to sell ad space quite cheaply. Our local one is about the size and shape of a magazine but it's printed in primarily black and white and regular paper is used attached via a few staples. You can get ads for about $25 in it and the whole goal of it is to promote local companies to the neighborhood as well as including little neighborhood news/tidbits/happenings etc...

Bulletin Boards - Harder to find these days but there are still local laundry shops, grocery stores, etc that have a bulletin board where anyone can post lost and found, for sale, and other general ads on a 3X5 card. Pull out your crayons and attach some coupons. Pin them up wherever you are allowed.

Where are you seen as a good customer yourself? For example, there's a local petshop that I umm, well I'm umm, ok I admit it I hang out there. I'm without question their best customer :P (I have a dog, two cats, a parrot, 12 aquariums, four turtles, and a hamster). Though they don't have a bulletin board, they had NO PROBLEM with allowing ME to place some cards on the counter top by the register. If you have a good rep somewhere, then ask. They usually like to hang onto their favorite clients and giving you a bit of space is a small price to pay for it.

Watch for special events and charities around town. Offer to give them some web space to promote the event with. They may take it with great appreciation and give you an honorable mention ;)

If you are really bored, pay attention to the radio. Most stations have some time in the week where they request businesses to call in and shout out who is listening. Don't be afraid to shout. If you're really a 'good listener' bring the DJ something that will catch his eye for sure. As long as you're creative, s/he will have no problem giving you an honorable mention ;)

Every time I take my kids to the dentist (three in braces so it's far too often) I see a little sign on a stick stuck into the ground on the side of the road for web hosting. It's been there for months, so it seems it wasn't illegal for them to stick it there in between all of the political "vote for me" signs LOL.

KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN AROUND TOWN!!!! If you are paying attention you'll see how and where other companies are getting promoted for CHEAP.

That's some great advice, Deb. I appreciate it.

Deb had a good point.

What I suggest is getting a press release out, that will help you. Press people are always looking for a good story to tell about businesses, that offer goods and services, take a shoot and see free publicity is better than ads.

Originally posted by Martie
Advertising Locally (for cheap)
Keep wishing!! No advertising is cheap! For local contacts you could try cold-calling on businesses.


Not True! :) I'm the master of free or cheap local advertising. Here's what ya gotta do in my mind:

1) Business Cards... do a search on this site there are some places online pretty cheap. give them to anyone and everyone who'll take it. Leave them laying around, leave stacks of 3 or 4 different places, tack them up on the announcements / for sale board at the local grocery store.

2) Network - Find someone who can give you advertising and give them hosting. I personally affiliated myself with a local bi-weekly newspaper. They give me free advertising, I host their site for free. If you've got a small radio local station (by that I mean not corporate owned) offer to do hosting for a radio spot. Offer to host local non-profits for free for a small ad button or text ad on their website.

3) Dress for success. I know it very cliche but if you go into a place of business wearing old jeans and a t-shirt no one is going to take you seriously. You don't have to go all out but dress nicely - wear your nice shoes, a nice shirt and khakis for instance.

4) dealing with potential clients. When you do go into a business remember you're looking to talk directly to the owner and or manager who can make decisions. If they're not there ask for a phone number or a name or something, leave your card - make sure it gets to the right person. Bring a pad of paper with you so you can right down names, numbers, information. It helps to have someone you can affiliate yourself with that does webdesign that way you can sell the entire thing.

to finish up.. heres a little trick I use. Go through the local newspaper and look for local merchants who have websites and write down all of the urls. Next do a whois on the domain and take a look a the nameservers. Lots of time you can figure out which host they're using via the name servers. If it's someone out of town or someone in town (for instance we have a couple of ISP's here who do hosting as well... their features leave a LOT to be desired... lots of time no control panel .. only one e-mail address. no web mail, no mailing lists... etc {sub note: clients LOVE mailings lists... it's free advertising for them, so try to sell that}) anyway.. try to figure out who they're using and give the potential client a call with this information in mind.. if they seem to be using someone out of the local area , let them know that you're local and you'd really like to help keep the business in the community.

Don't lie.. be honest and up front - you're reputation is often the only thing you have. If you get a bad name for your self it's very very hard to shake. Don't say you've got a whole team of admins and 100's of servers if you're on a reseller account. Tell them you're starting out... I've actually worked the fact that I was new to my advantage "hello sir my name's neil sly - i'm from a new web hosting company here in town called ..... I'm just trying to get some local contacts and host some local sites, I'm not sure who your current host is and they're probably been around longer than us but I promise you *won't* be disapointed"

okay.. that turned into my big rant about sales... sorry :)

Originally posted by neil
Not True! :) I'm the master of free or cheap local advertising. Here's what ya gotta do in my mind:

1) Business Cards... do a search on this site there are some places online pretty cheap. give them to anyone and everyone who'll take it. Leave them laying around, leave stacks of 3 or 4 different places, tack them up on the announcements / for sale board at the local grocery store.

2) Network - Find someone who can give you advertising and give them hosting. I personally affiliated myself with a local bi-weekly newspaper. They give me free advertising, I host their site for free. If you've got a small radio local station (by that I mean not corporate owned) offer to do hosting for a radio spot. Offer to host local non-profits for free for a small ad button or text ad on their website.

3) Dress for success. I know it very cliche but if you go into a place of business wearing old jeans and a t-shirt no one is going to take you seriously. You don't have to go all out but dress nicely - wear your nice shoes, a nice shirt and khakis for instance.

4) dealing with potential clients. When you do go into a business remember you're looking to talk directly to the owner and or manager who can make decisions. If they're not there ask for a phone number or a name or something, leave your card - make sure it gets to the right person. Bring a pad of paper with you so you can right down names, numbers, information. It helps to have someone you can affiliate yourself with that does webdesign that way you can sell the entire thing.

to finish up.. heres a little trick I use. Go through the local newspaper and look for local merchants who have websites and write down all of the urls. Next do a whois on the domain and take a look a the nameservers. Lots of time you can figure out which host they're using via the name servers. If it's someone out of town or someone in town (for instance we have a couple of ISP's here who do hosting as well... their features leave a LOT to be desired... lots of time no control panel .. only one e-mail address. no web mail, no mailing lists... etc {sub note: clients LOVE mailings lists... it's free advertising for them, so try to sell that}) anyway.. try to figure out who they're using and give the potential client a call with this information in mind.. if they seem to be using someone out of the local area , let them know that you're local and you'd really like to help keep the business in the community.

Don't lie.. be honest and up front - you're reputation is often the only thing you have. If you get a bad name for your self it's very very hard to shake. Don't say you've got a whole team of admins and 100's of servers if you're on a reseller account. Tell them you're starting out... I've actually worked the fact that I was new to my advantage "hello sir my name's neil sly - i'm from a new web hosting company here in town called ..... I'm just trying to get some local contacts and host some local sites, I'm not sure who your current host is and they're probably been around longer than us but I promise you *won't* be disapointed"

okay.. that turned into my big rant about sales... sorry :) Thanks Neil, I really appreciate it. You have a lot of great ideas in there. Your idea about going around to some local places to trade hosting for free advertising is a great one. I also like the business card idea. I'm going to get on those as soon as possible.

Originally posted by exogen
Thanks Neil, I really appreciate it. You have a lot of great ideas in there. Your idea about going around to some local places to trade hosting for free advertising is a great one. I also like the business card idea. I'm going to get on those as soon as possible.

no problem - hopefully I didn't sound too elitest or anything like that, I hope everything works out for ya.

We figured out that to advertise localy we would have to be willing to spend over 500 a week to keep it going.

Alteratively trade shows are our next bet.

This thread has been Bookmarked in exchange for the wealth of information.

Search function is awesome.

Wow, talk about a wealth of information indeed. I am definitly keeping this to look back on as we are also looking into breaking into the local market.