I got into the hosting buisness about 5 months ago and was wondering how long it too you to start recieving a steady stream of customers. Right now Im in the high teens, but have been in a slump the last 3 weeks. So basically what Im asking is how long did it take for your site to start being successful.

Greetings:

There are probably a number of hosting providers who have the “field of dreams” perspective that if they build a Web site offering their hosting, they will grow into a “whatever size they desire” hosting firm.

Maybe that worked in the early to mid 1990’s.

Then later on, maybe search engine optimization worked.

From my perspective in 2004, if you want to get noticed, hit the streets.

I’m told there are over 20,000 Web hosting providers just in the U.S. -- http://webhosting.info/webhosts/globalstats/

Every day on WHT you read about new hosting start ups (granted there are as probably many failures or more, but we don’t often hear about them).

Not one of those hosting providers own over 2% of the global market share. Think about that statement – no single hosting provider in the world (not just the U.S.) owns more than 2% of the market share.

That means even the large companies are not well known among the market place.

Go into your town, and ask around if people know NTT/Verio, iPowerWeb, or some of the other larger providers. Most probably don’t have a clue of what you are talking about.

So your best bet is to market locally, socially.

Thank you.

My advice is get your user's to advertise your services or start an affilate program of some sort.

There are so many hosting companies. It'd be interesting to see how many actually get started every day. Imagine that. It's such an easy business to get into. Have a credit card? Buy a domain, make a web site, buy a server, get AD WORDS working, there you go. In one day, someone who comes up with the brilliant idea that web hosting is the way to go... can launch a business.

I agree with the marketing tactics above. Guerilla marketing and going "all out" with your promotions is the only way to do it. You can't just sit and wait for things to happen. Get out there and tell everyone about your hosting company.

It won't hurt to target a niche market as well. Don't be everything to everyone. Try picking a small market that nobody is concentrating on. Say, real estate agents for example. Offer them "real estate hosting plans" and see what happens.

There are so many ways to do things -- but it's the people who do things DIFFERENTLY, yet EFFECTIVELY who will see results from their efforts.

Good luck!


JP

Originally posted by dynamicnet



......Not one of those hosting providers own over 2% of the global market share. Think about that statement – no single hosting provider in the world (not just the U.S.) owns more than 2% of the market share......



It's an interesting point you make there.

In one sense, it seems the market is wide open for a company to take control of a large share of the marketspace. But in another sense, if no established company has taken a large market share yet, there's a good chance that it is not going to happen at all. This may just be the nature of the industry.

Either way, I certainly wouldn't be compaining about a 2% market share.

The server and network people are the ones who own the big chunks of market share. In a sense, we could be regarded as "salespeople" pushing their services. Think about it - we buy the server space, we pay for the bandwidth. In turn, we sell at a markup to our customers.


JP

Originally posted by Mike006
I got into the hosting buisness about 5 months ago and was wondering how long it too you to start recieving a steady stream of customers. Right now Im in the high teens, but have been in a slump the last 3 weeks. So basically what Im asking is how long did it take for your site to start being successful.

We incorporated over 3 years ago, and we STILL don't get a steady stream of customers. On the other hand, we don't have an ad budget, so we rely on word of mouth to expand.

One of the most important things to have is an ad budget. What makes those "big" hosting companies different from the rest of us? ONE of the things is -- an ad budget. That's how people hear about them, drop by their web site, buy hosting...

Business, in a sense, is partly a numbers game. Communicate your message to thousands of people... and if it's the right message, some will reply.

But for that you need an ad budget.

HOWEVER, word of mouth is the best form of promotion.


JP

Originally posted by johnder
One of the most important things to have is an ad budget. What makes those "big" hosting companies different from the rest of us? ONE of the things is -- an ad budget. That's how people hear about them, drop by their web site, buy hosting...

Business, in a sense, is partly a numbers game. Communicate your message to thousands of people... and if it's the right message, some will reply.

But for that you need an ad budget.

HOWEVER, word of mouth is the best form of promotion.


JP


Very true. And although word of mouth is usually your best promotional tool, you need a nice client base before WOM kicks in. Therefore a good ad budget is very important to begin with, as 10-20 hosting clients is not really enough for WOM to hold any relevance.

bqinternet: i would think about a web site redesign if I were you.

Originally posted by j22221
bqinternet: i would think about a web site redesign if I were you.

I'm sure he appreciates your opinion, but bqinternet isnt the thread starter here, so comments like that may be taken as insulting and IMHO, unneccessary. Sorry to get off topic.

Originally posted by dynamicnet

Not one of those hosting providers own over 2% of the global market share.

That's an interesting stat - where did you find that information?

Go Local! Social networking and developing relationships with business people is one of the most important tools to help get the word out about your company, you should do it even when you have a big ad budget! According to one of Harvard Business Reveiw magazine issue, "48% of a smart manage's time is spent networking."

Have a quota set for your marketing/advertising. Once you have a set amount of money to spend you wont end up spending more than you thought because you have a clear picture in your mind.

Be helpfull to others :) A good example of this would be contributing to communities such as WHT and other business forums whether online or offline, people appreciate help, they know if you help them you are determined to help your customers too.

Turn a failure into an opportunity. If you have a dissatisfied customer ask him/her what you could do to rectify, if it was server down time give them 1-2 months hosting free, in the long run they will stick to you and create word of mouth.

Provide special offers to your customers, retaining your customers will help you get their business and when you extend your service line you will already have a customer base.

Like my last point, Diversify vertically in your business. If you are hosting provide web design, seo and related services :)

best of luck,

Yaser

Originally posted by Professor
I'm sure he appreciates your opinion, but bqinternet isnt the thread starter here, so comments like that may be taken as insulting and IMHO, unneccessary. Sorry to get off topic.

Heh heh. No offence taken. We don't use our website to market, as we currently target the face to face market. A new design is going up shortly (PM me if you're willing to critique it ;) ).

What I was trying to say was it's very difficult to achieve a steady flow of customers unless you work at it, and that there's no magic number of months or years when that will happen. Unless of course you compete on price, in which case you'll get a steady flow of very demanding clients, and little or no profit margin.

Originally posted by bqinternet
Heh heh. No offence taken. We don't use our website to market, as we currently target the face to face market. A new design is going up shortly (PM me if you're willing to critique it ;) ).

What I was trying to say was it's very difficult to achieve a steady flow of customers unless you work at it, and that there's no magic number of months or years when that will happen. Unless of course you compete on price, in which case you'll get a steady flow of very demanding clients, and little or no profit margin.



Words of wisdom. And the problem is people use price competition as a shortcut. Why? It's a natural consumer reaction -- you see low prices, you gravitate towards the company offering it. If said company falls short, they learn their lesson and become a bit more skeptical. In any case, you're right about price.

It seems as if everyone just wants to sit down and wait for orders to pour in. I'd love to do that, but it won't happen.

I'm thinking of conducting workshops for small business owners -- what tools they can use to design a site, or how to find a web designer, shopping carts, storefronts, web hosting (of course), etc. Become a guru, face-to-face, and then sell hosting.



JP

Give Kyle at www.centae.com a buzz and have him do a press release for you. :)

Many people ignore Press Releases. It is a very good way to announce your services and offereings. www.pressreleasenetwork.com www.prweb.com www.marketwire.com are one of the big PR networks, hosts should consider doing this.

The first link provides distribution of your PR to different mediums depending on your target market.

:) Yaser