Well I am sure we have all been there. We have started or Hosting company back in May of this year. We will be honest with you we have only a few clients, local clients.

We have done a ton of work with submitting our info to webhosting directories and Search engines but we have not got one signup. We are willing to do the leg work on the local business to get the clients but we would at least like some pay off from submissions to SE and hosting directories.

Can someone shed some light on us and possibly give us some pointers? I know most people are inclined to give away there secrets of attracting clients but as we all know the interent is only growing daily and right now there seems to be room for each of us...

Thanks

Try offering/advertising a free deal for a limited time. Offer a year of free hosting, and run the special for a week, or even 2-3 days. This will create a 'buzz' about your company, and get more widespread knowledge of it. It will also create goodwill between you and your new (free) cilents who will hopefully sign up with you (paid) next year. They will also tell others about you (word of mouth).


You can also look at buying up clients from other companies to build your client base to a point you can support yourself more. I did that a year ago, and even though my expenses jumped with the cost of new servers/purchase of clients, my cashflows became positive.

the local level is a good place to start to get the word out about your business. word of mouth, i think, is sometimes the best and easiest way to gain new clients. it's all about networking. and like amish said, offering something like free hosting for a year for the first XX clients, is a good way to get your name out there.

What forums did you get your best results from?
I am not able to post anything in the WHT Offers forum yet.

Judging from your post, you haven't really been doing a lot of advertising.

Perhaps, you should consider advertising on Google, Overture, and SearchFeed to get some prospects coming your way? If you are on a tight budget, PPC search engines should be your first destination.

Also, if you get a chance, read: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=293359 - it will provide you with some ideas that you haven't considered yet.

Boris

Have you checked you stats to see if there is traffic going to the site. No traffic = no customers. Or, if there's tons of traffic and still no sign ups, maybe your site needs a revamp.

adverts are your awnsere m8. there are some good advertise networks around for hosting companies

Chris, I started my co around the same time as you and was beginning to wonder when the paying clients would come. The first came about 2 months ago and although the floodgates haven't opened, I have several paying clients now - almost double figures!! Advertising is being done at a local level, targeting clubs mainly, those who don't have a web presence and those using ISPs free webspace.

We've also stared advertising online at Webhostdir, tophosts, and NoChex Highstreet - the latter is proving the best source of hits! Keep at it, we'll all get there, just a case of when.

There was a good suggestion about "free" website offers and I agree. Offer a very low rate for your customer at first, even enough to cover your finance charge. This way you have a method to track the users and also prevent some of the fraud associated with anything "free" on the web.

Sell your client(s) and use the money to start hire someone to help you write a business plan.

Two suggestions. First, your order page isn't secure, this would deter a large number of potential clients. Secondly, 3 out of the 4 "Order Now" links at the top of your reseller page don't work.

I looked at your site. Why should I choose you over the next guy? What makes you special? Where are you located? Being able to show up at your door is worth something to some folks. It is one reason I choose the host of my primary site. I could (and would) go over there if I needed to. (Dropped off 850mb of files one day so I would not have to upload them via my dial-up)

Take that community forum off your site. It is very demoralizing to prospective clients when you have an empty forum...

Honestly your website is no different than the other 100 hosts a client has seen that day. He's turned the other 99 down for a reason and will keep going past yours since he knows there'll be 100 more to look through tomorrow.

That's obviously just my opinion.

Just to elaborrate on the support issue...

ZAAM Networks offers limited support to it's clients via it's support forums and Instant Messaging only . Please always check the forums for current news and information. Please note we do not offer phone support.

#1. I'd take out the word "only", it looks bad.
#2. Don't say what forms of support you don't offer, stick with the list of what you do offer.
#3. As stated by 2fangs, your forum is empty. In addition, you're telling your prospective clients to visit your empty forum for "current news and information" which don't exist.

I think the site may be a cause of a reduced number of signups.

Originally posted by amish_geek
Try offering/advertising a free deal for a limited time. Offer a year of free hosting, and run the special for a week, or even 2-3 days. This will create a 'buzz' about your company, and get more widespread knowledge of it. It will also create goodwill between you and your new (free) cilents who will hopefully sign up with you (paid) next year. They will also tell others about you (word of mouth).


You can also look at buying up clients from other companies to build your client base to a point you can support yourself more. I did that a year ago, and even though my expenses jumped with the cost of new servers/purchase of clients, my cashflows became positive.

I am curious. How do you go about buying another company's clients? I wouldn't know where to start but it certainly sounds like an interesting idea!

Originally posted by cosmicwalk
I am curious. How do you go about buying another company's clients? I wouldn't know where to start but it certainly sounds like an interesting idea!

Keep an eye open in the other hosting offers and request forums. Companies are for sale there quite often, and you can pick up a clientbase of a company that wants to get out of the hosting market.

Thanks Amish. It's something I would never even have thought of before!

You need to define your target market and then create a marketing strategy accordingly. I don't think WHT will get you the clients you want. You're competing with many low-price hosts and desperate people here and there. Grow locally. Better revenue and easier to manage.

I am not sure if i am seeing this wrong but when i try to checkout the product and you are asking for billing method and i choose Credit card, how and where do i enter the credit card number and information? its confusing. you might want to put in a text there explaining how you are going to get that info..