My main question is how do you get new customers?

Do you advertise? Where?

What are your marketing tactics?

Thanks.

Many people rely on word of mouth, and places like WHT, we are still small but both of those seem to be working fairly well for us. Of course there are paid advertisements as well that some people favour.

I think the best way is just to make yourself known, not so much to go directly after new tactics, but to let people know your name and what you do. So when they or their friends need hosting, you will come to mind.

Hi Alison,

I have good experience with giving away free tools to get recognized. Since I put my Formmail-Generator on my site and got listed at hotscripts.com I got e-mail from some new customers.

Just make sure your tool or service is good and free and that you got listed in a reputable listing like hotscripts. A good or excellent rating will also help a lot.

See this for an example of what I did:
http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/11190.html

I also would recommend to help other people in Newsgroups and Communities. I am among the top ten experts at ExpertsExchange.com and AskMe.com in my areas of expertise (PHP and Flash) so that people see that I know my stuff.

Because you offer hosting instead of programming (what I do) your areas of experience should be setup-, security- and webhosting issues ;) I think customers value competent support a lot.

You can also offer free hosting for a limited number of people to get recognized. Or offer a competition (like: who can create me a Flash intro for 2 yrs. free hosting).

Marian

Originally posted by Alison
What are your marketing tactics?

The best marketing tactics are the ones you don't share with your competitors. ;)

Anyways, try the search function (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/search.php?s=), similar topics have been discussed before.