Hi,

I've been doing fulltime web design & hosting off and on now for a couple of years. Although word of mouth is pretty good, it seems only to be good for testimonials and not referrals. Even though I have a lucrative referral program, it yields no results for current customers.

All my customers are local, which is usually less than 50 miles away from my office.

That is why I'm thinking of doing a mailing campaign, to get the word out. I'm thinking of specifically mailing prospective clients that are mentioned on local Chamber of Commerce websites but don't have a website listed.

I would then focus how I'm a local designer & hoster that can compete with low prices without loosing the personal or local touch.

My question is, would it be wise of me to advertise in such a way?

This seems to be a better for my return-on-investment than say putting flyers on parked cars, which has been mentioned on this forum before.

What do you all think about this? Has anyone tried this before?

Thank you!

I think if your running locally flyers through letterboxes would be a better idea.

Unfortunately, I disagree with Naz.

Postcards might be a tad more expensive, but much more effective and will look a lot more professional. With the flyers, I'm sure you don't want to waste your own time running around leaving flyers in the letterboxes and if you're going to hire a kid to do it for you, you can count on the fact that it probably won't get done well.

I admit that I haven't tried postcards myself yet, but I am doing the research on that right now. We plan to target business that already have a website (but we offer a different product) - however, the concept is the same.

I found a ton of useful information on USPS.com. They have a special section for "direct mail" campaigns.

You can actually find out quite a bit if you search the archives of WHT - some of the members tried it and had reasonable success.

Personally, I believe that the best way to do it would be to do the mail out and then follow up on each lead with a phone call within a week's period.

Boris

Well, I don't agree with just sticking them in boxes. For two reasons, it's against postal regulations and very unprofessional. I'm more than willing to go the professional route; money is no object, although I want a good return-on-investment.

But I don't want to cold call people at the same time. I live in a somewhat small town and do not want to necessarily tarnish my company's name by using any boiler room tactics, such as cold calling.

I'm also willing to not limit myself to a postcard. I've been thinking of using professionally done, custom made, presentation folder that can contain more information and a personalized letter that gives them a unique discount code and mentions their businesses name.

Like I said, I've seen posts on this forum where people just stick them on cars or in mailboxes without actually knowing anything about their target market, thus loosing their return-on-investment.

I'm curious to know if the tactic of gaining market share by soliciting businesses through local Chamber of Commerce, who don’t have a website, with an ad that says something to the effect of how taking their business online is a good idea.

Also, I believe if I solicit to people that are already hosted, they will not switch over do to their binding contract. I'm thinking that this is true because I've seen some of the competition in small towns and they basically lock customers in with contracts, especially the internet service providers that host websites.

Sam, I think the local Chamber of Commerce route is a great idea. I'm doing the same thing in my town. Actually you should think of joining yours. Some places will even mail your postcards for you. It can be very effective and it doesn't cost that much to join (my town is less than $300).

I like the postcards idea. We used this and currently do although I haven't mailed them out yet. The amount of research needed to do the mailing is allot. Like you said, you don't want to waste it by mailing to everyone.

You are on the right track and I think you've pretty much answered your own questions. I also like your presentation folder idea; I've also used this and it looks very professional. It's allot of work but it's good. Do you have a brochure? You should get this done if you don't and include it in your presentation folder; espensive but it's worth it. Handing a folder with information about your business speaks well about your company and you don't need to waste anyone's time trying to talk to them when they don't want to talk to you anyway!. Just leave it with them and have them read when they have time. Best yet, it will have everything in one place.

Good luck and let us know which route you take.

Doing mail in could be a little expensive. Think of the postage per mail and the "read" rate of this tactic.
Because you do not know the actual person of the compamy incharge and stating things like "To: IT Manager" could be a turn off.

I personally tried a Fax campaign for company ( which I had seriously objected in doing so but was "given the go" by the project's boss to do it ) and it back fired like what I predicted to him.
The phone bill was enough to get me a small section on a computer magazine....

My view is that you would be much better advertising on a local IT absed magazine or Newspaper that is targeted at IT.

Thanks for the input cahostnet & galacnet, but I do have some more questions and a few comments.

1. Why is it that web hosting advertising is, for the most part, specifically targeted to tech-savvy people? Like IT magazines?

2. Why do I get the distinct feeling that advertising in the web hosting market is somewhat blanket advertising?

~Comments~

I do have all the names of the owners whom I'm mailing the advertisements to, along with some personal information I have gathered, so it will be completely personalized.

The presentation information packets, postcards and brochures I'm going to mail will approximately cost $7 a kit. Considering that the average client will pay an average of $1000 (95% profit), with a minimum conversion rate of around 5%, I think it will be sufficient enough to turn a profit.

I would advertise in a newspaper, but there are only two major ones in my state and cost lots of money to advertise, since there is practically a monopoly.

Plus I feel that it is somewhat ineffective to advertise in a newspaper and very similar to having an advertisement taped on pizza boxes (which someone on WHT has done before), which is not really focusing on a target market.

It seems in the web hosting industry, people just blanket advertise to a bunch of people, then hope for a sale.

This maybe because there are already a lot of web hosting companies around.
Many people go for local companies and pay a little more because they want to have the peace of mind that "when I got a problem, I know the guy is there".

But well if you do know the people or at least had slight contact with the people you are mailing then I would highly suggest mailing them :)

Good luck on the Campaign

Well Sam, I'm not sure there's a blanket advertising in web hosting. The problem is everyone copies everyone else without understanding what the other person is doing or why they are doing it.

Here's an example:

One host sees Verio or Site5 adveriting on WHT so they go and do it too. Or they go on Oventure because they saw their competition doing it. Better yet, they try to outbid them without even knowing what the ROI will be for that bid.

Well anyone that understands marketing and sales a little understands that you can not adertise or do any ad campaign without first understanding who your audience is. No one thing works for everyone.

Verio and Site5 might be targeting a technical audience so adertising in WHT or oventure or google might work best for them because their target audience is best recruited there.

Let me explain further, if you are going after technical customers then advertising on google or say a tech forum like this might be the best place for you to spend money. If not then you'll only be wasting it. Since we are not after the same type of customer we can’t use the same type of media. For example, research shows that younger audience do not read a whole newspaper like the older generation do; so using a newpaper to target a younger target might not be your best route. Look at Scion, and look at how they marketed the car. Can you guess who they are going after??? That's my point. For those who don't know what I'm talking about they went after the younger generation so selling the car with nice rims, customized radio (basically everything younger people want was the best route for them.) Remember the commercial? Have you also been at their site? Again you see my point.

So Sam you see web hosting is not different in advertising as any other business. Certain people (who may not understand marketing) just do whatever they see others do without educating themselves as to why.

Sitck with what you’re doing and read more on marketing and sales and try to get more idea about your target audience. This will help out with your decision making. I have a question for you; do you have a profile of your potential customer? Do you know how to communicate with them? Do you know their purchasing habbits? Are they mostly men, women? Etc etc etc …

Another note Sam; you may just have to try different media of advertising until you find the one that works best for you. Once you find out, stick with it.

Originally posted by SamTheMan
The presentation information packets, postcards and brochures I'm going to mail will approximately cost $7 a kit. Considering that the average client will pay an average of $1000 (95% profit), with a minimum conversion rate of around 5%, I think it will be sufficient enough to turn a profit.


I wonder where you are getting the 5% conversion rate? Is this a number you have experienced in the past, or a hoping for number?

My experience with a mail campaign has been less than stellar. I sent out a _very_ targetted postcard campaign. I mailed 2000 postcards and received 5 signups. Granted, it is a postcard -vs.- your presentation folder so your results may vary.

First, yes it is a 5% conversion rate because I did a small test run to make sure it could yield results we needed.

I mailed out 150 personalized informational packets in 3 cities, 50 packets in each city. It was 2.667 (8 total) in each city were actual sales, average to be $1000 per sale.

They were companies that did not have a website but had the potential of having one. I decided the potential on these four questions:

1. Does the company do business outside of the city where its located?

2. Does the company have an email address?

3. Does the company sell goods or services over the phone or through the mail?

4. How long has the company been in business?

If three out of four questions were yes, then it a pretty safe bet to get more information on the company because of it being a potential sale. We got information on the business, owners, their habits, their family (ironic isn't it cahostnet?), among other things.

We then narrowed the 300 to some 150 targeted to service related industries that we thought would be interested in such services, such as lawyers, certified public accountants, mortgage brokers, insurance agents and doctors.

We sat by the phones around 25 phone calls but only 8 became actual sales. Which is pretty good metrics, considering it was a 32% conversion from actual calls to actual sales.

We know that it can yield high results but we have never tried to sell to Chamber of Commerce members, since there are members who are web designers.

If we spark the idea of them having a website, will they come to us or will we spark the idea for them to go to their fellow members or worse turn to the local phone book?

Like I said Sam, you are answering your own questions and doing good at it. You're on the right track.

As far as the Chamber of Commerce thing, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just because a web designer is a member doesn't mean all members will go to them. Go for it.