Hey All,
Where do you get the majority of your business from?

1) User Referals ie: Word of Mouth
2) Advertising in search engines
3) Advertising in Web Host Directories
4) Advertising locally
5) search engine placement


I'd have to say one quarter of my users came from search engine advertising and the rest from word of mouth.

I would have to say in this order:

1. Word of mouth
2. Banner Advertisments
2. Posting on forums ie: WHT

One thing I would like to mention...
Why is everyone concerned about new customers?
Why not concentrate on the ones you already have?
Try offering new services or some new products.
Your existing customer base will have a higher level of trust for you, and would be more likely to purchase from you over a 3rd party. One thing that I learned from running businesses is that return sales are usually the easiest to close, they require the least amount of money or time to get, and they often make your customers even happier with the service/products you are providing them.

Hope this helps somebody a little.

1) User Referrals
2) Local Ads
3) Forums (put your signature EVERYWHERE, but don't abuse it:)

the best one is word of mouth (and the cheapest... but requires a good support/service of course).. banner ads are rather low (even with targeted exposures).. .. search engines used to be very good, but not anymore.. all this spamming etc...

Apollo

Originally posted by TheException
One thing I would like to mention...
Why is everyone concerned about new customers?
Why not concentrate on the ones you already have?
...

Good point.

well i am new, but i can say that tv ads are the best, but they cost too much.

monster.com advertises on tele, and they reported being very profitable because of that, but who can afford thousands of dollars for 30 second ads.

hence...i think

advertising on search engines/hosting directories is best.

as an example. i am new, i was looking for hosting companies, so what i did the first thing was go to google.com and hosting directiories.

user referrals, is only useful if u have friends or people u know with same host. but doesnt necessarily mean u will join the same host as ur needs with be different.

take me., no one told me about any hosting companies, even though i am doing e-commerce, these days its all upto the individual to go online and find out for himself.

Word of mouth can be great for hosts with smaller markets - say if your market is a small town or even a small country for that matter, or if the word is spread within an online community by one or more satisfied customers.

Without question, the best forms of advertising are those that are free.

Consumers are inclined to trust their friends more than any faceless advertisement or salesperson. Consequently, word of mouth is an enormously powerful tool. It works just as well against companies; everyone knows which corporate conglomerates are the most hated, not because of some immensely successful newspaper advertisement, but because they've heard things from their friends.

The press is the other "free" medium of advertising. If you can catch the attention of an influential reporter, an endorsement in a magazine or newspaper can go a long way. Reporters love to steal story ideas from one another.

Aaron Greenspan

<<Please set up a signature (see PROFILES button at top of page)>>