Hi all,

I am in the process of setting up my web design / hosting company. For the beginning stages I am planning on targeting mainly the local market, more specifically small businesses.

What I had in mind was to give local business owners free presentations on issues such as

1; why it is important for a modern business to have a web presence,
2; how to establish a web presence
3; how to market their business on the net (search engines, etc)

These presentations would be offered for free, hoping that some of the participants would eventually translate into customers and I would be able to generate some business.

I am also considering some well-targeted b2b telemarketing.

My questions are:

1; has anybody tried this method and if yes, did it work? What was the response?
2; where to find small business owners?
3; anybody tried telemarketing to recruit customers?

Also, does anyone have any experience with www.hostcolor.com? They have affordable (read dirt-cheap) rates, and the support seems to be fairly good, but they seem to be a start-up company. How difficult is it to move your accounts to another server later on, should you decide that you don't like the company you are doing business with?

Thanks in advance.

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There are three kinds of people; one who can count and one who can't. ;)

Hi Higgenkreuz,

Welcome to WHT.

You have a very excellent idea for starting your local marketing campaign. I'm not sure where you are operating from, but I suggest you visit your local BBB (Better Business Buearu), and see if they would help set this up for their members. I would also suggest using an ad in a local business journal or news paper, as opposed to a telemarketing campaign.

I haven't had experience with hostcolor, but their rates seem reasonable. I would do some searching around here to see what you can find as well.

I wish you luck.

Nick Leavens

1; has anybody tried this method and if yes, did it work? What was the response?

Yes, this does work. I've always wanted to do web hosting/design professionally but one of the main things that led me to start when I did was I stumbled across one of the largest educational companies that didn't have a website and didn't think much about using the web to conduct business. There is plenty of other companies out there that just need a little hand holding and explanation on how the web may improve their business.

where to find small business owners?

Sometimes hitting the concrete and going door to door works. I tried the local magazines but I got salespeople from other magazines calling me to advertise and didn't make one sale.


3; anybody tried telemarketing to recruit customers?

I don't think telemarketing would help you with a web business but it might depend on what area you live in. Personally I see it as a different kind of spam.

Also, does anyone have any experience with www.hostcolor.com?
See the kid on the front page with the laptop? That's who's running it ;)

Telemarketing has about the same conversion rate as banner ads. So about .1-1%.

If you really target your calls, by seeing if they have a web site yet or if they have a domain name registered yet, it goes up. If you especially target the ones whose domain names are still available (ie. mikeshardware.com) you'll have better luck.

We have done it, and it is a lot of work, but it can bring in a customer or two a day if you have the time/money to invest.

Remember that your local customers are a lot more willing to pick up the phone or stop by when they need help, instead of sending off an email.

Good luck with your new business.
As most of the other points have been covered, I thought I'd address the one about moving servers at a later point.

I recently had the not so pleasant experience of moving most of my clients from one side of the Atlantic to the other.
Static HTML sites are easy, if you have shell access (on Linux). You can make a tar.gz of the entire site and 'drop' it into place on the other server.
Databases and scripts are a very different matter. Not all servers have the same configuration (unfortunately or fortunately) so you can have great 'fun' trying to get everything working in the new location...

If I were you I'd be very careful about where I set up my sites to begin with. If you are going to be a reseller to begin with, which means relying on somebody else for technical support, check them out very carefully. Technical issues that can easily be fixed in five or ten minutes shouldn't take a week...

Maybe you could try searching the boards for information on any companies you are looking at. Remember unlimited hits and bandwidth are popular myths... somebody has to pay. Be it financially or in server uptime.