I have come up with an idea and want to throw it out here for opinions and feedback. I am putting together a promotional package for "new" businesses. The offer goes:

- Website to include domain name + 3 pages & 3 months hosting
- 500 Full Color Business Cards
- 500 1-color brochures
- 1 Business Logo Design
- 25% discount on next purchase of printing OR 50% off webhosting or additional web pages for 1 year.

Price Range is in the area of $250.00. I won't make a profit but it would get my name out into the community.

Note: This is NOT a solicitation in the forums - only a request for feedback. This will be offered ONLY in my local market.

I personally would rather make some money out of this. Once you start making profit you'll feel a lot better about your venture and have income to expand. Even at $350/450 this would still be a good deal (at least for me).

Also why not offer the free hosting for 6 months but offer the domain reg/renewal for free for as long as they host with you.

You can get a free domain reseller account from Stargate (PM Tom from Stargate here toget one) which only costs you $6.95US for the year.

Anyways just some ideas to think about.

I think its a good idea esp if you start making money off their hosting after three months and clearly state that, esp since you are local and can charge a premium for the web hosting.

Eh didn't notice you stated 3 months hosting included. So scrap my 6 months free hosting idea.

I do something similar in my area, man. To be honest, the support charges always chew me to pieces and I wind up wishing that I'd charged more up front. I suggest you to do the same.

I'd be afraid to look at the kinds of logos and business cards you'd be churning out for that price.

The package idea would work well, but you should increase your price. What happens when you want to make some money on this and have to jack the price up 2-3 times what you started it at. You would be better off to say it's $500 but offer it at $400 to start and run it as a $100 off promo.

I was in the printing business before I got into hosting and I don't think you can produce good results at these prices...I would look in to raising them up a bit.

Are you printing these yourself on your inkjet at home or having them printed up by a professional printing company?

I recommend rearranging your offer in one of two ways:

1. Make sure your offer will make you money on the back end. Eg. 50 % of the people buying the promotion end up purchasing more from you. Then figure out the value of each customer acquired based on the amount made after the promotion offer. Eg. 50 % of each person in the promotion ends up spending $100. So if you have 100 people take the promotion, 50 end up spending $100 later, so your sales are $5000. Divide the $5000 by the 100 initial customers and that means you receive $50 in sales for each person that signs up for the promotion offer. Then you want to make sure that it costs you less then $50 (hopefully way less) to aquire one new promotion customer or you will drive yourself into the ground. If you do not make profit of the promotion, you are better off to not run the promotion.

2. Figure out a way to make profit from your initial offer.

If you are determined to get your offer out you can always test each offer by running two offers at the same time, or at different times.

Something to remember about setting a price point is that people will view the quality of your work by it. If you set a low price point, they're going to wonder what the catch is. Does this guy do poor quality work, etc? If you set a higher price point, one that will make you some money, you'll put out the image that you know what you're doing and that is why your price is competitive with the others.

You also don't want to back yourself into a corner from the start offering low pricing and be stuck with it.

It may seem counterintuitive, but a price that is too low can actually hurt sales figures.

You'll definitely get your name out there. People who jump at the cheap offer will recommend you to others as "This guy is really cheap!". That's not the kind of customers you want to attract.

--Tina

I think it's a great idea, especially in your local market! Working with something like the Chamber of Commerce would allow you to contact new businesses, which would be a great help in getting started selling the package.