What are some things sucessfull web hosting companies have done to get started. We are currently "live" and ready to host lots of sites, but we're having a hard time finding clients. Do other hosting companies ever "Sell" clients? Is anyone getting out of the business and want to sell their accounts?

Seems like a lot of companies willing to give hosting away for a single buck (i.e $2.95 /mo for 1000MB and 50GB transfer if you know what I mean).

We are considering buying banner ads on the local newspaper website. Looks like I can get 16,000 impressions for about 300 bucks. That includes a large ad in their newsletter twice a month for 3 months. Right now no other web hosting/design companies are advertising in our area.

I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions, stories or comments (except the useless one like-> look out..oh no...you get the point).

This is not some cheap post to try and get people to sign up. If you want to please go ahead. We are very small and have excellent customer service and lots of space on the server.

In any case, looking forward to some insight. Anyone else had good luck with local advertising? What produced the best results for you. Did you advertise hosting and design, or just one? What do you suggest.

Thanks in advance,
Chris Batcheller

check the "running a webhosting biz" for recent threads on this topic...(which is where this one belongs)

there was a thread in the past week that had some great advertising tips and there are a few other threads that answer all your other questions...