Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : giving away free accounts...?

[joelmoss]

We are contemplating giving away free hosting accounts as part of some kind of prize draw on another site.

Has anyone had any experience of this or done it themselves?
Is it good promotion?
Does it drive traffic and possible more signups?
Is it good or not so good?

Any comments on this kind thing would be helpful.

[GoldenWeb]

I had contemplated giving away a free one year account with every 10th sign-up. I figured by giving away 1 out of 10 account wasn't a bad promotion as most webhosters spend more then 10% on advertising. But there's always drawbacks to it like clients may sign up just to try to win and if they don't they cancel the account and get their money back through our 30 day money back guarantee. So I threw that idea out the window.
My opinion is the traffic you generate with offering free hosting isn't the kind of traffic you want as they most likely will only want free hosting. I would stick with normal advertising methods.

[brkonthru]

good analysis GoldenWeb, I agree.

[joelmoss]

thanks for that, but is that the opinion of everyone? has anyone else tried it as a way of advertising?

what if you simply offered a free hosting account as part of a free prize draw offerred on another site that anyone can enter, not just for those who have already placed an order. surely that would be a great and inexpensive way of advertising.

[timesnme]

greets.

what about offering it as a tax write-off? give some charity or such a free account. i'm sure if you do this they will be grateful, you will be doing a good deed, the government will give you some slack (haha), and such.

... a thought ....

[Web Hosting Stuff]

It may be good promotion if the other site has plenty of traffic ... otherwise it's not productive to have only 5 leads contesting for 1 prize ...

[The Prohacker]

Giving free accounts just away doesn't serve alot of purpose, most sites are new or low traffic sites so won't give you a very big return...

Now, giving away a hosting account to someone like a design company can be a good practice because they might refer their customers to you for hosting...

[joelmoss]

what I am thinking of is that the whole reason why I would give give away free hosting as part of a prize draw or competition is as a way of promoting our company.

For example, if you had a competition advertised on these forums to win a hosting package from HomepageUniverse. People will click on it to find out more about what the prize is, who it is from and how to win it. They will also see HomepageUniverse all over the page aswell as links to our site for more info. This will mean that more people will see our offerings and even if they don't win the prize, they may well still order hosting or domains from us as a result of finding us through the promotion.

[Web Hosting Stuff]

It would be good branding ... but you need a high traffic partner to get enough entries in your draw ... 5 entries would hardly help ... compared to 5000 entries