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  1. #1

    Advertising a new Hosting Company

    Hi,

    I just started my hosting company and am trying to figure out what the most effective advertising methods are. By effective I mean something that reaches the greatest number of people at the lowest possible cost.

    Since I'm just starting out all I really have a resellers account and a limited budget. So I want to the most I can for the money that I spend.


    Thanks,

    Art
    EBCSNetwork, LLC
    LinkExchangeAndReview- Link Exchange

  2. #2
    you could try putting ads in PC magazines or newspapers they dont cost a lot. Or you could sell CPM to get more money then advertise with a professional add company?

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
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    9,264
    Quote Originally Posted by VDRS Host
    you could try putting ads in PC magazines or newspapers they dont cost a lot. Or you could sell CPM to get more money then advertise with a professional add company?
    Er, ads in pc magazines/newspapers will generally run from 500 and up in anything I've seen before. I'd recommend going purely word of mouth

    //much better clientbase!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2000
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    Advertising on things like google adwords or magazines will be expensive. I'd recommend looking for medium sized forums to advertise on. You also may want to look into sponsoring a high traffic website (such as free hosting in exhange for ads).

  5. #5
    Join Date
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    Internet / Colorado
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    Well the first thing that hurts you is that you are focusing on the huge general web hosting market which makes it more expensive to do ads, maybe picking a niche would help or at splitting your site into multiple sites for niches, here are a few examples:

    http://www.ebcsnetwork.com/s - Same design but in spanish and focused towards spanish visitors, or use it as a drop page and advertise on spanish sites and in spanish speaking countries using adwords.

    or

    http://www.ebcsnetwork.com/gaming - focus on the clan gaming market, tweak the design to have game charecters on the edges and focus on software you include that makes it easier for them to build their site, maybe php nuke or something, and how easy it is to setup emails, maybe partner with a game hosting company to trade visitors for those services.

    That would be a good step to being able to convert your visitors to customers as right now its going to be expensive since you are competing with 1 million hosts who look the same as you and also harder since most of them have 24/7 live chat or phone. Your prices are pretty good, not too low, might want to make the advanced and premium unlimited domains for marketing as the difference between 10 and 50 and unlimited in the real world is not much.

    and one quick q, what type of marketing plan do you have when you built this?

    Here are a few ideas once you choose a niche or focus down better:
    Free:
    -SEO -seo the crap out of your site, go read a bunch of seo web sites, maybe buy seobook.com and so on. Start writing 1 help desk article and 1 web hosting based article a day, doesn't have to be long but just make sure its helpful to your visitors and uses hosting terms you want to target.

    -Hosting directories:
    Submit to as many hosting directorise as you can find, builds a lil traffic and will help your links.

    - Host sites for free like Tony said with sponsership.


    Cost Money:
    - Adwords/overture/msn - great way to advertise, cheap if you know what you are doing, important to setup conversion tracking. You need a niche for this to make it cheap, like clan hosting and so on. Drop pages for specific terms help a ton on conversion rates.

    - Ad banners - focus on communities and drop pages - find something to compete on to make them worthwhile.

    - high paying affiliate program, pay 100 bucks per customer.

    Once you choose a niche there are a million more things I can suggest, until you you are kinda stuck.
    Like passive recurring revenue you can retire on?
    You focus on building your brand, we handle all support, billing, and more.
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  6. #6
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tcoy
    Advertising on things like google adwords or magazines will be expensive. I'd recommend looking for medium sized forums to advertise on. You also may want to look into sponsoring a high traffic website (such as free hosting in exhange for ads).
    Totally agree. Furthermore, I would also post my information in to as many host finder sites as possible since it is free to register with them, and try to get published in as many free area's as possible, web hosting forums, web hosting news, etc. That is something to start with. Look for link exchange, do some on your own and get with a link exchange company, this will be a moderate cost. And try to make your home page as original as possible. There are a lot of options open to you as far as free advertising you just have to keep your eyes opened.
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  7. #7
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    Guys adwords really isn't expensive if you pick a niche and go for the long tail keywords that cost 5 cents a click, takes some research and up front cost but can generate a decent amount of leads for the cost.
    Like passive recurring revenue you can retire on?
    You focus on building your brand, we handle all support, billing, and more.
    Pressed.net - Start your own Managed WordPress Hosting Company

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
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    U.S.A.
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    You should try in goodle adwords

    Quote Originally Posted by ajs5mz2
    Hi,

    I just started my hosting company and am trying to figure out what the most effective advertising methods are. By effective I mean something that reaches the greatest number of people at the lowest possible cost.

    Since I'm just starting out all I really have a resellers account and a limited budget. So I want to the most I can for the money that I spend.


    Thanks,

    Art

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
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    5,904
    Quote Originally Posted by jetairhost
    You should try in goodle adwords
    Wouldn't that cost a lot? Might be too much for a new hosting company.

    Anyone tried other services similar to adwords? That might be an option... or attempting direct networking with site owners.
    Windows 10 to Linux and Mac OSX: I'm PARSECs better than you. Eat my dust!!!

  10. #10
    You should try , advertising at Webhostingtalk...

  11. #11
    You can try with some Safe List services. I think they are cheap or even free in some cases.
    FREE ADVERTISING and GEOPIX ADS
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  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
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    Richmond, VA
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    3,119
    When I was running a hosting company, our two most effective forms of marketing were:

    1. Google AdWords
    2. Advertising on sites offered at AdBrite (specifically, interstitials)
    Daniel B., CEO - Bezoka.com and Ungigs.com
    Hosting Solutions Optimized for: WordPress • Joomla • OpenCart • Moodle
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  13. #13
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
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    You could try advertising offline, ie print a load of flyers etc, or perhaps visit businesses in the area. That might be the best way to begin before moving into the more mainstream market.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by markjut
    You could try advertising offline, ie print a load of flyers etc, or perhaps visit businesses in the area. That might be the best way to begin before moving into the more mainstream market.
    I agree with you. It might still be the best to target market that is near you.

  15. #15
    I think you should concentrate your local market first.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
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    New York USA
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    Thumbs up

    I'm trying google adwords as of now, i will try keep you updated, my spending limit is low with google adwords, as i want to see if i notice any increase , and then i will dump more into it. Start off small, and grow big. Remember, keep Overhead low, making profits higher. Also make sure you know what your talking about when it comes down to presenting yourself to future clients, at times you may run into some who have previous experince in the market, and know what questions to ask, and what answeres to expect. Be honest and upfront, study and do your research. The problem is with alot of these companies that sell you the brooklyn bridge for $5.00 is that they havent any idea what they are talking about, you ask them about what their connection is, and of course everyone says oc48, meanwhile they are on like dsl lol. The proper way to answer that is with technicals, but not too technical like; dedicated 10 MBPS pipe burstable to 100, with a 15MBPS commit, or something like that (It's 4am sorry). Know your stuff bottom line.

    Hope this helps!

  17. #17
    I like bwb's advices

  18. #18
    Hi, i tried adwords, banner advertisements and all kind of stuff. Somehow all of it did not prove very effective and pretty expensive. Now i will try it with pixel advertisement ala milliondollarhompage on a hosting related url that i just setup.
    Does anyone have experience with this kind of advertisement?

  19. #19
    Join Date
    May 2002
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    Internet / Colorado
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    1,660
    Quote Originally Posted by wanagi
    Hi, i tried adwords, banner advertisements and all kind of stuff. Somehow all of it did not prove very effective and pretty expensive. Now i will try it with pixel advertisement ala milliondollarhompage on a hosting related url that i just setup.
    Does anyone have experience with this kind of advertisement?
    Good for PR and seo but not getting customers directly. Adwords works well if you target and are doing a niche.
    Like passive recurring revenue you can retire on?
    You focus on building your brand, we handle all support, billing, and more.
    Pressed.net - Start your own Managed WordPress Hosting Company

  20. #20
    If anyone is interested in trying out pixel based advertising. You can try at http://www.hostsale.org . I set up a lot of areas with free advertisement pixels. You just need to find them. I also implemented a live chat so you can tell me what you think.

  21. #21
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
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    Waterloo, Ontario
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    Not just the local market, go after the businesses in your local area. After that you will have some capital to go after a bigger market.
    Right Servers Inc. - Fully Managed VPS and Fully Managed Bare Metal Servers in US & Canada. We want to empower entrepreneurs to grow their business, not their IT headaches. Managed is better.
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  22. #22
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
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    593
    I agree with local advertising.

    I sold my last company which had clients from all over the place. I then developed a local company with a direct point of contact for my customers.

    In my area, there are maybe 4-7 webhosting companies and they all charge rediculous amounts. I setup to be different in offering the area a customized plan that is developed to give the customer exactly what they are needing, meaning each plan is different. Also, this is a way for me to charge customers a customized price. Since I am a very good sales person, I can see what the customer is willing to spend and make the deal.

    Since all customers are being offered a different plan than the other customers, I have the ability to charge two customers a flat fee of $300/yr and give them both completely different specs.

    -------------
    To some it all up, don't bother spending money on advertising online UNTIL you get the local market. Online advertising is very cost ineffective until you have the profit to pay for it. Not to mention the time involved.
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