There is way too much competition on the Internet for web hosting companies. I don't think I can keep up with big hosting companies who offer unlimited webspace and unlimited bandwidth with super low prices. So I have to relent to offline and local advertising. What's your business strategy when it comes to offline advertising?

Advertising and marketing online and offline has at least one
thing in common - you have to know your target audience. Market
segmentation is very important because you don't want to loose
your money sending your ads to someone who has no interest in
it. Email advertising and online advertising in general is more
effective because there are many state-of-the-art techniques
which enable that you track every advertising. In online
advertising you can get information where your visitors are
coming from, what do they read on your web site, how much is
your email newsletter open-ratio, how much is click/thru ratio
for every link in your newsletter, also you can get demographic
reports about your visitors/subscribers and many other things.
Because of that, in online presence you have great options for
1-1 marketing. You can adjust your web site design and content
according to your visitor needs.

If you advertise on TV or magazines you can't know exactly how
many people actually saw your ad. There are some predictions
but not that precise, of course.

One of the main advantages of offline advertising over online
is that people still believe more in what they see on TV than
on the Internet.

Online promotion has one very big advantage over offline
promotion and that is interactivity. In online promotion you
can have interactive ads that behave differently based on
visitor's behavior. Popular thing in online advertising is
making ads like mini home pages. Yahoo! use that technique for
advertising their services.

You should have atleast mentioned this link as a source of the content that you posted here: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/20...ne-advertising

I think hosting company who offer unlimited bandwidth and unlimited space, are lied. They do that to make it appeared competitive. but if you see on TOS you will understand why.

Offline advertising has worked for a lot of companies, especially if you are targeting your local area. If you do go offline and you market your local area you have a good chance of succeeding especially if nobody else is out there doing the same thing in your area. You can sponsor tech related events and plus there are a tun of magazines that you can place ads in too.

The one thing with today hosting industry is that you can't just come into it trying to get every hosting customer from all the different niches. Pick your niche and market those people. You can expand or change your niche, but you need to find a market for your services. Marketing toward anybody, won't get you many leads -- you have to give customers a really good reason to host with you!

And don't worry about those companies that offer unlimited everything. There is no such thing... as unlimited bandwidth and space. It is limited and its expensive too. You don't have to sink to their level. Just provide good services and you will create loyal customers.

Spoken wisely. Very true on how this is said. Good way to word it

I would say there would be at least some amount of competition in any market you enter so the key is to keep trying harder and provide genuine service to your customers which will at a certain point of time make a mark of the company in the market. To succeed in the web hosting business I think patience is a must.
As for offline marketing try giving web designing service to people who have their sites and along with that you can also promote your main service i.e hosting which will probably get you more clients.

I totally agree with Gracia, you need to focus on ur customer base to make your advertisement.

Add value to your service that will allow you to promote easily and face the competition also check what other competitors are missing there.

I think service is the most important thing which each host reseller should adopt. I am surviving in this field with the least number of clients only because of my good service. We should identify our competitors locally and then we should try our level best to give best service than our competitors. First we should make our hosting famous in a local perspective and then go for overseas advertising through forums,adwords..,

Well, also by targeting your local market you get earliest response and bunch of word of mouth about your service especially when you render good service and support.

service and location of your hosting will matter a lot.
For instance i am in singapore and will not make much sense to get a hosting in USA even though it is cheaper there.

If you decide to advertise in any new media, make sure you can track the results. The best ways that I have found to do this is to allocate different toll free numbers for each media campaign and provide a coupon code that can be entered when checking out.

If you are running a special in a local paper then provide an incentive to call the number for additional savings. Remember that local customers will more than likely want that vocal connection before giving you their business.

You will of course want to provide a "coupon" code that customers can enter if they decide to go directly to your site.

If you have time to expend the effort into it, there are plenty of great ways to target a local audience and thrive VERY well, but you have to be savvy and dedicated.

Here is my suggestion.

First, if it is possible, offer more than just a hosting option. That's the way to get into the local scene. If you can, offer to design the customer's page for them at varied price ranges depending on quality. Also offer technical support that extends past normal hosting responsibilities, but make sure your customer understand you charge an additional amount for such. Finally, offer all customers with 6-month or greater packages that includes basic live system clean-up for their personal computer (antivirus, spyware removal, defrag, etc) twice a year that comes included in the plan.

Here's how to set it up:

1. Target specific organizations that will have good customers interested in being hosted. One thing that works well is to target the computer clubs of all your local golf courses, most of the time if you pitch the idea right the club will buy a bulk rate for all its members to have one website hosted apiece. Also target campus-rich areas.

2. For web design that you are capable and able to do, consider doing so. For all else, find trusted designers and commission them to do so. Even if you end up not making profit off of the web design end, you will make it up in hosting sales.

3. For technical support that you are unable or unwilling to do, such as going to a customer's home twice a year as part of the package to defrag and remove spyware, work out a deal with a trusted tech company to do the work for you. Be sure that your ToS explicitly details what is covered in the package, and who is liable for what, and the pricing structure of additional work not usually covered. Make sure your customer knows that they can call you for any tech issue, even though it may mean you calling someone you work with to come out and fix the issue. Most locals will go to whoever appears to be their one-stop computer shop, as much of your business will be coming from those not technically-savvy themselves and they need one source they can trust to juggle things for them. They do not want to be overwhelmed by trying to keep up with calling person A for web design issues, person B for host issues, person C for network issues, person D for home computer issues, and etcetera. Most local people in your target audience group work that is related to computers all in one generic category because they do not understand as much as others do about computers, and if you don't have resolutions for any general computer issue for them, they will start looking elsewhere.

You can also look into offering free samples of your product by sponsoring contests on TV and radio in your area. The best option starting off is to find another business that relates to your business that is already planning or involved in local contests, and then buy into the promotion to add your name to the list of sponsors in exchange for a small percentile cost of the venture along with your product as part of any prize packages.

Hope this helped and good luck.

I tried offline marketing in germany. It was waste of time and money. german customer only want cheap and very cheap and maybe nothing to pay :-(