Where do you guys do your advertising? I used to just watch the forums and tell some friends but that hardly did anything at all..

I'm not really sure where to look to do some advertising, but maybe you guys could let me know a few questions about acquiring some new clients

There are lots of places to advertise but it depends on what market you are going after.

If you want to have a market of gaming sites you will be advertising in a different way than you would for a business site.

Forums are a good way to advertise, join up on some forums which are for your target market and start posting there and you can link to your site in your sig.

You can also submit your company to free and premium hosting directories which is obviously going to be very targeted.

Google adwords works for some sites but not others, think it may depend on your advertising campaign.

You could offer free hosting for sites and put your banner on their websites (I wouldnt recommend this...it hasnt worked well at all for me but I was aiming more just to offer a good free service rather than as an advertising method.)

You could advertise in your local area, ring up local businesses, post flyers etc. This can work quite well and you can normally charge more in a local area than if you were going to compete on the net with a load of other companies in the same area as yourself.

Hope this helps
John

Sell stuff like T-Shirts or give them away as a prize etc to get your site heard for free

I tend to offer sponsored hosting (at a discounted rate) to sites that have a high google ranking. By having those sites linking to you two things happens. You get some quality advertising because they get alot of visitors and your google ranking goes up because google ranks based on who has your site linked. The more highly ranked sites that have your link on them, the higher your own google ranking goes up...

Otherwise I find advertising in the local market very worthwhile. Print up posters and flyers. Go around popular parking lot and put some flyers with a coupon code on all the cars. Hang flyers and stickers off of telephone polls. Ask local buisnessed if they want/need website hosting and get your flyer in their window...

I never thought about doing sponsored hosting for google ranking but thats a very good idea...
How much do you normally take off your account prices for sponsorship?

depending on how much bandwidth the site uses we usually give 25 - 50 % off... sometimes if we really want the client we will do a free deal, but that involves heavy banner advertising on their site...

I never knew that about google.. but ya learn something new every day I guess

Thanks for all the tips and suggestions

I offer a good bit of free hosting , small accounts..25 megs.. it usually brings in a larger one or someone wonting to upgrade

I dont find that free accounts bring many new accounts and most dont seem to want to upgrade either.

Thats ok with me though because I wasnt offering the free accounts to make more money, it was mainly just something to help people out as I remember the normal free hosts and the problems i had a long time ago..

<!--QuoteBegin-John Diver+Oct 13 2003, 03:59 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (John Diver @ Oct 13 2003, 03:59 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I dont find that free accounts bring many new accounts and most dont seem to want to upgrade either.

Thats ok with me though because I wasnt offering the free accounts to make more money, it was mainly just something to help people out as I remember the normal free hosts and the problems i had a long time ago.. [/b][/quote]
Offering small free accounts ha broght quite a bit of buisness my way....through refferals........i'm very pleased with the way it has worked .... and offerring free accounts to help out is great ...

Gordy,

Advertising plans are one of the most troublesome parts of running a hosting business. You have to think this way. There are so many hosting companies out there that would charge someone $2.95 per month when you are trying to sell it for $5.95.

What makes the difference is what do you have that is going to make your customers stand out.

I started workingo n an advertising campaign about 3 months ago, and it is still in developement. Im doing a lot of research on a narrow section of businesses in my area. Such as child care and small law firm practices.

I've installed lots of perl modules and a few scripts that I think might help these certain businesses out, that other standard regular hosting companies might not provide. I then went into the stage of writing individual letters to the head of the organizations explaining how we (vovex technology) could help benifit their company by establish a strong presence on the internet. Lots of small local companies will gladly pay $500+ for a simple 3-4 page site layout and their own custom email address, and a year of basic hosting included with that. Right now im am working on the brochure part of my plan. Im putting together a well rounded 4 page brochure that explains our services, a bit about the company and then why they should choose us.

I figure in the next few weeks I should have everything together. .. and I plan on sending out about 114 letters to the local businesses that I have been researching.

If people see that you are willing to put your time into them.... even with out getting a sale. They will remember you for the next time, and maybe you will even get a few referrals.

Thanks Jonathan, I will try some of your ideas, hope you don't mind and I will put them to the test around my area and my partners area.. I really hope they will attract some new clients, as I am sure they will.

Jonathan have to say Im very impressed by your dedication and the time you commit to your company.

Would be good if everyone in the hosting industry was putting so much effort into their business.

You have some very good ideas and solid plans which im sure will pay off for you.
Good luck with your campaign, it sounds like it should be successful in getting your company known by the local business

Thanks Gordy and John.

If there is anything I can do to help either of you out let me know.

John : DO you run a company?? Or are you just a site admin?

Your very welcome.

Yeah I do run a company and also a load of sites which are all on topics that I really like.

Im very interested in running sites and started many years ago.

Ok sorry dont want to go off topic here