Lets say I have about a mid $x,xxx.xx type budget, Where are the good places or ideas to advertise a hosting busniess catering to resellers? Of course there is WHT but I want top notch clients. I was thinking along the lines of *Nix type msg boards, *Nix type magazines, news sites, business/entrepreneur forums & similar.
No google adwords please, Heard more bad then good about it.
Any and All feedback is much appreciated.

-Dave

Perhaps a local paper or PC\Business magizine.

A local newspaper and a good yellowpages presence can help greatly. Also recommend magazines like pingzine and webhost industry review. Obviously these are very targeted as they deal with hosting.

I would stay away from yahoo advertising and google advertising, they are quite expensive and they dont always give you what you pay for, as they have been both sue's many times over this problem.

What do you mean they have been sued over this problem? I don't recall hearing of any lawsuits against google or yahoo regarding adwords.

Google is actually getting ready to be sued at the moment. It is a class action suit regarding their AdWords program.

In basic terms, Google is getting sued for not taking proper actions against click fraud.

Best,

Normally we see that on hosting forums many companies place there hosting adds but I'd suggest you to advertise on sites that are not related to hosting, for example gaming, business, information sites etc.

David,

How much time would you like to spend on your business? Personally, I would throw out the internet community. It is such a braod range and their are so many hosting companies.

local papers, word of mouth, and going to businesses seeing if they need web design, development, and web hosting services is the way to go. It may take a lot of time out of your day; however, in the end it is worth it.

As soon as, I move back to Kalamazoo I will begin to do this again. It has generated profits especailly with one of the U.S.'s larger ISP being downtown. Some individuals do not like to have $199.99/month for 100 GB of transfer on a dedicated server.

One thing that you must do in the hosting industry is to think outside the box. Look at what your competitors are doing. They may be doing thins well; however, you could be the first one to come up with something much better. Why do what the rest of the crowd is doing when you could invent something new and be the leader of the pack instead of playing catch up.

Not everyone has a large network of business contacts they can solicit. If you're working from home and have most of your friends and business contacts already signed up then who else is there? Also taking time to meet a client in person and discuss hosting options might not be worth the $10 a month they're paying you.

Seek more targeted groups depending on what your goals are. Eg: Flash developers. Usually web developers will have a heavy say to the company they work for as to where to host the site or series of sites. Make nice with some developers and business will come. Offer some incentives to get them in the door and keep them happy.

Trying to buy advertising on WHT or adwords for hosting are a waste of time and money if you're a small business IMO. Think about offering an affiliate program for the loyal ones who keep sending you clients, they'll push harder to sell your products when there's something in it for them. Soon you'll have a few free sales people giving you more time to focus on strategies and creative marketing ideas to keep clients happy and coming in.

Happy clients will refer more new ones. Don't always assume you need to go outside of the box to find new customers. Maybe get more in touch with your current clients and see if they'd recommend your services. Having a happy customer recommend your services over a crappy banner ad is 1000x as effective.

Lets be honest here. Web hosting is the same as selling bottled water when it comes down to it. The services are virtually identical. Some companies are very creative in the type of bottled water they sell. How creative you are with marketing plays a huge role in your businesses success. Seeming like you have something different or special when its really just the same is key. Go to your grocery store and look at all the different packaging on bottled water, kind of silly but you'll be shocked which ones make you think you're thirsty. The same things goes for this stupid "Energy Drink" craze. Who the heck in their right mind pays $2.50-3.00 for a drink that's smaller than a can of coke? It's nothing but sugar water, like Coolaid but I see TONS of people spending their hard earned bucks like an addiction. The image of the product is crutial. what image are you trying to give?

Hello Dave

If you looking for PRINT, you can try PingZine - http://pingzine.com

Otherwise, you can setup a campain with INET (wich can include WHT) - http://inetinteractive.com

Some Web Sirectories such as

http://hostsearch.com
http://webhostdir.com

Are a good bet as well

You might also wish to try and find any local business directories, they can be cheap and generate quite a few local leads.

Hmm almost all of our business comes from Google? So I would think it works just fine for us. Yahoo on the other hand to me is nothing but click fraud over and over again. I have tried three times with Yahoo and finally just gave up.

I would agree. its nice to advertise on one or two hosting sites, but that's nice a needle in a haystack thing. Build your hosting brand where the competition isn't.

Most hosting sites are flooded with ads from DISCOUNT hosts. Offers too good to be true, because eventually they usually are.