Advertising?

[commit1anthony]

Hello HD,

Just wanted some input from you guys. Where would you say would be the most effective place to advertise to make your name be heard? Opinions would be highly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[peter phillips]

That depends upon your site what it is all about, who are your targeted customers and your budget.

 

[ANMMark]

Peter is very accurate here.

Your question was geared very generally, and this can be considered throwing money away if you use that approach based on people's opinions which are based on such general information.

Without sounding like a smart*ss, the best place to advertise is the place where people see and click on your ads, then buy. Where might that be? It depends on what you're selling, what audience is most likely to buy what you're selling, and where does that audience hang out?

Answer those questions, and it will systematically answer your's.

 

[commit1anthony]

In general, I was wanting replies from people who have built there company up from advertising. What steps have you taken, where brought you the most business?

 

[ANMMark]

There are many forms of advertising. Word of mouth is by far the best.

Word of mouth comes from satisfied customers. There is no more solid marketing campaign than that, and it happens without spending a dime on advertising, if your product/service is good, and your customer are satisfied with the level of support you provide them.

Start locally, in the yellow pages, newspapers, local trade magazines, etc.

In fact, in the back of a lot of school yearbooks, the school sells advertising spots.

Do a lot of meeting and greeting, etc.

Traditional advertising online, is falling a little from what it used to be. Consumers are a little more cautious about websites and services than they were in the days of the .com boom.

This is where word of mouth comes to mind. You'll need people to back your company's claim of outstanding service, and there is no one better to do that than a current satisfied customer. This builds your reputation into one that the people can trust when they see your name on a banner or ad at places such as HD, WHT, PingZine, etc.

 

[peter phillips]

ANMMark,

The word of mouth can be effective unless and until you have a fair number of customers only. Another question that comes in mind is that why people will generate word of mouth in favour of you? The different surveys show that a person will hardly tell about your good service at his own interest to another person inspite of he being well satisfied by your products or service, while if you see other side of the word of mouth a bad of mouth can spread the bad thing to 12 persons at a time. So it is most important part of your business that you should keep control on your customers as well as your service and support.

commit1anthony,

If I am not wrong without creating your online presence if you go on for advertisement directly it can be a mess or might be the wastage of money. As without proper planning and perhaps a wrong media objectives you won't be able to communicate with your right customers with your message.

I would like to suggest that you should create your online presence and get your site atleast 50000 to 75000 clicks and a good percentage of views thereafter you should look for a good media objectives with a good ad campaign. Eventually I would add that mistake in advertisement can be a costly mistake.

Good luck!

 

[BrowseHosts]

In general, I was wanting replies from people who have built there company up from advertising. What steps have you taken, where brought you the most business?

The first step in advertising anything nowadays is truly to define your target. Who is, or do you want to be, your customer?

I'll be able to add some more advice after your response .

 

[pageBuzz]

Best advertising

I have found that marketing hosting has been the most difficult product I have ever tried to sell. Online advertising is almost useless. I have done TV, Radio and print. I have done mailings, promotions and anything you can think of.

I have found the best way to sell is to sell indirectly. I wanted to sell sites to car dealers. autotrader was just too expensive to advertise on and returned nothing to me. It seemed impossible to sell a website to a car dealer. I even hired sales people to go talk to them. Still... very poor results.

So I built my own car classified <URL removed>. Free to advertise on. I spent $3000/month on google ads or about $100 a day for the first 3 months. That brought 1000+ people to my site each day. The people placing ads, were building my content and traffic for me. Yes, its was a bit to pay for ads on a new site. But, once at my site, I have greater marketing potential than just trying to sell hosting on a click.

Additionaly after 1 and a half years the site has 10,000 visitors daily nearly 250,000 page views daily and generates a nice income for me. I use it as the primary platform to sell websites to car dealers.

I win on both fronts. I have a great site worth money and I get all the advertsing to car dealers I want for free. It also lets me offer marketing of cars to the dealers for free with hosting. So they not only get a website, they get free traffic and instant advertsing of their cars.

It was loads of work. But it has moved my business into a new class. By offering people something for nothing I have a captive and loyal auidance. Yeah I spent over $20,000.00 launching the site. But I spend that on TV in one month and when the commercials are over, if you do not have new clients, you have nothing. With the website, the $20,000 built a non stop advertising tool.

I repeted the same formula in several markets and the results are good.

 

[peter phillips]

Online advertising is almost useless.

I strongly disagree.

You cannot just say that online advertising is useless. It is as effective if not more effective than offline or any other form of Advertising. It effectiveness depends you planning and how well you know your targetted audience. Do you think you can promote your web hosting or a web development business with the help of offline advertising.

 

[Zachary McClung]

Peter,

I agree, to an extent. I feel as if you have to have a combination of mouth. Word of mouth is great; however, if your a start up you do not have thoses. Online at first is used solely for branding and so is local market. Try to brand your products before looking for tons of customers.

 

[Nick H]

When I first started, I got my first 50 customers in my first month...How? Post on hosting forums in the hosting advertising area...Make them good deals that they can't resist, and give them good service. Then, they'll pass your name on, leading to more signups. It's very simply done

 

[Freewebhosting]

I would have to say that word of mouth is by far the best. Starting local and branching out has worked well for us. We have done pretty much everything when it comes to advertising.

We have had the advantage in the print media areas, as we owned 3 magazines. However, the cost of most print ads will run you into the ground. Making helpful post to questions or issues related to your business on well maintained popular forums is good.

We have sponsored events locally that have brought in traffic and the nice thing about local business is that if you do web design there is the chance to make some good money on the design end of the scope.

Most of all provide a good service, good price and keep your ticket times low and the word will spread by happy customers.

Good luck.

Bobby

 

[niyogi]

If you are marketing services TO hosting companies, online advertising can make more sense and be economical. If you are marketing services to consumers looking for hosting, I really think pageBuzz is accurate in his depiction of marketing hosting online.

pageBuzz's technique of marketing hosting indirectly is probably the best way to go about. Otherwise, be prepared for cuttthroat competition in an ADD-filled world.

Roj

 

[hostfrog.com]

Have people forgotten about local adverts? I mean the most powerful is going to be in your own community...perhaps at the local chamber of commerce. Thats goes for anything you are trying to market.

 

[hostfrog.com]

I have found that marketing hosting has been the most difficult product I have ever tried to sell. Online advertising is almost useless. I have done TV, Radio and print. I have done mailings, promotions and anything you can think of.

With all due respect pageBuzz, this is why successful providers have marketing managers and a team with degrees in marketing and employees with extensive background in success marketing campaigns.

 

[peter phillips]

Have people forgotten about local adverts? I mean the most powerful is going to be in your own community...perhaps at the local chamber of commerce. Thats goes for anything you are trying to market.

I agree, local market can be a good platform when you start your business and it gives you a good start up and experience before moving on to a global market.