Wildest Hosting Sales Pitches

[debayo]

There must be a gazillion (of course I’m just sensationalizing) web hosting services and resellers out there, saying almost exactly the same things. But a few come to mind because of their sales pitches.

What is the craziest sales pitch you’ve ever encountered from a web hosting reseller?

 

[Artashes]

I remember the days when CI Host has been offering nice gifts with every shared hosting package they sold (something like a digital camera, a vacation trip, etc). It was a rather a grand gesture back then.

Another crazy pitch was by 1&1 Internet at the time of them entering the North American market - they simply were offering free shared hosting (managed as if it was a paid plan) for a period of 3 years.

And finally, the one that caught my attention was another hosting firm (I forgot the name quite frankly, but I've seen their ads in eWeek magazine) that, similar to 1&1 Internet, offered 1 year of free no-limit reseller package.

 

[corypippen]

"100%" up-time guarantee with unlimited disk space and bandwidth.

 

[handsonhosting]

Many hosts still do the "buy hosting and enter a drawing for a free notebook etc". I know of one dedicated server company that was running a promo in conjunction with a car dealership which raffled off a car. Sounds great, until you find out that it was a used car dealership and while the car did still cost more than $7k, they caught a lot of flack for it.

Try to do something nice and STILL get blasted for it - never good!

FatCow did something similar with a "host smart, drive smart" promo - they gave away a Smart Car. I never did see an announcement from them on who won or a picture etc. I'm sure they gave it away, but I just don't recall ever seeing the announcement on the winners being drawn.

We used to do DisneyLand tickets for our Southern California marketing campaigns and they worked very well.

 

[ldcdc]

Midphase was giving away a car. The nice part was that due to laws over there, anyone, customer or not, could get a chance to win. I don't recall seeing a picture of a winner in this case either, but it's not like I was following up the story closely.

 

[James-A]

Free domains, free months hosting is what all do now. Offering gifts, free hosting to participate forums and many other crazy offers generate more sales

 

[debayo]

Amusing tales. I don't see hosting sites doing these sorts of things these days. Or maybe I just have not been looking closely enough.

Are there crazy promos that are on-going? No need to mention who is launching the promo.

 

[Tin]

Many hosts still do the "buy hosting and enter a drawing for a free notebook etc". I know of one dedicated server company that was running a promo in conjunction with a car dealership which raffled off a car. Sounds great, until you find out that it was a used car dealership and while the car did still cost more than $7k, they caught a lot of flack for it.

Try to do something nice and STILL get blasted for it - never good!

FatCow did something similar with a "host smart, drive smart" promo - they gave away a Smart Car. I never did see an announcement from them on who won or a picture etc. I'm sure they gave it away, but I just don't recall ever seeing the announcement on the winners being drawn.

We used to do DisneyLand tickets for our Southern California marketing campaigns and they worked very well.

Here you go, it was a recent announcement: http://www.fatcow.com/fatcow/news/winners-of-eco-friendly-giveaway.bml

 

[handsonhosting]

Ah Perfect! Thanks Tin for following up on that!

 

[VL-Adam]

Midphase was giving away a car. The nice part was that due to laws over there, anyone, customer or not, could get a chance to win. I don't recall seeing a picture of a winner in this case either, but it's not like I was following up the story closely.

Haha wow! That's a big present

 

[Hostigation]

Back in the 90's I gave away a Dish Network system with any 1 year pre-paid dialup account as long as they activated Dish within 30 days, if they didn't I canceled their account and the fee paid for my cost of the equipment, activation paid a commission that covered it otherwise.