My reseller site is open for business. I’m now ready to start driving traffic to my site and grow my business beyond a part-time hobby. I’m looking for advice on how to best market my services.
I know the best marketing tool is a satisfied customer, but how do you get that customer in the door?
I think about how I found JodoHost and countless other web hosts I’ve used over the years and one thing becomes clear; web hosting directories and forums are vital.
Tower banner ads on web hosting directories and posts in web hosting forums have grabbed my attention over the years, but what are other ways of marketing on the web?
Has anyone had success/failure with SEO services and/or email marketing?
I’m planning to target my local market (population 1,250,000) by a creating a steady presence in local zines and trade publications, but what are other ways of creating a presence on a budget? i.e. TV and radio is too expensive at the moment. What about phone book ads?
There are a few mobile marketing services in my area, does anyone have experience with this form of marketing?
You’d be surprised to know that we have spent $0 in marketing in the last several months. Yet we are growing faster each month
My advice - be active on various web hosting forums, post ads whereever you can, search-engine optimise your site (we get alot of reseller signups via google) and try sponsoring hosting for popular websites that can give you quality traffic.
However the best form to marketing is simply keeping your customers happy. Alot of our present customers refer new ones.
If you want to spend money, my advice is play around with Adwords with google and see if you can get reasonable economy. We tried adwords 2 years ago with reasonable success. Try being country specific. If you say live in Australia you could really target your country and many aussie clients would prefer dealing with a company based in their country
Advertising at popular directories and web hosting forums is also a good idea, but the results depend on how much money you put. We spent money advertising on developer related sites, places where you programmers and web designers come to for help or for code. That has worked alot for us.
That is my general advice. We have been spending very little money in actual ad compaings.. We have no plans for any advertising this year (we are growing quite nicely without it) but we do have plans to begin more consistent advertising early next year. Surely paid advertising is not necessary for success, but it can certainly accelerate it
For targeting your local population, advertising in the newspaper can be effective. Popular magazines as well as putting up ads at trade shows can work as well.. I don’t have much experience in this area.
However advertising by SMS or cell phones indeed seems very interesting, but I can imagine it would be regarded more or less as SPAM by most people
[QUOTE=Yash]
…and try sponsoring hosting for popular websites that can give you quality traffic…
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, there’s no telling how many signups you got after deciding to host Bruce’s WebWizGuide… I know i’m one and i know of at least 10 others…plus reciprocal customers from them…
[QUOTE=KCWebMonkey]
Yeah, there’s no telling how many signups you got after deciding to host Bruce’s WebWizGuide… I know i’m one and i know of at least 10 others…plus reciprocal customers from them…
[/QUOTE]
