How do you get customers

[JJW]

Starting out how did you get customers? How did you get multiple customers where did you advertise. I am finding it especially difficult for somebody who has not been open for a year to get new clients. I see people in these forums who put new hosts down as not reliable. Looking for hints. I can spend some money but i am not gonna drop $100's of dollars on something that will not work. Can someone please give me some tips.

[Tyler]

Starting out how did you get customers? How did you get multiple customers where did you advertise. I am finding it especially difficult for somebody who has not been open for a year to get new clients. I see people in these forums who put new hosts down as not reliable. Looking for hints. I can spend some money but i am not gonna drop $100's of dollars on something that will not work. Can someone please give me some tips.

If your not willing to spend a couple hundred dollars on your business then you planned this badly, and probably joined for a "get rich" reason.

Make sure you have a business plan, which includes a financial plan. That should be your bible - forever - when you run your business.

Paid advertising helps. Sadly, to get publicity in the major places you need money. So, if your not willing to drop between $100-$1000 a month on advertising don't expect much, your going to have to go to forums and actually compete for clients in the request area or the offers section.

I've seen hosts that have been open for a little over a month actually make profit and expand. These hosts generally go for a specific advertising market, VPS for example is a hot market right now.

Doubt is a huge crutch for any business. If you doubt it is going to work, don't even try.

I've seen people put down new hosts as not reliable as well, and usually for a good reason. People have no reason to lie, 99.99% won't do it randomly or out of spite. There are two (main) reasons people put down hosts: A: You have done something to anger them, which includes lousy service. B: They want to be an --- and just ruin a host.

If you have done something that caused your business to have a negative rep, I would look into that and fix it.

Another major problem when it comes to new hosts is they offer unreal deals. "1TB BANDWIDTH FOR $2 A MONTH!" or even "80TB SPACE AND UNMETERED BANDWIDTH FOR $4 A MONTH!". Nobody is going to take them seriously.

Then comes the customer service. You can't just check up on the place once every two to three days. Doing that will pretty much guarantee you will fail. You need to be there constantly, every single hour that you can be. You have to be on top of things. If you can't do that, hire someone that can.

I hope my advice helps you, although I very much doubt you will listen since I have given you this advice before and you did nothing.

Essentially, if you do all of the above you will get a few clients. But you also need to understand the shared hosting market is saturated to an extreme, and if your not willing to wait one or two years to start breaking even in (some) cases, you should quit while your ahead of yourself.

Usually, a business takes between one to two years to break even, and that is pretty much any business and not just hosting.

Good luck.

[JJW]

not worried about time just it is disheartning when you can offer high quality service and are not getting customers. I have listened to some things that you have said. Most of the things you have said though have put down my company as in one thread you said look at his name so-cheap-host. I am not here to flame you or anything like that. I really love the webhosting business. I did not plan to get into this but i got such a good deal i could not pass it up. Now i am sitting here wanting to provide quality service but with out people giving me a chance to show them what kind of service they will get how are you supposed to build a name?

[Tyler]

not worried about time just it is disheartning when you can offer high quality service and are not getting customers. I have listened to some things that you have said. Most of the things you have said though have put down my company as in one thread you said look at his name so-cheap-host. I am not here to flame you or anything like that. I really love the webhosting business. I did not plan to get into this but i got such a good deal i could not pass it up. Now i am sitting here wanting to provide quality service but with out people giving me a chance to show them what kind of service they will get how are you supposed to build a name?

Go free and make people happy. It's been working for me so far. Offer paid on the side.

Before you do anything else, sit down for a couple of minutes and think. Hard. On why you want to do this, what is your long term goals and how much are you willing to spend. After you do this, research how to write business and financial plans and then actually write one. Not some 4-5 page plan. Make sure it includes a lot of detail as well.

Also, you should really remove the 1TB Monthly transfer offer on your site that your selling for $8.

[JJW]

I appreciate any feedback. I did not say i am not willing to spend money, i am not willing to spend money on something that doesn't work. Also i have decided that you are right on the bandwidth deal, i am lowering it. I have it to sell but your right it does seem odd.

[webboy]

in hosting biz you have to be patient. get some customers in your personal contacts, friends, family local people to compensate your running cost. spend extra on marketing.
google adwords is easy but you have to choose the options carefully.
advertise on different site that are relevant to web hosting. dont go for PR blindly but check
alexa or traffic stats. how much site have traffic, buy ad space and see the result
also your setup and support should be strong enough to handle customer. first people get customers with efforts but loose them quick because of poor services, support or downtime.
these customers post bad reviews for this host which make them down and leads to failure.

-Be patient
-keep working
-track some local customers to meet your running expenses
-spend some on ads
-make your infra structure,and support strong enough to happy customer
-good luck , Always pray to God with heart who helps every one

[~ServerPoint~]

Start you hosting with hosting your friends and their friends. That is the best way. If they like your services they will reffer other people to you as well

[aloycasmir]

I'm new into this , but one thing i've learnt from dark soul here is that you should keep the user in control and should take a back seat yourself .
Let the customer know that you're interested in what he is .
And believe me , that helps .
Dark soul made me feel good when i requested him for hosting .
And i see him online on the most odd hours for a u.s. resident :lol:
But that's what i like about him , he's used to being an insomniac to help out a customer from another time zone .

I must also not forget prompt response .
And that i got to see from both color host and dark soul .
Both of them went to a gr8 extent to help me out if i had any problem .


And courtesy , be polite and careful with the words you use .
The person on the other end might misunderstand you and might be bye bye .
And if you're polite , even if that fellow goes to the limit of irritating you , will make the person realise he's speaking to an enterprising person who means business . And believe me it takes enormous patience .

Also be truthful even if it loses you a few customers . I had a chat with Marvin and when i asked for something he politely refused saying it was against his company's policy and the deal didn't go through . But it made me respect him .
There has to be a line between being helpful and following your policy(of course that doesn't mean you simply stick to your stance irrespective of circumstances . That'll push your customers away) , you should enforce your policy to a reasonable extent , but never throw it in the face of your customer . A good deed might not reach 7 ppl but a bad word spreads around to 7000 of them . Years worth of reputations can be lost just in a second :)


Well that's all i could learn from a couple days around into this business .
And i'm still learning ;)
have a nice day .
Best Regards,
Aloycasmir

[Adamcarolla]

Start you hosting with hosting your friends and their friends. That is the best way. If they like your services they will reffer other people to you as well

Can't agree more.
First start providing a good professional job, the customers will follow you.
Market locally.

[Seraphim]

Something I have had some success recently is to not go to places like this to advertise where my ads get promptly buried by thousands of others. I'm building on a bare minimum budget, as unlike many businesses I don't have a lot of money to start with. My goal is to start with the next to nothing I have now, and build up to a stable and profitable business to eventually replace my current day job.

Instead of spending all day responding to requests on a site like this, or spending money that I flat out do not have on professional advertising, I go to sites related to my own interests and start talking to people. In doing so, if the community seems friendly enough and people seem interested in trying things, I'll mention that I am starting a hosting business.

Usually a couple of people will step forward and say they are looking for a server for a project they've had in mind, or mention that so and so they know has a site that needs to be relocated. So far it's gotten me three free hosting customers in the past month, after only two months of seriously advertising.

With any luck I can use this method to find paid hosting customers as well too.

It's no substitute for mainstream advertising like newspaper, radio, and internet ads.
But it is still another way to advertise on a budget.

Now on that note, when I do get cash in hand again for other odd jobs when not working on my day job or on my hosting startup, I probably will spring for a real ad. Talking to other business owners has shown me that it is still faster and far more effective in the long run if you can tell a lot of people in a short amount of time by running a professional ad campaign instead of relying on word of mouth all the time.

[WebIntellects-R]

In any case there are should be reason which move you to get started.
That is very competitive area and I think you need to understand that. So before you start I think you should have at least few customers.
Try to find your niche first. That is also very very important

[JJW]

When i posed this question i was very dismayed by what i saw others saying about host who have been in business less than 1 year i have since gained a few clients and such and we are starting to make good on our business promises. We would like to thank all that have answered this thread.

[ddemetrius456]

This is a fabulous post. I do many of these things already, but look forward to implementing the others. The good resource should be brought in bookmarks.

[SitePenguin Ltd]

Just a few things that would turn me off from hosting with you:

- You have a negative rep here.
-Your website has "cheap" in the title which makes me think if the last time I purchased hosting from a "cheap" company, it didn't end well.
- If I remember correctly you had some downtime.

Anyway no offense to you, just saying what I think would help you get more clients.

[JJW]

Well i appreciate your respnse penguin.

I have been trying to up my reputation. We did have some down time when we first started. We have since fixed all are issue's we are now hosted at hostdime which makes a big difference. Also we just fixed a billing issue. We just added a dedicated server line. So we are growing and expanding. So penguin if you want rep me help me get back out of the red it shouldn't take much to get me there.

[-jab-]

Here is what i did and i believe what everyone should do to get customers

- Get local customers build your company
- Open it to public and increase your conversion rate.


Things that are good for increasing your conversion rate.

- Good Design
- Easy checkout
- Merchant Account
- 2 or more payment methods
- SSL
- Easy product information
- Free Stuff with the packages
- promotions
- Live chat and phone support.
- Friendly agents.

I can name you 100 more stuff, but those are the main ones i follow. I think i need some stuff of those list as well.

[Starcraftmazter]

Target niche communities

[Doolvehek]

Well most of these people have some valid points however you never want to go with any host that says "Unlimited" next to any of their features. Unlimited usually means that they have poor servers, bad support and are just trying to cover it up by making an offer that looks good.

[Starcraftmazter]

Well most of these people have some valid points however you never want to go with any host that says "Unlimited" next to any of their features. Unlimited usually means that they have poor servers, bad support and are just trying to cover it up by making an offer that looks good.

Finite* features like diskspace and bandwidth. Though bandwidth is potentially "infinite", because you can get colo with an unmetered port, however the thing there is that it's not smart to allow customers to have as much bandwidth as they want.

[fcolor]

The budget anyone is spending on advertising and the marketing strategy depend of many things - the class hosting services the company offers, the consumer or b2b market its targets, etc.

There are niches that are very competitive (shared hosting for example) and others that are still undeveloped.

[ityt]

I would like to find the company performance. lil bit research about them, and than would give them a try.
socheaphost are you girl? any girl host here ;)

[JJW]

I would like to find the company performance. lil bit research about them, and than would give them a try.
socheaphost are you girl? any girl host here ;)


Sorry am not a girl. Though we have not been review by alot of people as most of our customers have just come to us in the last month or so.

[sander k]

It helps a lot when you have a good forum reputation.
Try to get rid of that little red dot you got there.

[whmad]

There are many, many ways. Some things you might try:


Making Friends on a forum :)
Posting on craigslist
Submit press releases to PRWeb
Optimize your site for SEO
Submit to directories
Create a blog about hosting and drive traffic there with articles


Think outside the box and try everything. Paid ads work well too :)




Starting out how did you get customers? How did you get multiple customers where did you advertise. I am finding it especially difficult for somebody who has not been open for a year to get new clients. I see people in these forums who put new hosts down as not reliable. Looking for hints. I can spend some money but i am not gonna drop $100's of dollars on something that will not work. Can someone please give me some tips.

[vWiz]

If your not willing to spend any money then advertise and make friends on the forums. This is the easiest and cheapest way to advertise. It takes time and is tedious but it is free.

[Seraphim]

Also I can say that when you advertise consider your ad's placements.

Spending money on an ad that is sent to the wrong demographic will only accomplish wasting money, so sometimes you have to wait a bit and pay the higher price to reach the people you want.

[SonalAher]

Don't go directly for big clients, start with couple of basic requirements of clients build your trust and then put your hands in the big deals. The only thing that will drive good clients to your company is trust. Build trust and your customers will advertise for you for free.

[eSupun]

Well most of these people have some valid points however you never want to go with any host that says "Unlimited" next to any of their features. Unlimited usually means that they have poor servers, bad support and are just trying to cover it up by making an offer that looks good.

I would not agree with you in this point. Huge companies like HostMonster, webhostingpad and hostgator uses unlimited bandwidth for their packages.

[SonalAher]

That's right, going for unlimited offers, especially unlimited bandwidth is not bad. Most of the companies unlimited features in their packages. The only thing you have ensure in that the Terms of Service of that particular company. If there are no tactics in the TOS then its fine to go with that company. Unlimited bandwidth offers are actually good for the high traffic sites. And there is always an option available to upgrade your other requirements. So, why worry?

[WebIntellects-R]

So, why worry?
I agree. Moreover most web hosting companies can offer money back guarantee.

[gavinol]

The best option according to me of getting customers is to contact with the web developers and web development companies because most of their customer don`t have enough knowledge about the hosting and they prefer the suggestion of the developer.

Server Hosting (http://www.supporters.dk//)

[~ServerPoint~]

The best option according to me of getting customers is to contact with the web developers and web development companies because most of their customer don`t have enough knowledge about the hosting and they prefer the suggestion of the developer.

Server Hosting (http://www.supporters.dk//)

Don't you think that will take too much time to get in touch?

[Eric_HE]

Content or product is the king, one customer will bring another one to your site. And you should persist in propagandizing your site.

[Hostatree]

I've been in the hosting business for several years now, and I find that good customer reviews are the best way to get customers.

[~ServerPoint~]

Can agree with previous post.. you can deal with your customers and ask them to review your service in different review web sites.

[JJW]

I posted this back in 2009 and it is still going.

[~ServerPoint~]

I believe that it should be closed by Mods here!

[build-a-host]

I use a mix of forum ads, paid ads and adwords. The best form of advertising is without a doubt word of mouth though. To get this you must offer exceptional services though.

I have a couple of suggestions that might help you though.

1. Take that "Grand Opening" out of your signature. When people see that you are brand new they are a lot less likely to trust your services and give you a shot.

2. On your website, at the very bottom there is a lot of empty space. That needs to be fixed, filled up or removed.

3. On your website, in the header you have slider images setup but only one image in the slider. If you're not going to use the slider, remove it. You also must finish the one slider image you have now and fill it in with information about your most popular or most affordable packages.

4. The links in your header go straight to your WHMCS order pages. You MUST remove that and build some pages that give the visitor information about your packages before they will even think about buying from you! The way you have it setup now you're basically saying "Here it is, buy it", which obviously isn't working!

5. Your "About" page gives a lot of information about the datacenter that your server is hosted at but, it says very little about you! You need to give the user information about your company, not another company!

Anyway, if you do this I can almost guarantee you that you will start getting new clients!

Good luck!

[aimiez]

Although this thread might be old and some are asking to close it, but I guess the reason why it is still open for posting its because the topic concerns everyday living. As a seller of domain, this thread is useful, as for the creator of host and domains, this is also useful. Why? Simply because its gives us the chance to exchange ideas about good selling strategies that will make our company stays in business. Strategies to with customers and to sell products and domains. I just hope that someone will start a new tread related to this topic again, so that old threads will not be an issue anymore http://bit.ly/hJI3VH

[lita]

Hi
Nice post. excellent about how do i get customer for my business i think it's too help full for me.

[SiberForum]

I suppose the forum signature can be very useful to get customers..

BTW, the thread is two old..

Mods, why not to close it.

[madihrb]

Just post in different forums and try to make back links.

SEO of your website is best thing but I am afraid it is slow enough, if your website is top of the pages in search engines you would definitely get more customers.

[SiberForum]

The lack of new discussions makes me posting up in the old threads.

May tell we completely agree about providing professional quality makes better marketing. The low prices are nothing compare to the quality, when people really wanna have it they will pay for it. Good forum ab blog promotion also helps. As well as direct marketing via representatives.

[jennyjackson]

Start you hosting with hosting your friends and their friends. That is the best way. If they like your services they will reffer other people to you as well then you increase your circle and take interest some advertisement stuff

[worlditsme]

The best way is to search Google for relevant search terms, and post your link in the directories and forums on the first page (as these are the most popular).

[TaoPhoenix]

I posted this back in 2009 and it is still going.

Hallo!

However, since the time that you posted this, you are no longer socheaphost, but are now 24Khost. Did you get stuck, close down, take some time off, and restart something new, or was it a seamless brand switch? By now you know I am a stability advocate, so I'd like to know what happened in the transition.

[rllunzmann]

ALso the web hosting used to have around 10K web hosts back in early 2000. Now there are probably hundreds of thousands of web hosts. Including "resellers", which def. make up the majority of them too.

[JerrickYeoh]

Get customers form my traffic.
I always do lot of affiliate marketing to get those traffic and turn it to sales.
Beside that i get traffic from social network , blog , directories, google adwords and so on.

[Tyler]

Get customers form my traffic.
I always do lot of affiliate marketing to get those traffic and turn it to sales.
Beside that i get traffic from social network , blog , directories, google adwords and so on.

You don't get traffic from us.

[SiberForum]

Customers come after the reputation smell. They know we are widely recommended and thus we perform minimal promotion needed, while clients are now coming as a stable flow.

[wswd]

The "reputation smell"?

[deeplist]

The "reputation smell"?

Don't mind him, he's just a bot that regularly posts nonsense.

[colorhost]

Well, it took us atleast a year to get a decent fanbase and clients.

Web Hosting is hard to get into, so for the first year your starting you better expect some downfalls.

But the way to do it, is mostly advertise...and play the waiting game.

[SEOTutor]

Just provide a high quality service and your current customers will spread the word for you. They will be more than happy to brag about their really good find to not so fortunate friends and pass along your link to others. At least, that's what I did recently when I found a really good no-ads free hosting service. I couldn't wait to tell my friends about it. Maybe that's just human nature.

Of course, that doesn't solve the problem of how to get your first initial customers. Perhaps you could use pay per click or ask friends to sign up.

Advertising usually works if you are on target with the niche market.

[[JSH]John]

In this industry it's a huge waiting game, then you start to get regular signups after a lot of patience and advertising.

[SiberForum]

Don't mind him, he's just a bot that regularly posts nonsense.

When you Do not understand something (an allegory in this case) it doesn't mean it is a nonsense. May only advise you to read more books to be able to get what people are trying to say.

[deeplist]

When you Do not understand something (an allegory in this case) it doesn't mean it is a nonsense. May only advise you to read more books to be able to get what people are trying to say.

I'm not the only one around here that has difficulty understanding you. Only up until just recently have your posts made even a little bit of sense, but only after your account was limited and your rights to place a signature were revoked.

[SiberForum]

I'm not the only one around here that has difficulty understanding you.

So, does this fact means you have rights to blacken me before the other users? Please, next time, keep your personal opinion about other people out of public.

In order to be clear, 'reputation smell' is a metaphor, which means the reputation attracts clients sometimes even more thant advert, the same like pleasant smell attracts.

[deeplist]

So, does this fact means you have rights to blacken me before the other users? Please, next time, keep your personal opinion about other people out of public.

Hey buddy, you already put the nails in your own coffin after posting a bunch of babbleing bot nonsense a while back. Apparently the staff here thought the same or else you would not have lost your rights to a signature. Go play in traffic.

[zipman816]

I would start by signing up friends and family, then go the Social Media route. Once you have a few loyal customers, provide a a quality service at an affordable price and you should start to see your business grow.

[Schmarvin]

So, does this fact means you have rights to blacken me before the other users? Please, next time, keep your personal opinion about other people out of public.

In order to be clear, 'reputation smell' is a metaphor, which means the reputation attracts clients sometimes even more thant advert, the same like pleasant smell attracts.

Actually, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

[SiberForum]

Actually, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Yes. But how about politeness?

[zipman816]

Yes, being polite matters. These forums are intended to help, not hurt!!

[Derek Flahost]

How to get customers?
Advertise around, spam around without annoy people that much.

[zipman816]

How to get customers?
Advertise around, spam around without annoy people that much.


Awesome advice. Advertise on Facebook Business pages for the most effect. Spam is not good, it does not taste good, I prefer Smoked turkey. You can find reviews about spam on Google, it will show you how many people do not "like" Spam on Facebook.

[CS Squad]

Awesome advice. Advertise on Facebook Business pages for the most effect. Spam is not good, it does not taste good, I prefer Smoked turkey. You can find reviews about spam on Google, it will show you how many people do not "like" Spam on Facebook.

You do realize that this thread is already inactive for almost a month right?

[Peo]

Well, we haven't auto closed this topic yet and it's not an offer thread so I'll let people respond in this specific case. If they stay on topic. But yes, zipman has been bumping old threads and we have our eyes on this user.

[CS Squad]

Well, we haven't auto closed this topic yet and it's not an offer thread so I'll let people respond in this specific case. If they stay on topic. But yes, zipman has been bumping old threads and we have our eyes on this user.

Glad to know that zipman816 is under observation by the mods.
Because he had really bumped up a lot of old threads which there is no more discussions at all, and sometimes, his replies are totally off topic...

[The Crasher]

nice to hear that peo :D

ok to get on topic

those days you got differend books like

windows for dummy's
linux for dummy's
exell for dummy's
word for dummy's
....

so to gain members i would suggest first to read 2 books that realy helps (if they exist ^^ )

Marketing for dummy's
Seo for dummy's


as soon you understand marketing and seo do you know how to get members
it is the first start you need to make , be visible for every1 on any kind of way you can be visible (no not spamming .. )

Gain reputation and make sure that users knows you ( in a good way -> pointing to some1 who is doing it wrong)

stay nice all the time and be sure that you do what ever you can for your customers , it are your customers who get you new customers and not the unhappy clients ( they just let you lose clients )

you need to see it as 1 big family , if the head persone of a family love it .. then others will join you with out a problem (got that rule from 1 of the biggest company's in belgium)

its hard to make a good name , but a bad name is as easy as it can be (doing something good is a hard job , doing something bad is just 1 click away )

if you understand the above rules .. then you understand how to get clients and how to keep clients

Greetings From PowerChaos
PowerChaos Company Owner

[FrogJumper]

Your ability to create and maintain customers, at least in the beginning, will depend upon your advertising dollars, and where you are willing to spend them.

Obviously, your question is dealing with the latter. In that case, this really depends on your strengths. Are you a good marketer? Do you have great graphic design skills? Can you write amazing copy that draws your visitors in?

Those are questions you need to ask yourself before you spend any money. Find out what your strengths are, then find networks that cater to them. Find Niche markets you can cater to in particular. Offer great, but realistic deals.

But, on top of all that, and probably most importantly - keep your current customers happy. Happy customers refer customers, and referred customers = free customers. That is your end game. Be so great, that you're referrals do the work for you.

[wswd]

Your ability to create and maintain customers, at least in the beginning, will depend upon your advertising dollars, and where you are willing to spend them.

Obviously, your question is dealing with the latter. In that case, this really depends on your strengths. Are you a good marketer? Do you have great graphic design skills? Can you write amazing copy that draws your visitors in?

Those are questions you need to ask yourself before you spend any money. Find out what your strengths are, then find networks that cater to them. Find Niche markets you can cater to in particular. Offer great, but realistic deals.

But, on top of all that, and probably most importantly - keep your current customers happy. Happy customers refer customers, and referred customers = free customers. That is your end game. Be so great, that you're referrals do the work for you.

This thread is almost 2 months old........

Seriously, there is no reason to keep responding to these old threads.

[Peo]

Well, if it's a request thread I can see your point about not replying to old threads. But this is more of a general hosting business topic. If a new member would like to add their view I see no big problem with that? Besides, the limit we have set to close topics is the limit we have.

[wswd]

I suppose, but then what would stop somebody new from responding to every thread that's say years old, just to build their post count? I just thought it was a little silly is all.

[EDIT] Just to note...not sure what the limit is, but you can still respond to threads from 2005. Would it be acceptable for somebody new (or anybody for that matter) to go back and start responding to all those threads one-by-one? Doesn't make sense to me, but oh well.

[Peo]

I see what you mean, but we have to set the limit at something. It's currently set to 60 days. Some forum sections we don't have a limit. For instance in Test things out. In this section threads should be autoclosed if no reply has been posted within the last 60 days.

No, that would not be ok.

[wswd]

Oh...I see. I didn't even notice the autoclose in this section, to be honest. Looks good to me. :D 60 days makes sense.