Most effective advertising methods?

[Wire]

I'm about to start my company and wanna know some of the most succesful advertising methods you have tried. Anyone wanna help :confused:

:banana:

[Chicken]

Do you have an advertising budget? What have you tried so far (or is this virgin ground?) etc.

[Wire]

Yes I have money if needed. What are some of the best ways that attract the most hits for lesser the money?

[DizixCom]

Wire,

I've found advertising at HotScripts.com to yield better results than many others.

As an example, I was receiving a 0.04 - 0.06% click through rate at sitepoint.com and paying quite a bit more whereas at HotScripts.com I regularly achieved above 2%. Quite a difference.

I suggest trying a few places that target your audience and then stick with what works. When you really find the magic location, pee on it and mark it as your territory. :)

[Wire]

LOL dizix, hmm maybe I'll try the newpaper locally for a while. They seem to pay you more attention.

[Chicken]

I thought I read somewhere that one of the larger company's founders (maybe it was Addr?) used to hand out flyers in the local grocery store parking lot. Sounds silly, and even thogh I can't recall the name of the company, the point is still the same.

Also a bit of no/low-cost bartering such as asking the local print shop if they have web presence and if not, seeing if they'd be willing to trade for some printed post/business cards you can send or drop off locally.

Local businesses are generally willing to pay more for hosting (they aren't looking for the $25/yr. hosting plan specials or at least they don't know about those).

Specializing in an industry might also work for you, such as, "We provide hosting for area real estate agents", etc.

[interactive]

You gotta find your niche and then market to it. Like what chicken said, do area realestate or something. Or if you want to target local people then hit your radio station, and if you have any interner cafes talk to them about advertising there (I know it seems lame, but I'm sure it wouldn't cost much).

[jolly]

Two fav. words of WH biz.....
(1). Free
(2). Unlimited
Use them as much as you can.
And word of mouth is the best method.

:banana:

[beley]

I think local advertising such as cold-calling and direct mail to businesses in your area is a great start... and can get you a good deal of business.

[Wire]

Originally posted by jolly
Two fav. words of WH biz.....
(1). Free
(2). Unlimited
Use them as much as you can.
And word of mouth is the best method.

:banana:

Lol yes I hope the business doesn't bomb and local seems to be the best for me as more people will pay attention. Thanks for all your input.

[Dave]

Originally posted by DizixCom
Wire,

I've found advertising at HotScripts.com to yield better results than many others.

As an example, I was receiving a 0.04 - 0.06% click through rate at sitepoint.com and paying quite a bit more whereas at HotScripts.com I regularly achieved above 2%. Quite a difference.

I suggest trying a few places that target your audience and then stick with what works. When you really find the magic location, pee on it and mark it as your territory. :) How much is that costing you?

[DizixCom]

At the moment it is costing me nothing since I pulled all advertising to control growth while we roll out our new platform.

Your best bet is to go to http://www.hotscripts.com/mediakit.html and submit your info, you'll probably hear back from them pretty quickly. Since it's been a couple of months since my last campaign I can't really say with any confidence what their rates are.

[Dave]

Originally posted by DizixCom
At the moment it is costing me nothing since I pulled all advertising to control growth while we roll out our new platform.

Your best bet is to go to http://www.hotscripts.com/mediakit.html and submit your info, you'll probably hear back from them pretty quickly. Since it's been a couple of months since my last campaign I can't really say with any confidence what their rates are. What were your rates?

[DigitalXWeb]

Word of mouth is by far the most effective, but without any clients it is kind of hard to use that method.

I would suggest you determine what your base client will be and set up a marketing budget and do some trial ads to see what kind of response you get. If you get some clients from that, push it a little harder. If you end up empty handed then try somwhere else.

[maxhest]

Really Depends.. Word of Mouth works for me, then again, I get a few from the WebHosting Request Forum and Shared Hosting Special Offers @ WHT. That's just me, I don't have much of a budget. I am looking to sponsor some sort of site that will have to generate a lot of hits. Good luck with your biz, It's hard at first, but it's really fun :)

[vito]

I've always been a huge fan of going after local business. They tend to pay more, they don't spam, you hardly get ANY support tickets from them, they tend to use very little disk space and bw, they are loyal and they are happy to send you referrals.

Try posting a small ad in community centers or anywhere you have access to a public bulletin board area. Ask some local computer shops in your area if they will allow you to leave a bunch of flyers on their counter. Given them a small free hosting account if they need persuading.

Also, contact a few local churches and organizations in your area. Offer them some free hosting. You'd be surprised at how much response you will receive from that.

Hope that helps.

Vito

[Rewdog]

Locally by far, I'm the only one in my county who hosts, so I have much less competition than advertising in a place that has 100,000 of thousands of hosts. If you got a designer, go to a strip mall, look for mom and pop stores, and make em an offer. Lots of them have like a geocities site, or want a site and don't know where or what to look for. :rolleyes:

[Chicken]

I'm sure there aren't many hosts in "South Cackalacky" ;) :bs:

[Foxxie]

I would have to say the all mighty word of mouth is the most effective advertising solution.

[michaeln]

Rewdog,

Where in South Cackalacky are you from? ;)

We are on Hilton Head, Is.

[interactive]

One more idea, for local advertising. Is sponsoring sports teams. Alot of banks and stuff do it. Look into it. Not sure on what it would cost. But you help kids out and get advertising in exchange

[BarbaraC]

I also agree that Word Of Mouth is one of the best forms of marketing, and wholeheartedly agree with Vito that local businesses are *quality* clients for all reasons he has stated.

Jolly, I would think that using 'unlimited' is deceiving? I notice that most who use that ad tactic, cover themselves in their TOS.

[Rewdog]

Originally posted by michaeln
Rewdog,

Where in South Cackalacky are you from? ;)

We are on Hilton Head, Is.

Hilton Head is Beautiful,
I'm from Lexington, outside Columbia.. (I go to school in columbia)

[kunal]

Originally posted by DizixCom
Wire,

I've found advertising at HotScripts.com to yield better results than many others.

As an example, I was receiving a 0.04 - 0.06% click through rate at sitepoint.com and paying quite a bit more whereas at HotScripts.com I regularly achieved above 2%. Quite a difference.

I suggest trying a few places that target your audience and then stick with what works. When you really find the magic location, pee on it and mark it as your territory. :)


how many of thse click throughs converted to sales?

kunal

[DizixCom]

Originally posted by kunal
how many of thse click throughs converted to sales?

kunal Generally between 1 and 3% of the actual visitors from hotscripts.com converted. I'm don't have hard metrics of these numbers but it changed drastically from one day to the next. I correllate the wide range with the low number of impressions that were delivered to begin with, but for one month the number break down something like this:

- delivered: 50,000
- vists: ~1,000
- converts: 30

Another month looked like this:

- delivered: 50,000
- visits: ~700
- converts: 18

The only numbers I'm certain on are the number of conversions that can be directly tied to visitors from hotscripts.

The customers that have come from there are generally pretty good as well compared to those that wander in from most of the hosting directories. I've filtered out more than half of all orders originating from directories and prefer to stay away from them now.

[kunal]

hey,

oh ok... so the quality is higher.. hmm.. interesting.. thanks for the input :)

kunal

[michaeln]

One of my brothers lived in Lexington for a while. He's moved back down to Hilton Head now. On which point, Hilton Head is beautiful until you live here and have to deal with the traffic. ;)





Well everyone. I see this thread is two pages and we still have not found the secret to advertising. When someone figures this out please let me know. ;)

[James Cross]

Originally posted by kunal
hey,

oh ok... so the quality is higher.. hmm.. interesting.. thanks for the input :)

kunal

I would think the quality issue isnt the only factor to take into account. It has a lot to do with what you are offering to your potential buyers. Directories often get bundled into a single group which is a little unfair to their own marketing efforts. The type of traffic they target dictates the type of referral you would recieve and in turn determines the conversion rates. This of excludes your own plan pricing, site navigation and sales processing.

If your selling business hosting Vs photo hosting you would aim to have ads displayed in differing sites. There is no one size fits all marketing solution for hosts. What works for one host doesnt have a bearing on what might work for you, unless you have identical business models, site design and sales capabilities. Find your niche and then market your services in as targeted way as you possibly can.

James