Need opinion - Design with Hosting?

[linnemeyer]

Do you think having a design dept. with a hosting company (selling design services as a hosting company) helps or hurts the core hosting business?

One thought may be that when it comes to hosting businesses the optimal way of doing business would be to do hosting only. If you want to have a design dept. then to separate it off as another company. In other words a hosting company may look more professional or legit to potential customers if it just concentrates on hosting.

Another thought may be that they compliment one another and will help each other in sales.

I would love to know what others think.

Thanks.

Jeff

[Chicken]

Originally posted by linnemeyer:

Another thought may be that they compliment one another and will help each other in sales.
Jeff, to me it's just a natural extension of added services, much like selling domains. Also, a design client is probably a "stickier" client, as they now have a greater interest in your company than a mere hosted client.

[Rincewind]

I came at things the opposit way round. I started doing design work and needed hosting. The reseller packages were larger than I needed for my design customers to I resold the space and the hosting side gradually grew.

I keep the two services separate. I have one domain that advertises the web design services and has hosting as just one of the addon services. Then I have a second site that sells domain names and hosting accounts with a small advert telling customers that if they want design work then they should look at the other site.

[Sonnet]

Originally posted by Rincewind:

I came at things the opposit way round. I started doing design work and needed hosting. The reseller packages were larger than I needed for my design customers to I resold the space and the hosting side gradually grew. Similar story here - started as a freelance designer, and ordered hosting from various places for clients. When that got too complicated, I got a reseller account. Then two years ago I set up my design business 'officially', as a sole trader, and launched the hosting side a year later.

Now that we're a Limited company with our own servers, both the hosting and design sites are 'divisions' of the main company, and although 'tied in', we do tend to view them as separate entities ourselves, as do our existing clients, or so it seems after talking to some of them following our incorporation. We've kept their separate (though similar) names, and each site focuses almost completely on that service and nothing else.

I do agree with Chicken about design clients probably being 'stickier' and looking to you rather than elsewhere for extra services such as hosting when they need them. We definitely get more design clients ordering hosting than we get hosting clients ordering design, if that make sense!

[linnemeyer]

Originally posted by Sonnet:

Similar story here - started as a freelance designer, and ordered hosting from various places for clients. When that got too complicated, I got a reseller account. Then two years ago I set up my design business 'officially', as a sole trader, and launched the hosting side a year later.

Now that we're a Limited company with our own servers, both the hosting and design sites are 'divisions' of the main company, and although 'tied in', we do tend to view them as separate entities ourselves, as do our existing clients, or so it seems after talking to some of them following our incorporation. We've kept their separate (though similar) names, and each site focuses almost completely on that service and nothing else.

I do agree with Chicken about design clients probably being 'stickier' and looking to you rather than elsewhere for extra services such as hosting when they need them. We definitely get more design clients ordering hosting than we get hosting clients ordering design, if that make sense!


Thanks for the replies. I think you guys have great points. Our design services only consists of templates and a "template store" we sell. We were wondering if that in some way could slow down our hosting or make our hosting business (which is our core business) look less legit. What do you think?

The only reason we wonder is because some of the bigger hosting companies only do hosting and thought that may be the next step we need to take to get to that level.

Jeff
Hostvertex.com

[Sonnet]

I can't see how offering design services alongside your hosting would be a bad thing for your company or make it seem less legit.

In fact, I think that the kind of thing you're offering (templates) complements a hosting business very nicely, and is possibly the best choice of 'design service' for an established host to introduce - by that I mean that it may be more difficult to 'sell' other types of design to existing hosting customers, but templates have a broad appeal.

Hope that makes sense; I came at it from the other angle so it's interesting for me to consider doing things the other way round :D