How to Get Customers to your Web Hosting business

How to Get Customers to your Web Hosting business

Are you finding it hard to get customers to buy web hosting from you?

First of all, let me start by pointing out that the web hosting industry is probably one of the tightest and most heavily populated industries to compete in. There are literally millions of web hosting companies out there, with hundreds, maybe even thousands more starting up each year. How can you expect to compete in such a popular market? Well, don't get disheartened, because you can! I've done it, my friends have done it, and I'm sure many other companies have done it too!

It is, however, safe to say that it's not an easy task. You have to work at it, and keep working at it, no matter how long it takes. Becoming a successful web hosting business does not happen overnight, and you mustn't have the attitude where "if it's not making profit within the first month then it's a complete and utter waste of my time". Because it's not! With time comes trust. Ask yourself would you buy web hosting from a company that's just started? Or would you pay that little bit more to buy web hosting from a company that's been in the industry and already has some reviews to back them up?

This may sound to you, now, like there's no chance of success! You're up against competition that's already popular and successful in the public eye. I assume this, because that's exactly how I felt! But you're wrong! I was wrong! There are so many ways and means by which you can convert the public opinion and make them buy your services, even if that means breaking their routine. People are human beings! We tend to find a particular service we like and stick with it. I mean...why change? Why go to all that trouble when we can stay, nice and snug, in our own little box? Do you get what I'm saying?

This is true even to the point where you offer a potential customer free web hosting services just to try your company out. Maybe by trying your services they'd be willing to stay on and buy? The word "free" sure sounds inviting, but they're still not convinced! I remember when I was trying this technique. Yes, I got some sign-ups, but never from people who already had a website. Rather, I got people who had little-to-no-money, or were inexperienced and just wanted somewhere to test out their webmaster skills without having to pay first, or were looking for a place to host their illegal material. Truth be told I ended up removing more than half of my free sign ups for one or tother breach of my terms of service. In the end I had to ask myself whether it was really worth it? I was hoping to attract customers to try my free services with the likely possibility that they'd become paying customers soon afterwards. This wasn't the case. Pretty much anyone who seeks free web hosting is seeking it because they either have no money or know that they're likely to get banned anyway and don't want to waste money in the process. I couldn't stop wondering why my target audience were not taking me up on my offer of "try before you buy", and why they still preferred to stick with their existing provider and pay, sometimes, up to twice the price.

It later occurred to me that the answer was quite obvious. I was new, had no reviews to back me up, and all I was doing was advertising. You're not exactly going to say "Oh, I'm an awful web hosting provider, do not buy hosting from me!" in your advert, are you? No, you're going to say how wonderful you are. To the customer this is just plain words with absolutely no meaning behind them. So how do you fix this? How do you earn their trust when you can't even convince them to try you out? If it's reviews they're after, you're not going to get any of them without getting some customers first. So, forget about reviews right now! Getting reviews isn't the solution to this problem! You still need that first customer!

It may sound funny to say this, but the solution that worked for me was helping others! Register on some forums that discuss webmaster, preferably even web hosting related topics. Forums such as Digital Point Forums, Hosting Discussion, V7N Webmaster Forums, are a good place to start. I would not recommend Web Hosting Talk, however, as the community there are already far ahead of you at this stage. They don't need your help, and they tend to get rude when you try to give it.

I even joined as staff with a couple of my rival companies. I never took a marketing role for them for reasons that should be obvious. But I actively engaged in providing customer support to their customers. I used to get 5 star ratings from a lot of them as I always worked hard to help them, no matter how long it took me or how complex the problem was. By working for these companies I was not intending on stealing their customers as that would destroy everything I'd worked so hard for. No, I did this so that people would know me, would know MY name, and would know me as "Yeah, that guy really does know what he's doing and he's really helpful". And seeing that, at this stage, I had no customers of my own to support, it proved to be a very constructive way of spending my time. Why don't you try doing the same thing?

The power of speech is really quite amazing. It's amazing what "words" can achieve. If you manage, somewhere along the line, to impress people they will spread the word about you. It wasn't my web hosting company they were speaking about, it was me! And who was I? The owner of my company! Voila, there you have it! Customers were signing up to MY company because I was working there. Maybe I'd previously helped that person when I was working for one of my rival companies (which I'd since stopped working for so I could spend more time with my own, now developing company), or perhaps they were merely a friend or acquaintance of someone who I'd helped out in the past. Either way, they wanted MY services, and I was more than happy to give it to them! All in all, a job well done! It finally felt like all my hard work had paid off.

I really hope that this story of mine will prove most intuitive. I hope it motivates you to emerge from the cave of frustration you lock yourself into (I know how that feels!). Be positive! Be helpful! Be the best! If it can work for me, it can work for you!

You just have to put the effort in. Good luck people!