Hosting Business advertising help

[swanson.thomas]

I started a hosting business a couple of weeks ago and I am having a problem with advertising. I have done forums and done myspace but I cant figure out how to get more people. I have 2 people signed up so far and no joke I have the best prices in cyberspace. I guarentee that there is no one out there who offers unlimited bandwidth at 1.95/month. Can anyone give me some ideas other than affiliates on what to do. Note that I do not have alot of money to advertise so the cheaper the better.

Thanks so much.
Tom

[_cdotech_]

I have seen your plans. No kidding, it is good. It's just that, almost everybody is hosted and those who aren't are looking for free ones. It's not easy to switch, specially because that means you have to re-upload your files and so on..

But since you posted this thread for advertising help.. just continue with signing up on forums and promoting it.. give them a one-week trial. If not, give them one month free and they start paying the next month. Or give them free domain in exchange for 1yr hosting.

[msm]

I don't agree with you cdotech, moving hosts with the same control panel it is very fast and easy, for example, if you have cpanel, we will move all your account for free and you don't need to do nothing, your website will be completed moved by us.

The same happens with other control panels for other hosting providers.

[monaghan]

Originally Posted by msm

if you have cpanel, we will move all your account for free and you don't need to do nothing

WRONG, very wrong, an account move via cpanel (or other control panel) is fine, but the customer MUST change his DNS records to use the name servers on the new account, even if he can modify the current DNS zone to point to the new server, as soon as the old account is delete, then DNS zone will stop being served and his account will vanish.

[msm]

Originally Posted by monaghan

WRONG, very wrong, an account move via cpanel (or other control panel) is fine, but the customer MUST change his DNS records to use the name servers on the new account, even if he can modify the current DNS zone to point to the new server, as soon as the old account is delete, then DNS zone will stop being served and his account will vanish.

Alex, please read first the post, then you will be able to properly comment it.

[TWD-Tony]

"I guarentee that there is no one out there who offers unlimited bandwidth at 1.95/month"

And that is your problem... Most people these days are wise to the fact that there is no such thing as "unlimited" anything... If that were true then the like of Myspace and Facebook would be hosting their website's for 1.95 a month.

I'm not going to get into the whole unlimited debate again - it's been done to death on just about every business & tech related forum, but because this has been well documented and discussed most people are now aware of the problem with host's offering "unlimited" anything...

Try offering excellent value plans with set limits and see if business improves...

[monaghan]

I did, what make you think that you can move accounts between servers without the customer updating the DNS though?

If you'd read the 1st post, you'd see that this is over a year old and you're not adding any value to the discussion.

[Brian Turner]

Originally Posted by swanson.thomas

I guarentee that there is no one out there who offers unlimited bandwidth at 1.95/month.

This tells me there is probably no longevity in the business - if you're selling on price points alone you are talking about low margins which can only make the business profitable via volume.

In which case, because you don't have that volume yet, you are already running your business at a loss - and additionally, you have no idea how to grow it properly.

Loads of people try their hand at the hosting business in this way - and they are always the hosts to avoid I'm afraid.

As for CPanel to Cpanel account moves - to be honest, only tried a few times, but only ever ran smoothly when from one of my own dedicated servers to another, ie, had root access.

2c.

[MrCat]

I think the OP isn't targeting the right market. Hosting marketing on myspace? A total waste of time IMO.

Your best option is to do SEO so as to get more traffic from the SE's.

A PPC campaign would also help. Also consider advertising on a similar niched forum or blog where most webmasters hangout.