Thread: Where do you guys get most fo your business?

Is most of your biz from a local customer base or from internet signups? What type of ratios do you have from these as far as customers go?

Just wondering how must i need to focus locally compared to online.

Also, what types of marketing strategies do you guys use locally? TV, Newspapers, etc?

Thanks!

I am seriously thinking of going local , I have done some ressearch and find that the 2 companies that offer hosting my local area are 10x or more for what my 8.95 plan is and there service still lacks features , that I offer in my Beginner package and upper packages.

Example of local hosting company
44.95 a mth You get 25 mb space , 2 gig bandwith and 10 pop emails ..nothing more and I won't even tell you what they want for bussiness sites.

I really am considering local hosting as a alternative, and I really think it takes some research and knowledge of your local area before you make that choice.

I have a very similar situation. There are only 2 web hosts locally. Most people end up hosting with a local ISP. Neither of the local webhosts advertise at all.

The pricing locally ranges from $25-50/month. I think if I come in offering plans at $9.95, I have the potential to grab some business. Also, the local hosts don't offer much in the way of features (CPanel, WHM).

Well, good luck with your biz!

-Matt

Yes same situation here too, and good luck to you also.

Originally posted by phantasywork
44.95 a mth You get 25 mb space , 2 gig bandwith and 10 pop emails.

At least it's not unlimited.

Originally posted by iamdave
At least it's not unlimited.

Haha ..so true

What techniques are some of you using to gain customers away from the local hosts?

We have the same thing happening where I live. A couple of big ISPs gaining local hosting accounts.

Magnet Eye, I don't expect you will get a lot of advice on the internet signups. No one wants to share that type of info.... If any one does have info on internt signups I would like to hear it....

Local business is almost always more profitable, but only when you charge accordingly. Selling a $9.95 pacakage when your local competition is selling the same thing (or a lesser package) for $25 may be shortchanging yourself a bit. If you want to gain some local market share, undercut them a bit but not so much that your price turns customers away. It's surprising the amount of people that are happy to pay more if they feel they are receiving some sort of benefit in return (such as peace-of-mind!). I, for one, happily pay more knowing that the service after the sale will be there.

Our company is located in a, relatively, small local market with two overpriced competitors as well. This market demands that the host provide design services. Without exception, the area clients approach hosting with zero knowledge ... they want an instant web presence with little concern for cost and no tolerance of hassle. Of course, hassle - for them - is FTP. They would rather eat broken glass than use Telnet. As a result, we don't focus on the locals. Besides, I hate Rotary ... and Exchange.

All of our customers are from the net so far.

We are hoping to start advertising locally in the next few weeks but we are aware that this will involve a lot of design work and not just hosting

Greetings:

"Example of local hosting company
44.95 a mth You get 25 mb space , 2 gig bandwith and 10 pop emails ..nothing more and I won't even tell you what they want for bussiness sites."

I get the feeling from some of these posts that there is the belief of

1. People buy based on price.
2. People buy techology / products.

Over the past seven years in the industry, we've found the following to be true:

1. While price is a consideration most of the time, people's main motivations for buying and selecting is not price. And as pointed out in one of the replies, too low of a price can cause lost sales.

2. People don't buy technology, products, or services. They are buying solutions to their problems. They either want pleasure or they want one or more pains to go away. 99% don't care how that happens.

Most of our local clients don't care how much disk space, bandwidth, etc. they can have or use. Most don't use that much anyway.

Can you do better than your local competition?

Most likely, don't know. However, don't go on the basis that being 10 times cheaper will get you clients ;-)

Most of our customers find us through search engines. Personally, i think SEO should be at the top of your marketing priorities.

44.95 a mth You get 25 mb space , 2 gig bandwith and 10 pop emails ..nothing more and I won't even tell you what they want for bussiness sites.

Yep. In addition, the local businesses and personal sites suffer horrible downtime and they are sloooooooow.

Alot of old unupdated(but still running) webhosting companys, and local companys, and even some well known ones that got that way from word of mouth(idiot's)

They still host on the same servers they setup on (a 566 pentium 1 or some equivilent) Out here in chicago, I dont know if any of you know bean.net, but they have such ludacrious prices they sell ram from 1995 for $50.........

But they have 5 storefront Net Cafe's here in chi, where they sell there ridiculious products and services, they have 5 because everytime they make money they invest it in a new storefront......

They like to think there opperating smoothly.. but my staff consists of former employee's of Bean.net and they've told me how bad bean.net really is....

Unfortunate for bean.net Ill be taking over the local Net Cafe scene in chicago ;]

Any possible chicagoland partners PM me, im opening a datacenter in downers grove sometime in the next year, and atleast 1 storefront net cafe.....

But back to what I was blabbing about.....

There supposedly a "leading" local competitor for the city of chicago.. But honestly I plan to have more equipment in my house by the end of the year.....

Also why dont you checkout there prices on there website.. www.bean.net

This is just an example, there are companys making 10,000 a week from selling 250 MB of webspace, 1 gig of transfer, being hosted on a computer built in 1996 without the capabilities to run more than 256k of ram.... And then they charge them another 2 grand for a website thats no more than text and "frames".......

Ultimate Solution:
We should all stop wasting our time concerning ourselves with these companys, eventually they'll fall out of business, but just think, In the time I wrote this post I could of routed somthing.....

To some of your responses. I understand that trying to jump in with really low prices might not be the best, but I am offering several packages. One that's going to be comparable to theirsbut a few dollars cheaper. But also have a "starter" plan that is only$9.95. I want to try and cover all bases.

Another thing I notice in my area, is no one really knows that hosting companies exist here becuase the 2 don't advertise AT ALL. So, not only do I want to try and swoon customers to join with me, I am thinking if I am the one advertising, I should be able to get a bulk of the new customers. My area is slow, and it seems that just in the past year all the businesses have realized there's this thing called the internet and are trying to get online.

And just like someone else said, this one competitor of mine was here from the beginning and did a lot of design and hosting work. I believe he is a programmer and his design skills suck. Plus he is hosting on Pentium2 450 mhz machines, charging $35 and up!! And neither of these local hosts have CPanel or WHM. I feel I can come in at lower prices, and offer a LOT more features. I have also been hired to redesign some of this guys work, and they always complain about the guy not being available or not offering any type of support. SO, I KNOW I can drown that guy.

Someone mentioned offering design services as well. For me it was the other way around. I started as a web developer. I am just now getting heavier into hosting for a more reliable income. I will be offering both services, but on two seperate websites i think. One for hosting, one for design. Maybe somehow have them linked to eachother.

Thanks for all your comments so far!!!

75% of our hosting customers are from the same town as we are.

20% are from other local surrounding towns.

5% are global.

Our local customers pay 50% more than our global customers. We had to drastically reduce our pricing scheme to enter the global market, it is a tough competetion out there. Local customers are great, but eventually sales from local customers will drop off(due to lack of interested local users), and you will have to enter a global market.

98% of our customers are from the net - 2% local

We get 50% of new customers from referrals, 10% from advertising, and 40% from a network of about 100 hostin-related domains which redirect visitors to our site.

We will be launching a local brand shortly, priced more expensively than any of he local competitors since we offer more features than they do. We figured it is easier to convince potential customers that your service is beter if it is priced higher than the competition.

Being of a slightly higher price does have it's up and downs. But, if you have the features to stand behind the price...then there is no worrying.