| Marketing Your Web Hosting Company in 2007 | | | | become a way of life in America. It is not just for web |
| There are many ways to market a web hosting | | | | hosting but everything. When I want to buy a car I |
| company and many articles have touched on them. | | | | research the models and dealers online and make my |
| There are web hosting directories, banner ads on | | | | choices. Same for real estate; likewise with vacations. I |
| webmaster sits, search engine placements, ppc | | | | research products before I buy them online. Everything |
| advertising, etc. These are all effective methods if | | | | from cameras to coats. |
| used and managed properly. | | | | Historically, customers, also, did not change hosting |
| But these are mostly forms that market on the internet | | | | companies often. Most people were not comfortable |
| to webmasters, programmers, graphic designers, and | | | | moving their website and risking the loss of uptime and |
| small hosting companies. Traditionally the online | | | | data. Unless a host was really bad you stayed with |
| webmaster was the target audience. They were the | | | | them and rode out the bad times. |
| ones who built websites and the ones non technical | | | | Today it is different. People are educated and |
| people looked to. But today with the evolution of web | | | | comfortable with their websites and there are plenty |
| hosting and website builder tools as well as the | | | | of services and web hosts who will move them for |
| continued education of the common person, the | | | | you without downtime. Now, people feel free to move |
| average web hosting customer is no longer your online | | | | from host to host when they can get a better plan. |
| webmaster. It can be any father with baby photos, a | | | | Unlike the cell phone business web hosts have never |
| neighborhood association, a church, an artist, etc. We | | | | required yearly commitments. |
| looked at the signups from a popular web hosting | | | | If the average person, with or without a website, is the |
| company over the last month and that is exactly what | | | | target audience then the marketing methods can be |
| we found. The number of signups from people in the | | | | greatly expanded from just targeting online |
| industry was less then 20%. | | | | webmasters. Even online this opens up a lot of |
| Increasingly the average person has 2 things. First, is | | | | possibilities. Advertising on community websites, artist |
| digital content. People have photos, letters, videos, | | | | websites, and photography websites can yield a lot of |
| blogs, etc. Secondly, they have enough internet savy | | | | prospective customers. |
| to research hosting companies and their plans. It has | | | | |