Where do your customers come from?

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Posted by DangerMouse, 10-17-2002, 01:38 PM
Hi, Just wondering what any of your experiences were of getting customers. Where do they come from? Search engines for me seem so difficult to get a good position on with such a popular subject, so thats what made me think. So is it from Referrals, Search Engines, Affiliate programs, Directories or where? DM
Posted by appletreats, 10-17-2002, 01:54 PM
I don't know. I haven't done any advertising at all for quite some time, yet I'm getting new orders. It's probably safe to assume referrals.
Posted by flashgear, 10-17-2002, 03:50 PM
local marketing and affiliates sites
Posted by smidwap, 10-17-2002, 04:54 PM
If you are an active member at WHT, then you may get quite at least quite a few inquiries, if not orders. Posting at WHT is like free advertising.
Posted by alohahosts, 10-17-2002, 04:56 PM
Only if you offer plans for .50 cents a year! Seriously, local advertising and referrals are the way to get quality clients.
Posted by skyhost, 10-17-2002, 05:05 PM
Please read the rules : "Participants may not use the forum to publish or discuss any information regarding their product or services, or future (possible) products or services, or any product or services they are, or have been, associated with. This includes, but not limit to suggesting your own services, or services of partners or family." kunal Last edited by kunal; 10-17-2002 at 06:28 PM.
Posted by joshp, 10-17-2002, 05:32 PM
That's got to be borderline breaking the rules skyhost
Posted by ServerCentreLtd, 10-17-2002, 05:42 PM
Word of mouth/referrals always better then any advertising
Posted by jdwalte3, 10-17-2002, 05:43 PM
Does anyone do any cold-calling?
Posted by smidwap, 10-17-2002, 06:04 PM
That isn't true. I ask my customers when they signup where did they find out about us. A good majority comes from WHT. However, I do have to admit word of mouth is the best form of advertisement (though I wouldn't really call that a form of advertisement ). Local advertising, well, ehhh...if you live in a small town like mine, you aren't going to get a huge customer base from it.
Posted by smidwap, 10-17-2002, 06:06 PM
If you are refering to telemarketing, which I believe you are, then I would say that is the worst thing you can do. I have read about hosts who look for people who want web hosting, get their domain, do a whois on it, get his/her phone number, and call them. People hate that, and if the person knows about WHT, the host will be flamed and ranted upon like crazy! Oops, sorry for the double post. I accidently pressed quote instead of edit/delete on my earlier post.
Posted by flashgear, 10-17-2002, 06:12 PM
I don'tthinmk you can advertise your costs here Last edited by kunal; 10-17-2002 at 06:26 PM.
Posted by smidwap, 10-17-2002, 06:22 PM
He wasn't advertising anything. Just stating a fact and helping people out.
Posted by zipcode, 10-17-2002, 06:43 PM
Most of our customers come from referrals.
Posted by thomas830, 10-17-2002, 07:39 PM
Our customers come from: 1. word-of-mouth 2. search engines 3. hosting directories
Posted by Marts, 10-17-2002, 08:19 PM
cold calling local adverts telling EVERYONE you meet about what you do Search engines .... well I mean we are ranked number ONE!
Posted by ChowSumDung, 10-17-2002, 08:36 PM
My customers come from Pluto.
Posted by Marts, 10-17-2002, 08:42 PM
Pluto I guess it is an un tapped place ??
Posted by ChowSumDung, 10-17-2002, 08:46 PM
It is. You'd be surprised how many Plutonians are interested in hosting.
Posted by smidwap, 10-17-2002, 09:08 PM
Ha, you think Pluto is good. 90% of ourcustomer base is derived from the Andromeda Galaxy! (Err...though we've had problems with money transactions taking over a million light years to get processed.) Yeah, okay, I'm just kidding.
Posted by ChowSumDung, 10-18-2002, 12:50 AM
I get way too many fraud transactions from the Andromeda Galaxy, so I block their IP.
Posted by DangerMouse, 10-18-2002, 03:33 AM
How about Magazine advertising? Does anyone do this and does it pay off? DM
Posted by punaboy, 10-18-2002, 01:34 PM
I agree, most of my clients are from local marketing. Isn't that like "phone spam" or something?
Posted by net-trend, 10-18-2002, 01:49 PM
A number of our clients come from WHT, the rest i have no idea? That's because I didn't ask. But i can assume it's from advertising in overture and ppc directories also maybe word of mouth? I've done print advertising, so far no results! must be something wrong with my approach there.
Posted by Jacynthe, 10-18-2002, 08:09 PM
Most of our clients have refered their friends and family to us. We also have excellent ranking on Google, not for hosting but hey once they're on the site, it's a good first step. It's why the site layout is important so it always show on every page what services we offer. and this is funny but we got a lot of people coming to us because we're active (okay used to be) in roleplaying and were pretty known around the places we hung in... so when other roleplayers heard we had started a business, the curiosity got them to our site and we got some more clients.
Posted by RackFive, 10-19-2002, 06:19 PM
My customers come from local marketing
Posted by hosty, 10-19-2002, 08:06 PM
mainly referrals, advertising we did in the search engines did bring some but just enough to pay for itself (i guess it might need optimizing) hosty
Posted by Ganah ALLAN, 10-20-2002, 07:04 PM
I agree with isolsdotnet. Our clients were actually referred by a first client and that client refers another client. The reward? We give the referring client 10% commission as a surprise! This is actually not announced, hence a surprise. What are they doing now? They refer their friends and colleagues even more. But, of course, you cannot have "word of mouth" advertising as effective if you do not render great service. Let me quote Softwarevue when we had a chat last time, "Take care of your clients and they will take care of you."
Posted by Aussie Bob, 10-20-2002, 07:48 PM
For which keywords?
Posted by smidwap, 10-20-2002, 08:35 PM
HostHeadQuarters.com
Posted by TheTech, 10-21-2002, 11:15 AM
I would recommend sponsoring a community site, one that isn't to large, but one that has good traffic. They're really good at recommending hosts to their staff/members.
Posted by Web Hosting Stuff, 10-22-2002, 02:36 AM
Not sure about overture ... do you track with a cookie? Their top bid now for "web hosting" is $10.00 from Earthlink Hosting ... sure are very generous folks!
Posted by net-trend, 10-22-2002, 03:59 AM
YEah, they must have huge capital to play with.
Posted by DangerMouse, 10-22-2002, 04:03 AM
I cant see how you would ever make that amount back though. That has got to be a waste of money. You cant possibly have enough conversion to turn that amount spent into paying customers. DM
Posted by net-trend, 10-22-2002, 04:43 AM
It's most probably just for branding.
Posted by exodus, 10-22-2002, 06:36 AM
There's an old business addage that says that "the most expensive customer that you get is the one you loose, and the cheapest is the one that you keep". This is true in all businesses. I run 3 businesses besides web development/hosting. Good referrals are better than all the others combined (unless you can afford to advertize at the superbowl) When you loose a customer, you not only loose the revinue, you loose all the potential referrals that you could have gotten. As an added downer, they will probably poision the opinions of many other potential clients. This will certainly cost you some clients + the downline referrals that that would have generated. Thus, the best way to get new business is to give extremely good service to the ones that you already have! The absolute best! Also be as professional and honest as you can. You will keep your clients (We havn't lost one, in 3 years). The referrals will come. It may be slow at first, but eventually you will get them. The money generated from these clients, is all yours, no hungry advertisers waiting with outstreched hands. Cold calls don't work well either. The biggest thing that we have to fight in this industry, is the crappy reputation of some local company (we all have 'em) that screwed someone out of money, or gave really bad service. Oddly, most businessmen / businesswomen know of someone that this has happened to (especially if you are in a small market, as we are). So it is tough to sell someone on your company in this manner. We doubled our business last year, and we're not visible in any search engines. I have never spent a cent on advertizing, and we are not in the yellow pages. All from word of mouth referrals. No selling involved. They have already been sold on your company by the referrer. Just sign 'em up. Just my 2 cents. Last edited by exodus; 10-22-2002 at 06:49 AM.

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