Since I now have 200 podcasts under my belt, and with a new year coming up quick, I thought now would be the perfect time to introduce to you my new project. I want to help you with marketing.
Tag Archives | marketing
How to Turn a Complaint into a Feature
How does somebody turn a complaint into a feature? Anybody out there, who runs a web hosting company, can tell you they hear complaints about this, that and the other, every single day. When public opinion becomes SO strong, you might want to take the idea into consideration.
You do not have to drastically change the way you do business though. If you are successful in one area of business, do not toss it aside to do something else that is more popular. I got a question submitted to me the other day from Matt, which touches on this very topic.
Here is what Matt had to say:
I run a free hosting site, and I’ve been at it for 4 years, and we’ve got very high rating, and uptime, and server speed, but I’ve still got this problem where everyone expects our service to be a sort of scam or not very good because of the price. If I start charging for it, I have to say goodbye to a lot of people who I’ve been helping for a long time, and if I don’t, it seems to me there’s always this group of people who wont choose it. I mean, if you want to pay money for your hosting, I’ll gladly take donations, and I have many people who do donate. If you have time, because I know you’re very busy, could you give me your honest opinion of our service and what we need to do to appeal more to small businesses and community organizations?
Submit a Question, Get a Free Plug!
Yes, it is really that simple! Here is what I want you to do right now.
- Visit the new “Submit a Question” page
- Give me your name (first name is fine), web site address (if you have one), and question about web hosting, marketing, search engine optimization or anything else web site related
- Hit the “Submit” button
That is it. Simple right? Oh, it gets even better!
Why You Should Not Host Your Own Videos
Should you host your own videos, or should you turn towards some of the free video hosting services out there to do it for you? This is an internal battle going on with many web hosting providers out there – and I’m going to tell you why the second choice might be the better one for you.
Video Sharing, Converting and Playing are All Server Killers
The number one reason why you should not host your own videos, is simply put in two words, server resources. By outsourcing this task to a place like YouTube, Revver, and other online video sharing services, you take the load video hosting and distributing takes on a server. For those of you using shared hosting services, this is particularly important, because you want to keep your resource usage as low as possible.
Open Your Videos Up to a Wider Audience, to Gain More Eyeballs
My second reason for saying you should not host your own video content is for marketing reasons. Stop and think for a minute, who gets more traffic – you or YouTube? YouTube would be the obvious answer to many. Now, how could you turn that to your advantage?
- Publish videos people are looking for
- Make sure to include your brand name and domain name
Now you are creating one more way for people who might be randomly surfing for content via YouTube (or any other video sharing service out there) to find your videos, and your web site.
If you have the resources to host your own videos, because you do not fear the server resource issue, chances are you don’t need to market yourself using these means. However, for us small guys and gals in the wild and wacky world of web hosting, we need every advantage we can take – and this is one free service available to you worth taking advantage of.
Should Web Hosts Twitter?
There are a great number of web hosts using Twitter for social communication, support and marketing. If you get any big group of web hosts geeks together though, on this topic, the argument usually goes one of two ways. Either people are really for it, or they are really against it.
For those of you who may not know, Twitter is a micro-blogging service that lets you post message under 140 characters online to your own page, (like the great and wonderful twitter.com/mitchkeeler).
Let us take a look at both sides of the argument.
Wasting your time? Some may say that your time is better served doing one on one support with customers, rather than virtually pimping your goods on Twitter. Others might also not really understand what Twitter is all about, since it is highly referenced as that site where you type what you are doing, such as “about to mow the lawn” or “I’m really bored”. There is a good side to this coin too though.
A helpful marketing and support tool? I have seen a lot of tweets that pretty much can be summed up as “_____ sucks”. Now I ask you, wouldn’t it be handy to be able to go out and communicate with that person if they think you suck, and ask why? Twitter can be used as a quick and easy customer service tool. Also, posting news about your web hosting company, links to your blog articles, or even coupons and deals can lead to a lot of new eyeballs seeing those, and coming into your digital empire. Think of it as one more proverbial driveway they can drive into, to get to your services.
My final opinion on the matter would be to go for it. I think that it always helps to get your name and brand out there in every way possible. I would really be interested to hear what you think though – do you think web hosts should tweet on Twitter?
Best GoDaddy Ads – Marketing, Midgets and Boobs
I am torn between two different versions of the same GoDaddy commercial when it comes to number two on my best of the GoDaddy ads list. This one known as the “marketing” commercial (like many others) had two versions. One was the “ok for TV” version and the other was the “extended GoDaddy” version. Here are both of them.
Extended Unrated Version of the “Marketing” Commercial
Now the first one is actually a better commercial that makes a lot of sense. It gets to the point quickly, like any good commercial should. Now the second one has a soft spot in my heart because it includes three things I love – marketing, a midget and a lot of eye candy in the form of both Danica Patrick and Candice Michelle. I just can’t choose! Well, if this is a list for the best “ads” I guess number one would have to win.
Best GoDaddy Ads – I Own You Dougie
I am going to surprise you, here is a favorite GoDaddy commercial of mine that doesn’t have all that many plastic chest enhancements at all. Minus one small walkthrough – it doesn’t even have a girl at all. More creative than some of the others, this one deserves the number three spot on my favorite GoDaddy ads countdown.
Makes me wonder what ever happened to these two guys, Doug and well… the other one. Seems like GoDaddy wanted to make them a staple as well in the ads, however the GoDaddy girls seem to still get more attention.
Best GoDaddy Ads – Loving Candice Michelle
Now out of all the GoDaddy girls, I have a special post (oh boy do I!) for Candice Michelle. Not only is she the one that started the craze, but she can also kick some heavy duty rear end in a WWE ring. So next on my GoDaddy ads list would be the 2008 uncut Super Bowl commercial.
Now you might watch that and say it wasn’t that funny. I will give you that, but at least it had a point and told a story a little better than most of them have. In comparison, you have the Basic Instinct knock-off ad which, well – there is nothing funny there. They just tried to rip on that movie’s most famous seen but do nothing to make it their own.
Marketing Tip from a Cheese Sandwich
This one is for the web hosts out there, or really anybody who is selling a product out there to the public. You can always make something look better, by putting something of lesser value next to it.
The perfect comparison that is often used is the hot girl that brings her ugly friend around to parties, so when they hang out together, the hot girl looks even hotter. I am going to go in a different route. Let us say it is lunch time in the office and your boss has put out two sandwiches for you to choose from.
One is cheese on bread, and the other is the greatest sandwich known to mankind, ham and cheese on bread. Now if there was just a cheese sandwich, you might settle for that. Now that you have the ham and cheese option though, you want that instead. It looks better cause you are getting a better deal.
Now let us look at web hosting accounts. Every web hosts should have one plan they consider their hot girl or ham and cheese sandwich. It is the one that gets the best sales. Now, you need to develop a plan that might seem appealing to some, but has enough flaws that it makes people want to check out the hot girl plan more.
The one hosting plan on its own might be great, but putting it beside a cheese sandwich plan would be even better.
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