Content to engage local small businesses

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painperdu

New member
I am gearing my hosting business to target small local businesses. Besides offering services to help them host and marketing their business I am building out a few websites to hopefully engage them while promoting my brand.

One of the websites I have up right now is for listing local service ads. I invite businesses and services to list their business free of charge. Of course my hosting business is listed at the top.

Another website I plan to start work on is a Q&A website whereby I will invite local services and businesses to answer questions from local citizens.

I figure these sites will help out with local SEO and expose my hosting brand as people visit the site and see my ad.

Anyone else doing something similar to this?
 
Nice to see that you have a target niche. Not many hosts have that.

If you are local, have you made personal contact with some of these businesses ?
Spread the word that you exists, do not fall into the trap to sell based on who got the lowest price or not. Sell on quality.

From what I've read at many of the hosting forums that I visit, the people who want to pay as little as possible and lack the knowledge to do the work them self are usually the most demanding customers you could get.

I've always said that it's really nice to go on a gut-feeling and denying a potential customer service and then be right about it. :)

I wish you good luck!
 
painperdu said:
I am gearing my hosting business to target small local businesses. Besides offering services to help them host and marketing their business I am building out a few websites to hopefully engage them while promoting my brand.

One of the websites I have up right now is for listing local service ads. I invite businesses and services to list their business free of charge. Of course my hosting business is listed at the top.

Another website I plan to start work on is a Q&A website whereby I will invite local services and businesses to answer questions from local citizens.

I figure these sites will help out with local SEO and expose my hosting brand as people visit the site and see my ad.

Anyone else doing something similar to this?
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If your target is local businesses, then

1) get yourself a nice suit
2) get some professional business cards
3) get a laptop/tablet ( make sure its fully charged and have bookmarked to your portfolio)

then try the personal visit approach to these businesses, leave them a business card if you are unable to speak to anyone, otherwise if you do speak to someone you can show then your portfolio/site and what you can offer them.
 
That seems like a great plan to start with. Our town has recently setup a way to 'make the town', as in make it better. If we can bring all of the makers together we can brainstorm to grow the community more, in turn everyone chimes in when it comes to their business helping out (for free or not). Might be able to work that into what you have going on now.
 
another thing we attend when they have them (4 times a year) local business forum hires a marquee for 3 days and sets this up in our 3 major town for a day in each town, where local businesses set up tables to show their products/ services. this is a great way to network with other businesses as well as show the public what local businesses are available. I have business cards and leaflets designed for these events where i have a promo code offering 10% off recurring for any of our plans. we use the same code for each event, but the promo is only active for a month from the date of each event. this proves a worthwhile promo.

One thing i never attend is the so called business breakfasts. these are usually from 6.30am to 7.30 am and held 20 minutes from where i live, so means me having to get up and set off anywhere from 5 am to 6am all for the matter of 1 hr
 
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Good suggestions. Anything that can help a business out is a great opportunity to engage the business community and promote our brand.
 
Local is really the best way to start out, make sure you have some very nice business cards and spread the word a little :).

You may find some local businesses will also tell their partners / local companies of who they go to for their websites (You could try encourage this with an affiliate program of some sort?)
 
From what I've studied and that I check out on the web, the individuals who want to pay as little as possible and absence the information to do the perform them-self's are usually the most challenging clients you could get.
 
search for "guerrilla marketing" & street fighter marketing solutions books.

You can try to attaching yourself to an affiliate program with the local BBB / Chamber / government economic development group and offer to pay them for referrals and to offer their members 'free' accounts or special discounts. Getting a official government sanctioned sponsorship tends to help with the trust factor.
 
easyhostmedia said:
If your target is local businesses, then

1) get yourself a nice suit
2) get some professional business cards
3) get a laptop/tablet ( make sure its fully charged and have bookmarked to your portfolio)

then try the personal visit approach to these businesses, leave them a business card if you are unable to speak to anyone, otherwise if you do speak to someone you can show then your portfolio/site and what you can offer them.
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This! Best way to start off for your local business - especially since once you get a few people it starts people talking about it which is always beneficial!
 
This! Best way to start off for your local business - especially since once you get a few people it starts people talking about it which is always beneficial!
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I totally agree. I just began offering local businesses a free WordPress website (they write the content, I put it into a WordPress template and make the necessary site functions a reality such as contact us forms and business portfolios). I then give them a brief training on how to add and edit content on their site, and bang! I have a happy customer. The cache is they must pay for one year of my "ultimate" hosting package.

After a few calls to local businesses, I had acquired 5 (and counting) new clients this weekend. Considering I only called 7 businesses, I would say that is a good turnout.
 
hostmything said:
After a few calls to local businesses, I had acquired 5 (and counting) new clients this weekend. Considering I only called 7 businesses, I would say that is a good turnout.
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That is a good turnout, but are these confirmed signed up clients or those that have stated they will move to your services
 
That is a good turnout, but are these confirmed signed up clients or those that have stated they will move to your services
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To my knowledge, all 5 are confirmed. I have been talking templates with a few, and have received payment from 2 of the businesses.
 
Yes, I suppose your right. But as of last night all 5 have paid, so now therefore my conversion is 5.

When I said they were confirmed but haven't paid yet, I had a pretty good idea they were confirmed clients. I could see they were very interested in my services, as many of them have never had a website before (I believe 3 out of the 5). My apologies for the confusion.
 
hostmything said:
Yes, I suppose your right. But as of last night all 5 have paid, so now therefore my conversion is 5.

When I said they were confirmed but haven't paid yet, I had a pretty good idea they were confirmed clients. I could see they were very interested in my services, as many of them have never had a website before (I believe 3 out of the 5). My apologies for the confusion.
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Still a great conversion rate
 
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