Return to Article Index

The first rule in marketing your web hosting and development business is to tailor your marketing for your target market. For example, if you are targeting programmers your marketing and sales copy will be much different than if you are targeting local "mom and pop" business owners. 

In your marketing, you may be appealing to:

• Web Developers/Programmers

• Personal/Home Users

• A particular geographical area

• Corporations

• Home Offices

• Specific industry segments (Attorneys, Publishers, etc.)

• A combination of the above

In general, small business owners will not respond well to overly technical information. If you talk about MySQL, PHP etc., you will just make their eyes glaze over. They want to know the benefits of getting a website in terms of profit and expense. You need to find out from them how much a new customer is worth to them and then show them that the small investment in a website will pay for itself many times over in new customers and increased satisfaction among existing customers.

Web programmers on the other hand, will want to know every last detail of the technical specifications and tools offered. If you want to appeal to them you will want to go over all the included features, software, and tools in great detail.

You can segment your market even further and develop an offer that will be irresistible to a specific industry segment, such as:

• Restaurant Owners

• Attorneys

• Dentists

• CPA's

• Retail Store Owners

• Insurance Companies

If you develop a web services offer for a specific industry segment, your chances of making the sale are much greater because they will see that you specialize in providing custom services just for them. 

For example, you could setup a site called "TheRestaurantHost.com" and build it around the theme of providing web packages for restaurants. You might focus on how they can have their menus and gift certificates online... provide graphical maps to their location... etc. (BTW, as of this writing, the domain name "therestauranthost.com" is available...)

Or perhaps you want to cater to Insurance Companies. You would focus on how you will provide them with forms so customers submit claims online, or get rates and quotes right on their website. The more you tailor a solution to a specific industry segment, the more clear the benefits are for your prospects, and the easier it is to sell.