As of 2022, there are about 2 billion websites. Imagine how many web hosts there are, and how you can get a piece of the estimated $216 billion by 2025 for the global web hosting market. You can do this by starting your own reseller hosting business. In this article, you’ll learn some handy reseller hosting marketing strategies to get you started.
What is reseller hosting?
Reseller hosting is a type of web hosting where you can rent a larger piece of a server, and then sell small pieces of your allotted account to customers.
Hosting control management systems like cPanel, make it easy and cheap to get a reseller hosting business quickly started up.
Why is it important to market your reseller hosting business?
The most obvious answer on why it’s important to market your reseller hosting business, is that you want to make money with it. If you just start a reseller business without telling anyone about it, you’re not going to get far. It’s not like the movie “Field of Dreams”. That was just a movie, and so the reality is that if you build a reseller business, people won’t automatically flock to buy your services.
10 Reseller Hosting Marketing Strategies
In order to succeed as a reseller, here are 10 reseller hosting marketing strategies:
- Identify and create a way that sets your reseller hosting different from others.
- Identify who your target audience should be.
- Create a unique and memorable brand.
- Research thoroughly.
- Create a solid email marketing campaign.
- Promote your reseller hosting on social media websites.
- Start a blog.
- Offer stellar customer support.
- Give an easy way for customers to leave reviews.
- Invest in online advertising.
1. Identify and create a way that sets your reseller hosting different from others.
Think about what you can offer that will set your reseller hosting business apart from other businesses.
- Do you want to target hosting a specific niche of customers?
- Do you want to only host people that you design websites for?
- Do you want to offer hosting and specialized website management services dedicated to a content management system (like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc…)?
2. Identify who your target audience should be.
Identifying your target audience is important, because if you’re missing the right people, you’re missing out on sales.
3. Create a unique and memorable brand.
People are loyal to brands that are unique and memorable. They will care and trust what you are doing, and be happy to interact with you, but also buy from you.
4. Research thoroughly.
Research is important. You should research competition, as well as keywords you should be using.
A hosting company that is doing it right, is a great example of what you should try doing. No, you don’t need to do everything the same exact way or copy everything verbatim (which would be frowned upon.) However, in researching, you can create a list of what you should be doing, in order to create a more robust marketing campaign for your reseller hosting business.
5. Create a solid email marketing campaign.
Most businesses should have a newsletter. In fact, over 64% of small businesses have a newsletter, which is a good indicator that you should too.
When someone signs up to receive your email newsletter, they are opening the door to their inbox, as well as telling you that they are interested in what you want to send them. Use your email marketing campaigns to creatively tell people what you’re offering, and as a bonus tip, share some stories that tackle some of the pain points that your customers have had in choosing a good web host.
6. Promote your reseller hosting on social media websites.
It’s important to choose a few social network sites to build a presence. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are great places for a web host to share content, interact with customers, and overall, market your product. You could also try joining a web hosting forum. You’d be surprised at how many people are customers looking to talk about web hosting and their websites. Go where your customers are - makes sense, right?
You don’t necessarily have to be all business on your channel. You can share lighthearted or funny content too. Make sure your content isn’t always promotional, as it may turn people off. Your posts should add enough value to attract people to you.
Make sure to also consider joining any Facebook groups that could contain your target audience. When it comes to web hosting, you may find it handy to join conversations in web help type groups, CMS related groups, SEO groups, and even web design groups.
7. Start a blog.
Starting a blog is a way to flex your knowledge and build trust and authority not just for customers, but the surrounding hosting niche. You can also use your blog to showcase customers and the sites or businesses they are running, which adds a welcoming and warm feeling to your reseller hosting business.
8. Offer stellar customer support.
In the beginning you might be starting a reseller hosting business with one or a couple people. However, from the starting gate, always offer top-notch support. Make sure to build a solid knowledge base so when your customers submit a ticket, you have some references for them to use.
9. Give an easy way for customers to leave reviews.
Without customer reviews, how will you obtain new customers? Encourage your customers to leave reviews, whether it’s with you through the customer support tickets, Google Reviews, reviews on your Facebook business page, or other review sites.
It wouldn’t hurt to feature a few reviews from your customers, and make sure to link to somewhere that you’d love them to leave reviews.
10. Invest in online advertising.
Advertising can be risky, but with research, and knowing your audience, you shouldn’t have to spend a lot of money right off the bat. In fact, start small, and make sure to watch your ad campaign results so you can adjust for future campaigns.
Sure, there’s a lot of places where you can have a presence, but sometimes paying to play through advertising, helps bump you more often in front of the people you’re targeting to purchase hosting from you.
In Summary
Good luck with running your own reseller business. Hopefully the reseller hosting marketing strategies in this article will help you flourish as a business. Remember that building a business takes effort, time, and some money.
If you're looking to get into the hosting business, consider using affordable reseller hosting plans from Verpex. It’s a great way to launch a reseller hosting website that’s secure, fast, and optimized for success.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are all reseller hosting plans cloud-based?
Our servers are in the cloud. So yes, all our reseller hosting plans are cloud-based
What are the benefits of reseller hosting?
With reseller hosting, you have the potential for more sales, you get access to a previously untapped market, and you get increased brand awareness.
Is reseller hosting profitable?
In general, reseller hosting is very profitable. However, to be able to offset your initial cost, the hardest part will be getting your first few reseller clients.
How do I become a reseller hosting provider?
To become a reseller hosting provider, you need to find a hosting provider that offers reseller hosting services and sign up for a reseller account. Once you have your reseller account, you can create custom hosting plans, set your own prices, and market your services to your own clients. You will be responsible for managing your own clients and providing customer support.
Nile Flores is a long time professional blogger, as well as WordPress website designer and developer from the St. Louis Metro East. Nile blogs at NileFlores.com, where she’s passionate about helping website owners, whether they’re small business owners or bloggers. She teaches about Blogging, Social Media, Search Engine Optimization, Website Design, and WordPress. Additionally, Nile loves to speak at WordCamps (WordPress conferences) across the United States. When Nile isn’t knee-deep in coding, she’s a proud mom of a college student, and enjoys oil painting, cigar smoking, nail art design, and practicing traditional Okinawan kempo karate.
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