How to Easily Sell Your Own Hosting Service
The idea of building a profitable hosting service from the ground up might seem daunting. What you need to understand is that you don’t have to run a massive operation to have successful hosting business. In fact, you can easily sell your own hosting service and make good money without all the hustling.
In this guide, we will teach you the steps to take if you decide that selling your own hosting service is right for you. We’ll cover everything from pricing to revenue streams, so you can easily find your niche and run with it.
Pricing
As we’ve already established, not all hosting services are created equal. Not all hosting services are profitable, and keeping up with the ever-changing demands of a marketplace can leave you with a significant revenue gap. Fortunately, there’s a way you can easily price your service to make sure you’re not sacrificing your margins for unsatisfied customers: through the use of metrics.
This is a pricing strategy that is employed by almost every hosting service on the market. Rather than looking at how much a customer is likely to spend on the product they’re purchasing, as one would with a traditional fixed-price model, you’ll look at how much they’re actually spending (using tools like Google Analytics and Hootsuite) and how much you’re earning (through pay-per-click ads and affiliate sales). The idea is that by gauging customer behavior, you can accurately predict how much they’re likely to pay without any uncertainties. With this knowledge, you can set an appropriate price that won’t put you at a financial disadvantage. It’s a win-win for both you and the customer.
Revenue Streams
Another important factor to consider when planning your venture into the world of web hosting is how you intend to make money. Do you intend to monetize your site through advertising or do you want to use your site to promote affiliate products? It’s a common misconception that you have to choose one or the other. In reality, you can incorporate elements of each into your strategy and make good money without any restrictions. The choice is up to you.
If you want to make money through advertising, you’ll want to consider what type of ads you intend to run. There are plenty of lucrative advertising opportunities available, from display ads to sponsored posts. Each one carries with it a financial reward, and the benefits of running such ads are many. You’ll want to consider the type of user you attract, the time of day they visit, and the platform they’re on when performing market research so that you can target your ads effectively. Don’t just think about the money – think about the opportunities to grow your business while providing reliable service.
If, on the other hand, you want to make money through affiliate marketing, you’ll need to decide how much you’re willing to pay your affiliates for each sale they make. The commissions can be pretty decent, but it takes a lot of sales to make it worth your while. You’ll want to consider creating a sales funnel that starts with a free tier and moves the customer up through various affiliate promotions as incentives to keep them engaged and coming back for more. Remember, though, that this model is pretty open-ended. You’re not necessarily obligated to set up any affiliate marketing at all if you don’t want to – but you’ll have to decide whether or not you’ll invest in the infrastructure (the hardware and software that make up a functioning affiliate marketing program). Consider the potential to make money and the various ways you can monetize your site. You can’t predict what will work best for your business until you try a few things out.
Outsourcing
While you might be tempted to take on all the work yourself, especially if you’re just getting started, you ought to consider investing in some outsourcing. Hiring someone to handle the technical aspects of your site or newsletter can help you get it up and running quickly and keep your focus on what’s important to you – running your business.
WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems on the planet, and for good reason. It’s open source, which means you have the freedom to modify it to your needs. This is also one of the things that makes it so flexible. You can use it to create a full-blown blog or a simple landing page for free. The choice is yours. And even if you decide to go the minimal route and don’t want to change a thing, you can still use the pre-made themes to get up and running in no time.
Managing Demand
If you’re going to create a profitable web hosting service, you’ll have to learn to manage your demand carefully. Just because a customer clicks on an ad or buys a product that’s promoted on your site doesn’t mean they’ll automatically be your customer. You’ll want to create a plan to acquire new customers and turn them into regular, paying customers. This entails a lot of market research as mentioned by above. You’ll need to find out what type of customer you’re aiming for and how to get them to become regular, paying customers. It might mean lowering your prices to an appealing level, offering special promotions, or even changing your billing cycle to once every two weeks to make sure you have time to follow up with potential customers who might have missed your last offer.
Viral Marketing
If you’re looking to spread the word online that your service is good, consider using viral marketing to achieve this. Viral marketing is the practice of disseminating marketing content (most often in the form of a video) that has been proven to appeal to a large audience and is easily shareable. The hope is that by getting the content out there, it will trend on social media and gain massive popularity. This, in turn, will cause all kinds of people to come across your content, whether or not they’re interested in hosting services.
Choose a video platform like YouTube to build your audience. You can then use platforms like Hootsuite or TikTok to further promote your videos. Be careful, though. You don’t want to spam social media or you’ll risk coming off as dishonest.
Building a Business
Once you’ve decided to pursue a business venture like this one, you’ll want to set about building a business that provides the world with useful information. The more you can learn about building a profitable business, the more you can apply to your situation. What are your biggest hurdles? What steps do you need to take to be able to call yourself an officially successful business? Start a business blog and use it to share your insights with others. The more you can learn, the more you can contribute.