The WebHosting Control System Blog

The key to long term success is choosing the right backbone software for your web hosting business. After all, your services are only as good as the software you use so this is a very important decision. Selecting the Helm 4 web hosting control system gives you the flexibility and scalability to effortlessly expand your business without installing additional software or incurring extra expenses along the way, making it an ideal choice.

Helm 4 offers distinctive advantages that make it possible to achieve ongoing profits in the competitive web hosting industry including:

• an incredible level of automation that saves your business on operational costs and resources for greater profits, efficiency and customer satisfaction;
• scalability with the ability to add new servers independently and run them as DNS servers, web servers and mail servers without additional software;
• customizable to create your own presence in the industry;
• a built in billing system that allows you to bill customers in any currency and accept payments from a variety of sources including credit cards, bank transfers, PayPal and cheque;
• extremely cost-effective because a single server installation is only $199 with free installation and updates for an entire year;
• new services are easily added to you current product range in a simple plug and play fashion;
• administrators decide how the module will best serve them rather than having the system dictate the terms; and
• you can add a green edge to your business because of Helm’s carbon neutral control panel.

Choosing Helm 4 is the right backbone for your web hosting business to enjoy the profits and success you want.

Having an effective online newsletter is the key to developing a strong subscriber base which will ultimately explode your customer base.  You establish a rapport with your subscribers in your ongoing newsletter so you can develop relationships and market to a captive audience that has learned to like you and enjoy reading what you present because you provide valuable information.

There are several simple ways to develop a strong newsletter subscriber base to watch your web hosting business profits soar:

• start by creating a newsletter for your current customers to provide useful industry information and valuable product or service updates to establish trust between you and your customers so they rely on you for facts about the business;
• encourage your customers to forward the newsletter to other interested parties and offer compelling content your customers will want to share so more people find out about your business;
• give your customers information they can’t easily find somewhere else to establish credibility in the industry by providing expert info to create even stronger relationships – these trusting relationships  ultimately lead to solid sales and referrals;
• make your newsletter stand out by being attractive and dependable so it attracts a large number opt-ins;
• always feature fresh, quality content and outsource the writing if necessary to keep the newsletter interesting to your customers and potential customers; and
• make sure your newsletter is timely, relevant and directly addresses the needs of your customers so it effectively relates to your web hosting business.

Once you create compelling content and have a captive audience reading your newsletter with a strong subscriber base, you will watch your web hosting business experience ongoing growth.

Electronic mail is an effective way to market your web hosting business and the Direct Marketing Association estimates a return of over $51 on your investment for each dollar spent an email campaign.  However, there are email marketing pitfalls from this sometimes  unwelcome contact that you should avoid.

First of all, try to build an email list yourself.  People on a list you purchased may have been contacted with sales pitches so often they are not responsive.  By building your own email list, you know you are putting together a viable group of contacts.

Another pitfall is getting overly enthusiastic and sending too many emails to your contacts.  Only if you are providing late-breaking news should you contact your subscribers daily or every other day.  Otherwise, you should mails notices of offers and events once or twice a week to avoid overkill.

Often when you build your email campaign, you forget the viral element of email.  Encourage your subscribers to forward your messages to their friends.  You can quickly build a larger email list of prospects without spending another dime.

Also, you need to remember to take stock of the results of your email program to measure their success or failure.  By managing your email marketing campaigns, you can improve them to be more effective in the future.

Finally, remember to personalize your email correspondence without becoming overly personal.  When you refer to a client by their first name in the subject line and say hello, it reads like a personal email and that may irate a customer immediately.  Use a compelling subject line that generates interest and personalize the first paragraph of your email to speak to the reader without being pushy or overly personal.

By avoiding the pitfalls of email marketing, you will enjoy successful campaigns that boost profits for your web hosting business.

Direct marketing is a communication that solicits a direct response from your client or potential client with a call-to-action compelling statement to drive a purchase.   Also, it is easy to track response from your direct marketing to measure the results.  Forms of direct marketing include postal mail, email marketing, telemarketing, package inserts, magazines, radio, internet banner ads, billboard and pay-per-click adds.  You invite the people you communicate with to take a specific action, such as visiting your website, returning a response card or placing an order.

Your web hosting business can benefit from increased business and profits by direct marketing and it is simple to check the results of a current campaign by seeing the level response.  By direct marketing, you can benefit your business by:

• promoting your own unique brand for brand recognition;
• target your promotion to reach a certain group of people within a specific target market to broaden your customer base;
• making personal one-on-one contact with a prospective customer to deliver a specific message and offer a variety of ways to content you;
• direct marketing is cost-effective because it is targeted and measurable.

By using direct marketing to address an important business need and your solution to customers, you are delivering a compelling message that makes them want to answer.  Focus on your audience and how you can help them, making sure your message is different from competitors.  Direct marketing can be a strong, affordable way to boost your sales and gain credibility by providing valuable information and services to your customers.

There are effective, easy ways to measure customer service levels for your hosting business to ensure you are really delivering in this critical area.  Excellent customer service can mean the difference between success and failure in the web hosting business so consider these simple ways to track how you measure up:

• what is the rate of renewal for your web hosting services;
• how many complaints were processed about your services over the past year;
• how many complaints were processed about your employees over the past year;
• what was the average time it took for customer service to fulfill inquiries;
• what type of marketing efforts were made including email campaigns, direct mail and blogging and the level of response each generated;
• how long the average time was to fulfill the request of new and existing customers for services.

By monitoring these areas of your business, you can find out your strong points and the areas that need improvement so you can provide better customer service.  For example, if the majority of complaints were processed about your employees, you may want to review the staff.  If your email campaigns did not generate significant responses, you may want to outsource this job for better results.

Other simple ways to find out how your customers feel about your web hosting business and the customer service you give are feedback surveys and telephone calls to customers.  By communicating with your customers, you will become more familiar with their expectations so you can improve the customer service your business offers accordingly.

By evaluating and improving your customer service, you can build your reputation and gain a competitive edge in the web hosting industry.

There are many effective, budget-conscious ways to promote your web hosting business.  Does your hosting business have their own consumer focused blog?  If not, you are missing out on a major opportunity to communicate with your current customers and attract new customers to your web hosting business.

By having consumer focused blog you can provide meaningful information about the web hosting industry and even become considered an expert in the area.  Your blog can be a resource for newbies looking to find out more about web hosting who may become future (more…)

The people at Web Host Automation clearly understand the importance of scalability for a web hosting business, but do you?  In fact, the most critical aspect of any size web hosting business is scalability.  Let’s consider a company that uses Helm versus a company that does not and how the more scalable company will flourish.

Helm offers your web hosting business superior scalability with the ability to add new servers independently and run them as mail servers, DNS servers and web servers.  You can expand quickly and easily without the need to purchase and install additional software.  As your web hosting business grows, it is simple and fast to add or remove servers and assign IPs and services as additional resources for your customers.  Helm 4 gives you the ability to completely customize services for total flexibility so you can give your customers exactly what they want.  Helm even has a Service Distribution model to balance the load evenly across servers.

A company that doesn’t take advantage of the advanced technology and scalability of Helm 4 cannot grow as quickly in a fast-moving, competitive marketplace.  In order to add servers without Helm, a web hosting company would have to spend more money and put time into installing additional software.  Often the offerings are not customizable and you cannot give customers exactly what they want when they want it.  The result is losing your customers to web hosting businesses who are smart enough to realize the competitive edge they have with Helm technology.

By using Helm 4, your web hosting business can enjoy increased scalability to flourish and expand rapidly for the biggest profits ever.