Determining Your Initial Web Hosting Business Target Market

Everything You Should Know About Web Hosting
For You To Start Your Very Own Web Hosting Business

Determining Your Initial Web Hosting Business Target Market
By Andrew McMaster
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Target Market	Pro's	Con's
A – The Whole Web Hosting Market	· Larger market · Includes all the (B) and (C) markets	· Much harder to differentiate your new company · Marketing is more expensive · Hard to create specific site content · Hard to create a brand name
B – Middle of The Road – Product Specific (e.g. Windows Hosting)	· Somewhat easier and cheaper than (A) to market · Easier to create site content to improve success with search engines · Less restraints than (C) when you want to grow · Easier to appear to be an authority or specialist	· Still potentially hard to differentiate · Still potentially expensive to market
C – End User Need or Market (e.g. People who want to put photo’s online)	· Easier and cheaper to market · Easier to get high search engine rankings · Easier to grow the business towards (A) · Easier to create loyal customers · You will be directly tied to the needs of the consumer (i.e. you will “understand” them) · Potential to charge higher prices than (A) or (B)	· The market might be very small · Your target market may not find you · Easier to create a brand name in the target market.

<>This step is really where you create the strategy for your business. In reality you will probably find a place between (A) and (C). It is worth spending some time looking for (C) opportunities. There are probably many untapped (C)’s where you can create some solid success with the right approach Vs the well mined (A) where unless you have a huge budget you will be a small fish in a big sea. You may choose to take a (B) approach and focus somewhere in the middle with a product focused market (something like ASP & SQL server).

The main point to remember is that if you choose to just be a vanilla web hosting company then the

odds are stacked against you due to amount of competition you will face.

Geography As A Target Market

The above assumes that you are focusing on internet based marketing to acquire your customers. Another approach that can be a good way to start your web hosting business is to be a general web hosting company (example A above) but in your local area. You can also do this in parallel with non local approaches.

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