Web hosting is a more competitive business than it used to be. As client demand increases, so does the need to build and maintain trust, both with your current client base and the new customers you’re attempting to attract.
I have plenty of content on nurturing leads and generating conversions, so you can scour the blog a little for more on that. Today, let’s talk about reaching new people. The way I lay it out may look easy in the planning stages, but the execution will take some commitment. If you’re ready to commit to extending your reach, read on. I have some great advice for you.
So, without further preamble, here are five things that you need to be doing right now with your content to ensure building and maintaining that reach:
1. Frequent, Consistent Email Campaigns
Every one of your pages that potential new clients see should have either a way (or a call to action to tap through to a way) to sign up for email updates. Set up different list segments for all your landing pages, so you can gauge how to best approach every segment of your audience.
Pop-ups actually work well here, but give people time to peruse the page first. I’m not a fan of tracking exit behaviors or other more intrusive means of using pop-ups. They work best when used in an “incidentally…” sort of way. Still, this is your audience, and I always encourage split testing all your content for maximum results.
This is no less true with email. Try sending some campaigns to your entire list and see where you get the most opens. Send the same email with different subjects to a small segment of your list to gauge which one gets the most opens. You get the idea.
Above all, you have to stay in front of people. Keep the emails relevant, informative, and well-written. Send frequently, but don’t annoy. If your open rates drop off drastically, consider extending the duration between messages. If your audience is really eating up your content, send more.
2. Press Releases, Press Releases, Press Releases
Hosting is one industry that benefits more than average from sending press releases. This is especially true if you’re trying to attract larger, corporate clients, but smaller companies and business owners are always looking for better features and benefits. They won’t know about them if you don’t keep up a good content strategy.
Press releases are tricky, though. They have to be done right to get any kind of reach. Make sure you know what format you want to use (PRWeb or something else) and that you follow the content guides to the letter. If you don’t, your work might not be rejected, but few people, if any, will ever see it.
3. Maintain an Optimized Blog
The operative here is “optimized.” SEO is an essential element of your search for new business. Obviously, you want your business to be easy to find, so make all your content findable. There’s way too much on this subject to include here, but again, I have plenty of searchable content on the subject of SEO and all its many facets right here on the Beez blog, too.
You also want to make sure you provide a variety of shorter articles and more long-form content. Web hosting is one area where the messaging can be a little more technical and headier, but be sure to make the content as clear as possible to the reader.
You might even want to try doing some posts on industry language and technologies that you can reference when people ask questions like, “What’s an FTP host?” In the process, you can seed with information that boosts general, local, and off-page SEO!
4. Get Active on Social Media
While you might not find it practical, or even useful, to spend all your waking hours on social media, your audience does need to hear from you regularly. Regular posts keep you in people’s newsfeeds and provide opportunities to build brand and name recognition.
Every time you publish content, let your social audience(s) know. Email is a fantastic way to build your social audience since you can link directly to your social pages from an email message. Blog content is great fuel for social media promotion since it’s meaty and informative. It’s also very easy to use for generating backlinks.
5. Get the Help You Need
I know I threw a lot at you just then. That’s the thing about these blogs — I focus a lot on the “what” and less on the “how.” The reason for that is simple: I need you to see all that goes into making a content strategy successful.
If you’re reading this and thinking that neither you nor any member of your staff would ever have the time to do all of this, I would have to agree. Your job is to run your business. Leave content creation to the pros.
At BeezContent, we work with a network of talented writers — both staff writers and freelancers — who know the ins and outs of technical copywriting, web services copywriting, and web host service marketing. We welcome the opportunity to speak with you about your next content marketing project and how we can help you make it a success. Contact us today to learn more.
