Now that you have chosen to become a reseller, you might be wondering how you can make the most out of this by reselling hosting services to customers across different markets. You may be having a fair idea as to how you should go about it. Perhaps you have asked some of your friends or colleagues in marketing what to do, but still, you have questions about budgeting. We understand that marketing any product or service is a cost and it may seem risky if you do not allocate your budgets across the right channels.
Most importantly, how to get the return on the investment for every marketing channel is a question that could be bothering you, and how much to spend on each channel and what if you end up overspending? If this is the stage where you are or have reached, we would tell you that all these thoughts are natural and the best way going forward is to recognize the right channels and create a marketing budget that yields good results. So, if you want to go about creating a marketing budget for your reseller hosting after purchasing a reseller plan, grab a chair and start noting down these tips because we are about to tell you how you can make the most out of your marketing budget while reselling hosting.
What should be your go-to plan?
Before you actually draw a plan or a marketing budget for a budget reseller hosting, here is what you should do.
- Get a full picture of the market first. Understand your customer more as a human and less as a customer and give them something of value.
- Look at what your competition is offering and what you can offer with differentiation. Even though you are reselling a hosting service, you can find something which is different about your service in terms of a value proposition so that you can offer it to your customers.
- Make your service and products about the customers and not about yourself. There is a problem that you are solving and you are meeting the demands of your core customer segment.
- Understand where your customers go and are likely to get informed about the products and services you or your competitors offer. Check out what they do and also understand what kind of tactics they use to get traction.
All this will help you arrive at a marketing plan and a budget that can boost your reseller hosting service.
Why do you need a marketing budget plan?
A marketing budget plan helps you to stay on track and understand where your money is going and how you can optimize it to get the best returns based on your objectives. With the above pointers, you know why having a marketing plan is necessary. But with a budget in place, you will know exactly how much time, effort, and money is necessary to get the desired results. Most importantly it helps you to establish a cycle or a phase. In the sense, there could be some months where there is a periodic lull or downtime because customers are not buying in those months. And this happens across all industries. With your budget, you will know which months need a push and which months don’t.
In addition to this, here are some more ideas as to how you can create a marketing budget plan for reseller hosting:
1. Know your sales and marketing channels
This is like marketing 101. You need to know which channels or platforms are right for you. To understand this, just check the number of people finding information or queries. Google will be able to give this to you via its keyword tool where you can understand what kind of volumes exist for search terms. This will allow you to understand that if you need to run ads on Google, how much you need to pay, or even if you need to do SEO what kind of competitive efforts you will require to arrive at a budget. But all this is incomplete without an understanding of your objectives.
So, start with an objective. As in, how many leads do you need in a quarter? A quarter is a good period to assess your marketing efforts and how well you succeeded with your plans.
Divide your efforts into an AIDA model (Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action) so that you know how many people arrived at your website or other digital assets/channels. And then, how many took action based on what you were offering. This will help you divide the audience conversion rates and arrive at your RIO easily.
2. Get clear with your marketing goals
Now, in most cases, this is the problem. People want to achieve something but they are not clear on how to get there because their goals are unclear. You need to define your marketing goals and objectives and keep defining them. In order to do that, set aside a timeline to achieve these goals and write down one clear-cut goal you want to achieve by the end of the year. Then, with the AIDA model, write down what numbers you want to achieve (by assuming conversion rates at the beginning) and break down those goals bit by bit. This will definitely help you understand where you are spending, how much you are spending, and is it worth the spend.
3. List your operational costs
Apart from the spend on the channel, list down the inventory, you will need to create to help you market your products or services and then add the costs that are necessary to execute the same. Ideally, create a spreadsheet or a template that will give you an overview of all your current and anticipated operational costs. If you have a team with you great or even if you are doing this on your own, it is important that you include all the costs like web hosting, sales tax, professional fees for outsourcing services if any, etc. These calculated with the other costs (platform spends) will help you arrive at the actual number that you are looking for when we speak about a marketing budget.
In addition to this, keep an eye on current and future trends that will help you to make changes in your plans and budgets if at all. Even if it is not related to budgets, being aware is really helpful in the reseller and hosting industry with so many changes taking place every day.
Conclusion
When you are reselling hosting or have a business as such, having a clear vision and objective is necessary for a budget reseller hosting plan. That couples with your value proposition will help you achieve the goals that you are looking for. If at any place, you feel that you can spend less, do that and keep optimizing your budget. Because in that manner, you will understand how much effort is really necessary and how much isn’t. We hope that you have enjoyed reading this article about ‘How to create a marketing budget for reseller hosting’. If you still have any doubts or queries, please share the same with us, in the comments section below.
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