I’m getting started now on re-thinking my positioning, so these are my notes from that initial session.
For now, I’m focusing mostly on our website hosting, updates, and maintenance services. These are the ones I want to stress in my marketing and positioning as I feel they are the way forward.
We’re still happy to do website design, but it’s not an important part of my growth strategy going forward.
So to begin: let’s take a look at my competitors.
Realistically, the ones I’m actually competing with are Godaddy, BlueHost, HostGator, and the other huge, cheap website hosts.
Premium hosts like WP Engine, FlyWheel, etc., are more direct competitors, but here’s the question: should I try to compete with the premium hosts, or target the low-hanging-fruit of people who don’t even know about them?
It’s a question of going after uneducated clients who are completely ignorant to the varieties of hosting available (or even what hosting is) versus going after those who have some idea and already know the value.
That’s something I should probably consider now and make a decision on before going forward.
So here’s an analysis of both markets and clients.
The Cheap Hoster
- Market is very large, since it’s the “default choice” for business owners and anyone with a website
- Likely ignorant about how hosting works or that there’s better out there
- Not actively looking for improved services unless they have specific problems
- High percentage of them either have a tiny business, don’t take the website very seriously, or don’t really have a business at all
- If I already have them or acquire them when purchasing another business, loyalty is likely to remain high because they won’t leave unless there are consistent problems
- Probably difficult to capture these clients unless they are a captive audience already and I can educate them
- Only exception is that if they have serious problems with their existing hosting (extremely slow, downtime, etc), they may be interesting in learning more or switching
So I’m not sure. While this market is much larger, it may be considerably more difficult to actually convert these people into paying clients.
I’ve seen that with my website and blog traffic. I hear from people with tiny websites that don’t generate much income, and while they aren’t happy with their hosting, they just don’t have a budget for better and don’t seem interested in doing anything about it.
And even if they do switch, they usually go back after a while because they can’t afford anything else.
The Knowledgeable Premium Hoster
There are a couple distinct groups within this, but I’ll try to describe generally who fits in here.
- Smaller market
- Usually a bit more educated and understands the value of quality hosting
- Much more likely to be a more-established business that probably doesn’t hesitate at the cost
- Less likely to be a solopreneur, decision-maker is often an employee of the company
- Much less price-sensitive, but cares more about premium quality and add-on services
- Still relatively loyal as long as there are no issues
- However, will switch to another provider to bundle all of their services (website design and maintenance, for example)
Perhaps I need to be targeting the people who are transitioning from the first group to the second. Maybe their business is growing, or maybe they’ve just had a website long enough to realize they should be investing more money into it.
If they have the pain points and are receptive to looking into something better, that would be the time to capture them. So this might be a great group to target.
I think that is probably the way to go. I can still take on clients from both groups, but I should be targeting those in the center who are transitioning. So let’s make another category here and focus on that!
The Transitioning Business
- Likely an established business
- They understand the value of their website and are looking for ways to optimize it
- They have pain points with their existing site and hosting, but they may or may not know that better hosting will solve their problems
- Might still be the business owner, or could be an employee in charge of these areas
- Generally more tech-savvy
- Receptive to new information about how to solve their problems
- Likely feels overwhelmed with managing the website and open to ways to make things easier
One thing to note is that I’m not totally sure this type of person will be as receptive to hosting issues alone. It’s possible that they would be much more interested in having their “website problems” solved more generally.
I don’t know that it’s something I can answer without experimentation, but I might have to try different messages and see what works best. Do I try to solve just their hosting issues, or do I offer peace-of-mind for the whole website experience?
A more holistic message certainly seems more appealing, and the stakes are much higher so it could be considerably more compelling. So I’ll probably start with messaging that addresses all of that and see what kind of success I have.
With that decision being made, I may have to rethink my product offering as well. Rather than having distinct “hosting” and “updates” services, I think it’s pretty likely that I’d be better off with packages aimed at solving all of their headaches at once: hosting and speed issues, WordPress updates, and maintenance to the rest of the site.
I saw another business that offered these and include 30- or 60-minute fixes to sites as part of their package. That sounds logistically challenging and like there might be conflicts with clients who don’t fully understand, but as a value proposition it is very compelling. I might have to experiment with that!
If I had to break down my current client-base, I’d say that about 60% of them would be the “Cheap Hoster”, but are essentially with me because they have no problems with my service and it isn’t that expensive anyway.
Unfortunately with many of them, if they knew there was a cheaper hosting option out there, they might take it. A huge percentage of my new clients from my business acquisition would be these.
Main Advantages I Bring to the Table
- Superior quality – faster, more reliable, consistent
- Manage every aspect and deal with all issues
- Capable of taking care of any issues so that they never have to worry about anything
- Small business – can speak to actual people who will solve their issues
- Not even that expensive
- Extras like uptime monitoring, helpdesk, automated, off-site backups, email hosting
I guess that in general, our main selling point is that we take care of everything and do a good job. Websites, and in particular WordPress, can be a bit of a pain to manage and maintain, and hosting problems can be especially frustrating.
We solve all of those problems for a reasonable fee. We handle everything they need to keep WordPress sailing smoothly.
So with that established, I want to dive in a little bit more about our ideal client.
Ideal Client
- Already understands the value of their website and presumably is making money from it (we aren’t looking to solve that problem)
- Has either been self-managing the site or has had services they are not at all satisfied with in the past
- Small business between 4-50 employees
- Has an existing WordPress website (could have e-commerce but easier if not)
- Is in growth mode and doesn’t want to deal with website issues anymore
- Minnesota-based (or at least Midwest) tends to work best, but there’s no reason I couldn’t work throughout the country (or world!)
- Doesn’t need extensive, custom-coding on website
- Not typically looking for a full redesign
- Has a to-do list of things to get fixed on the website (often very pleased when they see how easy it is for us to fix them)
- Frustrated with what it’s taken to maintain their website
- Ready to just outsource everything for it
These are the people I need to target! I can work more on this in the future but this is a great start.
Other Misc. Thoughts
- Might need to add a service where, when we take client on, we audit their website and see if there are any major things we can/should fix and warn them of potential issues in the future
- Could potentially bundle a service where we do this yearly; put together an entire process for checking for expired plugins or ones that are premium and not-renewed, look for custom, deprecated functions, etc
- I’ll need to put together a list of specific pain points people have (anything from spam comments/form submissions to not being able to swap out content/personnel, etc)
Plan for finishing this step
- Read my new book (power through it!)
- Come up with some buyer personas
- Develop a positioning statement
- Come up with a paragraph that describes who we are and what we do
- Come up with a one-sentence value proposition
- Come up with messaging guidelines so I can be consistent
From there, I think I can move on to the next step and actually start revising the website content.