What tactics are people here using for obtaining commercial customers in urban environments, with plenty of other competition? Does everyone target the businesses who can’t get anything else with direct mail or cold calls?
What methods do you use? Cold Calls? Flyers? Newspaper Ads? Direct Mail? What do you find to be the most effective?
Do you do a referral/commission based program for people who refer business to you? If so, how much do you give as a “commission”?
on the canopy page they have a pretty neat sales program with expected results, marketing plans, etc…take a look at it. a lot of free art work and what not.
well i am in a small area population 8000 so see i know alot of them so i put in the ones first with big mouths and its like gospel from there. word of mouth seems to be the way to go in a small area.
newspapers don’t seem to work much for me
but so far this is what i have accomplished 1yr and 3 months
i have built 2 towers 100 feet and installed on 2 water tanks. i have a total of 4 AP’s covering 600 Sq miles everything backhauled except primary tower with 3 meg coming in. and no cmm’s no where and and everything is fine so far.
I have 78 current subscribers with a waiting list if around 20 or so as we speak.
i know it don’t seem like alot but me and my partner did it all on the side while running 2 other businesses.
kmeadows
We started off doing mostly residential. In the last year we have started focusing on Business. The residential customers are generated via word of mouth.
The business customers are mostly generated via cold calling. We get one customer in a area looking for service for whatever reason, and we install them and then canvass that area. We also get new business customers via referral.
we also look for pockets where there is no DSL, and work that area. It’s gratifying to provide service to people who really appreciate it. They will stay loyal even if DSL becomes available.
We work with local computer stores and computer support techs to generate business for us. We pay them the first month billing for referrals. Getting a 249/mo connection is worth 249.00 commission.
To be successful in this business we have to compete in an area where the telcos fall short; service. Being responsive, caring that they have a reliable connection, helping them with the printer that is not our problem are of a value to a business that the Telcos cannot provide.
Our slogan is: Your Local ISP with a Name and a Face".
No one else advertises? 
I’m really interested to find out what other methods people find most effective…