Hosting Considerations When Launching an Online Outreach Campaign

A huge part of conducting public relations for any company is to maintain a strong online presence and continually reach out to influencers and leads through various online outreach and marketing methods. However, these tasks must be facilitated by web servers, and although this is commonly overlooked aspect that is often outsourced to the IT team, it’s good for business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs to understand the ins and outs of web hosting as it pertains to the needs of a marketing and outreach campaign. With that said., here are some features and characteristics you should be looking for when choosing an ideal hosting solution to facilitate your online PR efforts:

1. Reliability and Reputation

The reputation for a hosting provider’s reliability and security should be a primary consideration when comparing hosting plans (click here for more information). Having communication interruptions or site downtime is never a good look, and the last thing you want is to lose data or reduce your company’s productivity during work hours due to issues with server performance lapses. Thus, you should be comparing hosting providers even more than the plans themselves, and choose one that has a data center located within decent proximity to your main customer and employee bases. International companies and those with excessive server demands should consider using multiple providers or one that has several data centers around the world for maximum reliability.

2. Hosting Plan Type

Now that you’ve started becoming familiar with some of the most reliable providers in the industry, it’s time to decide on a hosting plan type. Ultimately, there’s no getting around the fact that a multi-tiered dedicated server setup is the best way to go, but that type of expense is not always necessary for the small or medium size business that is just starting to expand. For a more modest endeavor, it might be wiser to start with a VPS plan that operates in the cloud. This will still give you excellent reliability, but it won’t give you as much control over the server.

3. Ability to Use Proprietary and Custom Software Solutions

It’s important to note that many shared and VPS plans have limits that will not allow you to access the administrative features of a server, and many times you can’t install certain software that their platform supports. On the other hand, when you’re renting one or more dedicated servers you’ll have a higher level of control. So you’ll be able to install your own operating systems and software to suit the needs of your business.

Managed vs. Unmanaged

Finally, if you do opt for a dedicated hosting plan, you’ll have to choose between managed or unmanaged. While most commercial plans will be managed, which simply means the hosting company’s support staff is in charge of server administration and maintenance, it may be beneficial to use an unmanaged plan if you already have an in-house team of IT professionals and you’d prefer to keep things completely proprietary and private.