I think paid advertising can certainly help, and depending on where you are targeting visitors, you'll get a guaranteed return. To be honest though, paid advertising isn't the go-getter. The company I'm with went years without a single paid advertisement and acquired many customers who are actually still with us today by cold calling local companies. I truly think that It's better to start with local advertising as a lot of local businesses love to support local companies. That's how UnidenHosting started. You can send emails to all types of small businesses and offer a good price, nothing crazy. Once you build the reputation from local community you can branch off to nearby communities and use those local websites as achievements. I'm going to use this senior since October is right around the corner. A little horror story. Imagine yourself as a witch. Every day, you have to go out and try and look for someone to trick. On some days, you make great and cast spells on all kinds of people whereas other days you have little success. Every day is a challenge. Now lets think more realistically. If you have a baby. Every day you have to nurture your baby with care. Give them food. Clean up after them. Give attention and love. In my experience, most businesses are witches. They spend crazy amount of time trying to get new customers, and try everything in their power, as well as doing whatever it takes to make a sale (and that means dropping hosting prices at $0.01 for a entire year - with unlimited everything).
It's important to first understand your goal in advertising. Most business owners have no idea about the purpose behind their marketing. If you ask them what the purpose of their advertising is, most will say "its to sell their product" or "get their name out there". It's a wrong answer. Just dead wrong. The whole purpose of your advertising is not to immediately make a sale, it's to find people who are interested in what you do and put them on your follow up list so you can build value for them. You have to position yourself as an authority and create a relationship built on trust. That's why, for instance, we have Sales Reps and Account Managers. Not just the title of saying "hey im an account manager" but actually Account Managers that entire job and sole purpose is to continue that relationship with them and the company. LEARN your customer, learn their needs, requirements and difficulties. Make a proper solution, and stop thinking of the money figure or the sale figure. Make a solution that will work for them and something that you'd want in their situation. That's when the sale comes, if its right for them.