Hey there, I know you are looking for experienced members, but honestly, I am not experienced, but I can offer you some tips.

1) Most important thing is enabling votifier on your server, where votes give rewards, and signing up on 6-8 voting sites.
2) Advertise your server on forums such as planetminecraft (this forum) and other minecraft forum-related websites, but make sure advertising is allowed, since breaking rules while advertising your server won't give it a good image or reputation.
3) Advertise in the server section in the official minecraft server
4) Open a discord for your community, where people can chat even when not playing on your server, and the "online mc friends" could actually develop into actual friends.
5) Involve your server into social media platforms. This is not to advertise your server, but as a hook to your server, where players who used to play, and stopped, would see an announcement on your twitter for example, and feel like "Hey, i miss this server, let me come back and check it out!"
6) Make a forum website for people to have discussions, suggestions, bug reports, player reports, etc.
7) Have nice staff who could actually help out, will keep the server players on and happy.

Hey, I just wrote this post on another topic minutes ago, I hope it's fine that I copy-pasted it as the same goes for any server!

(Link to original comment: https://www.planetminecraft.com/forums/help/javaedition/how-to-get-more-players-on-my-minecraft-server-609763/)



Alright, first off you should market your server way before release and not after. You need to stand out, there are countless of KitPvP servers out there, and all of them are just the same. Now, it looks like to me you are not familiar with establishing successful servers, correct me if I'm wrong. I can give you a quick course on how to start a Minecraft server or a business in general. I will use an Icecream shop as an example;



Stage 0: Think of the core components (2-5 based on the complexity of business) of whatever idea you are trying to create. In your case think of the idea, as I mentioned, what will you do to stand out from all the other KitPvP servers, brainstorm ideas, etc. Get someone to help you maybe, endless options for this stage.
Example: Ice Cream Store: a variety of flavors, connections with the community (schools, local musicians, parents, boy scouts, girl scouts, etc.).
Purpose: To see if the idea is possible/worth endeavoring in

Stage 1: Writing out and planning the core components with details for each separate. On your server it could be a rank feature, an arena, the higher rank the higher arena you get to fight in. Getting to speak with management teams (hiring), developer teams (Not hiring), etc.
Example: flavors you will offer and ingredients, what schools locally and contact information for each group
Purpose: To further explain/clarify details of core components

Stage 2: Logistics. In your case, again; Look at server prices, developer prices, making a development Trello, having a good and set budget with no variables. Planning on how big you're looking to start off at etc.
Example: Determining where you what suppliers you will use for ingredients, planning how many staff you need and location of the store, etc.
Purpose: To create a fool-proof plan that is executable

Stage 3: Setting up everything. For you; Getting a staff team up and running, doesn't have to be major in scale. Get your high staff, these help you deal with plugins, config, staff, and so forth. Get the server coded and fully working. The server should be in a "release" state, where you have nothing left to do.
Example: Doing interviews for ice cream staff employees, meet with and negotiate terms for building contract and secure deal, make ice cream flavors, etc.
Purpose: To get ready for testing

DO NOT START STAGE 4 UNTIL EVERYTHING IS AT STAGE 3 END.

Stage 4: Controlled practice/dry runs + marketing/advertising. You will have Beta tests, Alpha tests, early access you name it. The sole purpose is to hammer out every single bug. Make sure staff are ready, you are ready, the server is fine. After stage 4 the server needs to be fully complete with no to little bugs nor problems left. Also pump out marketing, get everyone to join your server, only now should you market. Hire YouTubers to be ready at release, hire other kinds of advertisers/advertisements. You're aiming for AT LEAST 100 players at launch, preferably 500-1000.
Example: Having employees come at different times and making ice cream/ possible soft-launch where they greet customers and check out timing employees and getting the satisfaction of customers, etc. Creating promotional materials and plans for outreach.
Purpose: Finish the server, get ready for release, have a player base waiting for your release.

Stage 4B: Making modifications/revisions. Fix bugs, fix forums, fix literally any issues that may lose your players.
Example: Strawberry ice cream flavor does not have enough extract, tables need to be arranged differently so customers can form a better line, etc.
Purpose: to improve and finalize the process before release.

Once all is done above, advertise even more!

DO NOT START STAGE 5 and 4 UNTIL EVERYTHING ABOVE IS COMPLETED.

Stage 5: Release/opening - Daily operations

I hope this post helps you, of course, there is so much more than these few stages. Nevertheless is this a great foundation to follow for any server owner!

uh, i just keep advertising mine. I own a pvp survival one, like 2b2t without hacking. but i have a discord, a fb page, an advert on planet minecraft, and instagram page, a reddit page and i stream my playthrough on my youtube and others record videos on the server. Branch out and find smaller youtubers and pitch your idea and invite them to join. I have had a total of 78 players logged on at least once. between 1-15 play at a time. If you're actually interested - the ip is tb187.ftp.sh

It's hosted in Australia however, and i can guess that you're overseas, so it'll probably lag a bit, idk how badly.

do you have discord