I just finished my website, a service that is one of very few in my market in my country.
It’s a platform for businesses with needs and businesses who wants to offer their services, a place where supply and demand can find each other more effectively. It’s somewhat like Upwork but in a different form in a different market.
And I now need to market it and scale it, because the power comes in numbers of users. Even though marketing is not entirely new to me, it’s really hard when actually sitting down and figuring out how to do it.
Is there anyone who can offer any tips in how I can develop a marketing strategy? Or if you went through something similar.
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Just get the word out however you can and can learn to. What matters is only keep going that’s all. With time you’ll learn what’s working or not, and if it’s a matter of your marketing or your product. You’ll figure it all out either way
With that said you can more specifically try things like reaching out to your network, posting about it online everywhere you can, try to possible even get the first service providers and then connect them to the buyers through your platform for payment to try to snowball it form there as a credibility statement. Maybe also affiliate working can be an idea as well to look into. Work your SEO as well, can take months bit done properly you can get a lot of organic traffic of high quality for free. That’s all free stuff. Other than that think of paid ads maybe when you’ve verified your model. Good luck just some ideas !
I recommend joining a web-ring
You’ve made a two sided marketplace with a ton of international competition.
What makes your platform better than others?
Organic seo optimization and if you have good structured website you can get higher performing roi on paid advertisement.
Content, Consistency, & Creativity is king for your website:
- Have growing content on your site, blogs, videos, podcasts, etc…
- Have consistent messaging about your service/product
- Make sure CTAs are obvious and accessible
Well to start, what is your user acquisition strategy? What is your onboarding, it could be great but if you don’t define that it is essential, what content strategy do you have in mind? How can you interact with users, I could help you if you want to speak internally, I have 10 years of experience in marketing
Marketing is easy but also even easier to overthink
Start simple and expand, your sole job right now is to tell everyone in the world;
Go out and start talking to people, share the website. Ask for feedback and then iterate
Don’t worry about rejections, those are also feedback
It’s definitely tougher to market a two sided marketplace because like you said the value comes from an existing userbase. Maybe think about a good referral program and give a very good incentive for existing sellers to also use your platform. Once you have them you can start to market to buyers and go from there
Content is a good place to start. Check us out at www.spruceivory.com
Oh boy - do you have funding? And some way to attract at least one side of the market - is there something valuable they can get from your platform without needing the other side of the market?
If you don’t have both of these things, honestly, I think you’re going to struggle.
I don’t mean to be a downer, but building a two-sided marketplace is incredibly difficult even with funding, and you’re going to need a LOT of money to get to a stage where you have a critical mass of users on both sides.
And I’ve never seen a bootstrapped two sided marketplace ever be successful apart from PlentyOfFish - but dating is a weird niche and the normal rules of business don’t apply there.
Is there a way you could first help one side of the equation? Like, contact a bunch of businesses with needs and offer to help them find the services they need if they join. Once you have enough “businesses with needs” joining, you could then attract the businesses with services.
Start with who it’s for. What does your ideal customer look, sound, and act like? What pain points are you helping them with? This should be highly focused.
Once you clearly define your users, it’ll be easy to find where they hang out. Go there and actively try to help them. Understand how your service makes their lives better.
Don’t buy ads unless you know how to talk to them. You’ll be going after early adopters at first anyway, and they want to find you on their own. Hone your inbound first, make it easy to share what you’re building, and paid outbound will come a lot easier.
Cold starting a two sided marketplace is HARD (speaking from experience).
You have to get scrappy. Where do your users live? Find out where and niche down to build an initial community. Get people onboarded, get feedback, iterate. Try to make the feedback / ship loop as fast as possible and continue tracking new people coming into both sides of the marketplace.
I don’t know what your funding situation is, but having some money for paid ads can be helpful as you start growing. I wouldn’t even think about it until you start building a core user base.
Shoot me a DM if you have questions. Happy to help. Good luck!
Do you think 5000 USD is a lot of money for validating your market? let me know your opinion
Sales is what you need, not marketing. Start cold calling people and ask them to participate.
DM your url. You might have stumbled on to something quite timely… We’d like to have a look and share an insight or two…