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.

  • Top_Firefighter625BEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    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

  • Fair-Distribution-51BEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    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

  • StartupSauceRyanBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • CuxiangBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Do you think 5000 USD is a lot of money for validating your market? let me know your opinion

  • Status-Effort-9380BEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Sales is what you need, not marketing. Start cold calling people and ask them to participate.

  • EchoesOfCodeBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I have always found that marketing a marketplace is more difficult because if one side is missing, it’s not interesting for the other side to join. And then you are stuck because it’s exactly the same for the other side.

    What I have done in the past is to add features that could be useful to side A, without the marketplace system. Then you will have A users joining (that come for the already available features). It’s then easier to get B users, because what they are looking for is A users and you already have them and now you can start providing value with your marletplace.