Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Start-up - Get New Users

Posted by bronsztejn on 250 Points
Me and my business partner have a proven online casting solution running in the Scandinavian countries (launched 12 years ago, and 40.000 active users), and in South Africa and Poland we have successfully launched 12 months ago, primarily using Gumtree and their very cheap ads. The Gumtree ads provided around 25-50 new users (talents) pr. day. The plan is simple, we have the solution and can launch a new country in 1 hour. We find and partner with a local person, who shall run the day2day operation (email support etc.). We get 200-500 talents in the database, and then we find castings that we then advertize on the site.

We have now launched this online casting portal in Colombia, Mexico, Singapore and Malaysia, and have plans to launch in many more countries.

The business proposition is that casting agents/agencies can find talents for free, and for talents to find jobs (movies, commercials, series, extra, modelling, singer, dancer, theatre etc.). Talents must pay a low monthly subscription to be able to apply for the jobs.

Our problem is this, we have a marketing budget of approx. 0 $, and as such we need to find Gumtree a-like sites, where we can post for new profiles. We cant find this is Colombia, Mexico, Singapore and Malaysia - AND we dont know what else to do.

Does any of you have an idea?

Thank you in advance.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by mgoodman on Moderator
    My suggestion: Re-think the business plan and increase the marketing budget to a level that will enable you to accomplish the objective.
  • Posted by bronsztejn on Author
    Hi mgoodman,

    Thank you for your answer, but I had hoped for something a bit more specific and useful.

    Thank you anyways...
  • Posted by mgoodman on Moderator
    Setting the marketing budget at "approx. 0 $" was a decision someone made, as was the underlying business plan/model. If you are not able to accomplish the objective with the approach you're using, then something needs to change. Either modify the objective or adjust the plan.

    As for something "a bit more specific," it's hard to do that without a lot more information. I would hope this strategic view is useful. That is certainly my intent.
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on Accepted
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on Member
    Specific and useful:

    1. Divert funding from your current revenue streams into your new, overseas marketing efforts.
    2. Use relevant search terms to locate classified advertising sources similar to Gumtree.

    It took me 45 seconds to find Gumtree-like platforms in Colombia, Singapore, and Mexico.
  • Posted by bronsztejn on Author
    Hi everyone,

    Thank you for your assistance.

    I know we could change the strategy, divert funds from profitable countries etc. but since the profitable countries are "owned" by other partners, we can not divert those funds.

    Furthermore, I was hope for country specific ideas and solutions from people with experience from those markets.

    We have already taken a big effort in finding the right Places to post adds, but not with much succes so far.

    Now I will try out the suggestions from Jay Hamilton-Roth.

    Thank you everyone.
  • Posted by jstiles on Member
    Another thought is to leverage your proven model and try crowd funding to raise some initial capital that you can put towards marketing efforts. You trade some profit but if you have confidence that you just need a little traction to get the real momentum going then it may be a viable option for you.

  • Posted by bronsztejn on Author
    Hi Everyone,

    Thank you for your help.

    What I have done so far is the hard Work of promoting our site in different facebooks Groups. It has already begun paying off.

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