A new idea for finding motivated customers - would it work?

[darrenj54785]

This is why your idea is going to struggle. It relies on both parties putting in the same amount of effort. Which everyone knows just isn’t going to happen.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the idea has legs but it’s going to be hard work making it work.

I guess I was thinking more of reciprocal blog mentions or showcases each others products on one another's YouTube channels. But anything else may be difficult to assure trust.

 

[Shopclicks]

I think this needs a more hands-on approach. In that you set yourself up as a finder agency. You take on clients with a cross-promotion budget and you find suitable partners. You only have to look at the number of Influencer agencies that have sprung up to know that people are too busy or lazy to find their own promotional channels.

 

[fisicx]

I guess I was thinking more of reciprocal blog mentions or showcases each others products on one another's YouTube channels. But anything else may be difficult to assure trust.

Only works if both parties have YouTube channels, blogs and so on. I have none of these, all my work comes from Wordpress and Google.

Most small businesses are busy running their businesses. They just don’t have the time to promote somebody else. I think you will be doing a lot of handholding and blogging ideas and hints on how to make it work.

I think you also need some sort of performance tracking so users know what’s working and what’s not.

 

[darrenj54785]

I think you also need some sort of performance tracking so users know what’s working and what’s not.

That is a good idea

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

Sorry, a bit late to the party on this one. I fully understand your idea and see where you're coming from.... it's just one of those things that I don't think scales up well. The struggle to get a critical mass of businesses signed up would be huge in itself - if you do achieve that, then the potential for huge amounts of spam, fake profiles, influencers offering to charge for promotion, etc etc would just be huge.

I also think you're giving people too much credit by sort of saying "I'll connect them, then they can work a deal out". They might not have the nouse or knowledge to come up with something appropriate and potentially get taken advantage of, or just end up with a bad experience so they never return to the platform. I think they'd be expecting more from your services.

I think this needs a more hands-on approach. In that you set yourself up as a finder agency. You take on clients with a cross-promotion budget and you find suitable partners. You only have to look at the number of Influencer agencies that have sprung up to know that people are too busy or lazy to find their own promotional channels.

I think this has more legs. Essentially setting yourself up as an agency but specialising in connecting businesses and cross promotions - i.e. relatively "low cost" marketing possibilities for your customers. Could be a nice little niche.

 

[darrenj54785]

Sorry, a bit late to the party on this one. I fully understand your idea and see where you're coming from.... it's just one of those things that I don't think scales up well. The struggle to get a critical mass of businesses signed up would be huge in itself - if you do achieve that, then the potential for huge amounts of spam, fake profiles, influencers offering to charge for promotion, etc etc would just be huge.

I also think you're giving people too much credit by sort of saying "I'll connect them, then they can work a deal out". They might not have the nouse or knowledge to come up with something appropriate and potentially get taken advantage of, or just end up with a bad experience so they never return to the platform. I think they'd be expecting more from your services.



I think this has more legs. Essentially setting yourself up as an agency but specialising in connecting businesses and cross promotions - i.e. relatively "low cost" marketing possibilities for your customers. Could be a nice little niche.

Thanks @BusterBloodvessel very useful to hear your thoughts and I think you are right. I am reviewing some other ideas currently so will sit this one on the back burner I think - I appreciate your thoughts.

 

[Richard Smith]

Hi guys,

I've build two web based businesses in the past and found it useful to partner with similar, non-competing businesses. Exposing each others business to our respective coatomer base worked well. However, there's no platform which makes this process easy. I am researching to see if others would find value in this idea?

Idea:

A web platform which makes it easy for a business to find other similar-sized (non-competing) businesses who are actively seeking strategic collaborations to generate more customers. Imagine an "Online Fitness Platform" with a reach of 23,000 customers partnering with a "vitamin company" of similar size, exposing both parties to fresh, like-minded customers.

Is a platform like this something you guys think would be useful?

Sounds like a simple affiliate model would work, this is what I recommend to my clients with e-commerce operations. Quite easy to set up and manage. Saves all the faff. I also create copy and outreach for them. Works well and is passive.

There are already portals that exist to do similar.

Joint Ventures however are different level - done some of these in the past where there is symbiosis and they work well. Especially when automated.

 

[japancool]

Sounds like a simple affiliate model would work, this is what I recommend to my clients with e-commerce operations. Quite easy to set up and manage. Saves all the faff. I also create copy and outreach for them. Works well and is passive.

There are already portals that exist to do similar.

Joint Ventures however are different level - done some of these in the past where there is symbiosis and they work well. Especially when automated.

Collaborative promotion is neither of those things.

 

[japancool]

Sorry, a bit late to the party on this one. I fully understand your idea and see where you're coming from.... it's just one of those things that I don't think scales up well. The struggle to get a critical mass of businesses signed up would be huge in itself - if you do achieve that, then the potential for huge amounts of spam, fake profiles, influencers offering to charge for promotion, etc etc would just be huge.

I also think you're giving people too much credit by sort of saying "I'll connect them, then they can work a deal out". They might not have the nouse or knowledge to come up with something appropriate and potentially get taken advantage of, or just end up with a bad experience so they never return to the platform. I think they'd be expecting more from your services.



I think this has more legs. Essentially setting yourself up as an agency but specialising in connecting businesses and cross promotions - i.e. relatively "low cost" marketing possibilities for your customers. Could be a nice little niche.

I like this idea.

 

[Paul FilmMaker]

I've won my biggest customers through partnerships so am a great believer. So if there's a B2B possibility, would be interested.

 

[ethical PR]

You are correct, evidence is key. The businesses on my platform would have been vetted to check their stats. From that point on, once you contact one (or more) business on my platform, the relationship is then up to you to manage. You do not pay my platform anything, only a one-off fee to connect with your selected business(s). Then you and the other businesses help one another to acquire/share customers. My job would be to adequately vet each business to ensure their stats are correct.

How would you verify their social media and digital data.?