Feedback On Marketing
One of my biggest issues when I've released any product is the fact that I suck at marketing. I'm great at developing, but couldn't market to save my life, nor do I have a lot of money to market or seek out such audiences to market to.
I have been working on a project that helps people who have trouble with marketing to hire others to do the work for them. In other words, I don't have a huge following.. I don't have Instagram, I use Twitter occasionally, I've got mostly friends with kids on Facebook who engage 0% of the time with the products I release, I haven't ever turned myself into a cute bunny because I don't have Snapchat, and I've even sucked at sharing things on Product Hunt, Hacker News, and Indie Hackers.
The community would consist of people who list jobs they would do to market a service, product, or brand to their own fans and followers and then they would acquire advertisers who are interested in paying them to talk about them, on their website, podcast, or even post a photo to their Instagram followers.
Very similar to Fiverr or SEOclerks, but specifically focused on marketing. Any feedback on this?
Do I understand your idea correctly: you want to match people who have a large online audience with companies who want to promote their products/services to that audience?
In marketing terms this is called either influencer marketing or affiliate marketing. Those are two different approaches, but both benefiting from the type of relationship mentioned above. There's a number of platforms already matching these two sides - just google the before mentioned terms and you'll find them. So if you decide to proceed with this think of how you'll differentiate.
Hey Matis,
That is correct.
I see the types of websites, the majority of them blogs with tips and advice on the type of marketing itself, and others are companies I can hire. I'm having trouble finding actual platforms. SEOClerks would be the prime example.
https://www.seoclerk.com/
https://www.seoclerk.com/search/social+media+marketing
Fiverr doesn't seem to have too many jobs or categories focused on this at all. The biggest thing I would need to work on is how to uniquely distinguish it, as this is not like Fiverr in that it doesn't focus on anything other than those who understand how to do marketing. But the idea is the same: "I am a marketer who has a network on Instagram with a following of 5,000, with the majority acquired for beauty products." Companies with beauty products could then hire that person to do some marketing for them. That person would be able to review products for the company and then get their own followers to buy those products. And the company might expect to see results.
Oh one more thing, since I think there might be some terminology confusion. You linked to social media marketing category on SEO Clerk. Be careful with understanding the different marketing terms.
Social media marketers are normally people who manage company's social media accounts in order to grow the brand's reach, engagement, etc... They do not have their own large audience, they do not promote stuff to their own followers. They're just hired by the company in order to manage & grow the company's social media accounts. So that's a different thing than what you're talking about in your initial post.
Btw, I'm not trying to discourage you or anything, just trying to help add some clarity.
Check the following sites (that's from my notes when I was doing some influencer marketing coordination about a year ago)
https://inzpire.me/
http://www.sponsokit.com/
https://instabrand.com/
https://buzzoole.com/
http://search.upfluence.com/
https://ninjaoutreach.com/
https://justreachout.io/
https://www.alphagamma.eu/entrepreneurship/best-influencer-marketing-platforms/
http://freebiesdealsandsteals.com/home-product-testing-free-products-for-review/
Thank you for sharing the sites, Matis!
And there is definitely no offense here! I asked for feedback. Even if you said, "The idea is shit." It is feedback! :)
I am just trying to get an idea. Most of my products are cut and dry: It does this, it can help you with that. The issue with this specific product is just as you say: it can be very broad and misunderstood, so I'm trying to get clarity on how to market it myself and to attract two specific audiences: those who are good at marketing and those who will pay for it.
I also recommend this video by Amy Hoy: https://stackingthebricks.com/video-failure-vs-creating-a-product-people-want-to-buy
And the Social Media Reddit thread may be a good place to do research: https://www.reddit.com/r/socialmedia/
It sounds a bit like Upwork as well (but for Marketing).
I think for services like this to work - your platform has to do a really good job of matching the person offering the service with the person who needs the service. In the use cases you described, the task of matching seems like it might be challenging as they may not be one-to-one relationships. As a user, if I have to spend a lot of time searching for the right service or person, the platform fails. Upwork is interesting because it takes me just a couple minutes to post a job and I get heaps of responses very quickly.
The other challenging aspects of a service like this are building a two-sided marketplace (lots of customer acquisition needs to happen to make that work) and then there's the issue of credibility. When two parties potentially work together or if one person is hiring another, there need to be some validation markers in place to help build trust.
The way you describe your platform, there seems like two distinctly different service offerings at play: one is more generalized social media services and another is influencer marketing (e.g. https://www.tribegroup.co). I would suggest focusing on one as building a two-sided marketplace is hard enough!
With either service though, results are what really matter. As a person hiring, I'd want to have some understanding of the type of value that will be created (what sort of increase in engagement rates, etc.)
Generally speaking, I think there is a pain point in this area; there's a lot of people and companies who need a way to bolt on marketing. I'd encourage you to cast a wide net at this point, find the people who would be customers of such a service and talk to them. Try to narrow in on some specific use cases; the idea feels too broad or not targeted enough at the moment.
Exciting though, good luck!
Hey Jess,
I am extremely grateful that you replied. Very valid points and thank you for your input. It definitely helps. While anyone can list whatever service they want so long as it pertain to marketing, it would be narrowed down to basic social media marketing and more in-depth marketing services.
Both sides will benefit, those who have spent the time acquiring the fans and following and those who need the marketing done for them. It's like paying someone to say your company's name on their radio show or whatever the case may be.
As for the credibility system: One has the potential to lose money and not gain any value from the service, while the other has their reputation on the line, as there is a review service.
My focus is bringing the two sides together - one who has the knowledge of marketing and has spent the time building the network and the other who is willing to hire for a specific job.