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Need help with marketing strategy for my startup

By Shalini on 11 Comments / 3024 views

Hi fellow rodinhoods,

I am here to ASK something which has been quite a debate always, what is the right way to market your startup, when is the right time to market big/put money in marketing?

My venture yipeedo.com is a recommendation engine to help users plan their day in city around movies & dine out/hang out at cafe/lounge.

Here is the link to my post in showcase where i introduced Yipeedo

Currently we are in beta, working extensively on easing the UX, bringing bookings on table. Restaurant table booking is already into technical implementation and should roll out in next 10 days, movie ticket bookings are into implementation.

Once we get bookings live (or before), we have to go BIG on marketing in order to make more and more people aware of our product and offering. What is the best way to do so? we are bootstrapped and hence can’t put a huge amount into marketing. We are as of now having all organic reach to our traget audience via Facebook, twiiter.

I was approached by Hindustan times and they are offering marketing campaigns but are charging a bomb!

I recently ran a small contest on our FB page and offered to give gift vouchers, posted this on several groups but didn’t get great response, may be for the simple reason that people don’t know who we are what we do?

Please suggest some good ways to increase our online reach.

Thanks much!

Shalini

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11 Comments

  1. hey shalini,

    pls go through all of the posts in our digital media section – there is a goldmine there!!

  2. Hello Shalini,

    I myself a Digital Marketing Executive working for Megavenues.com and I know how difficult to get targeted visitors on website. Having said that with proper knowledge and good marketing strategy really make difference in same.

    So in my opinion before you start marketing your website do work on user interface on website.

    Some suggestions are:

    • When we open website it shows pop up login with social accounts – This is great but no one will do that until you are known brand.

    • In the same pop up there is enter your email with login button, you should mention something – Enter your email for Register. And give 1 more option as a register along with login button.

    • You should also put social profiles on your website either on header or footer area.

    • describe what you do and how in homepage itself – atleast in 250 words.

    • I would also recommend you to install blog for website and post interesting content.

    These are some of suggestion I would recommend you to implement as a user experience.

    For online marketing you should start blogging, getting as much as followers to your social accounts really work. SEO (search engine optimization), Forums.

  3. Hi Shalini,

    In my opinion,

    1. Run some campaign around ur website name or concept and make it talk of the town.

    2. Show some value – a reason to visit or recommend ur website by running campaign i.e. plan ur day in 3 simple steps,  Make your First Date unforgettable with Yipeedo(targeting youth), Hang out with Kids is fun now(targeting family), With Yipeedo, you can buy happiness(targeting user sentiments) etc.

    3. User Testimonials is something you should encourage and promote.

    4. Run some contest activity like Plan your day with Rs. 1500 and most creative and most voted answer would win a cash prize.

    5. You may want to work on organic search engine optimization by incorporating some buzzing search keywords on your website’s home page so work on website content. You must b knowing that for online, content management is the key to business success.

    6. I am sure you must be having ur fb page in place. Connect users via using some creative punchlines or using some conversational pics etc.

    7. Target Whatsapp/Line/Wechat Users. Focus on groups/individual to give personalized and customized experience.

    ALB to you Shalini 🙂

  4. Thanks Asha, will surely make use of this repository.

  5. Thanks a lot Mansoor for detailed feedback & suggestions 🙂 my response to points stated by you:

    • When we open website it shows pop up login with social accounts – This is great but no one will do that until you are known brand.

      • Yes, i agree its difficult to get users trust us and sign up with their social profile and hence many do click the cross button and proceed, but the reason we require social login is for recommendations. Since yipeedo is a recommendation engine and not a plain listing site, we really need people to login with their social profile basis which we can recommend them better.
        This is a challenge for us to convince them.

    • In the same pop up there is enter your email with login button, you should mention something – Enter your email for Register. And give 1 more option as a register along with login button.

      • Feedback taken, will make the experience better here. 🙂

    • You should also put social profiles on your website either on header or footer area.

      • Feedback taken, thanks.

    • describe what you do and how in homepage itself – atleast in 250 words.

      • OK, this needs to be worked, is simple text good option?

    • I would also recommend you to install blog for website and post interesting content.

      • Already working on it 🙂 thanks for suggesting, helps us validate our direction.

  6. Thanks a bunch Vishal for spending time and helping us with your suggestions, 🙂 my response below:

    1. Run some campaign around ur website name or concept and make it talk of the town-[Shalini: working at it, trying to come up with some innovative yet less expensive way]

    2. Show some value – a reason to visit or recommend ur website by running campaign i.e. plan ur day in 3 simple steps,  Make your First Date unforgettable with Yipeedo(targeting youth), Hang out with Kids is fun now(targeting family), With Yipeedo, you can buy happiness(targeting user sentiments) etc.[Shalini: Sounds interesting, and very much relates to our thought behind making Yipeedo suit needs of various audience type. We can definitely try this, Thanks for suggesting :)]

    3. User Testimonials is something you should encourage and promote.[Shalini: Have to work at it, we are waiting for bookings to get integrated with our website, which is when user’s will get maximum benefit out of this.]

    4. Run some contest activity like Plan your day with Rs. 1500 and most creative and most voted answer would win a cash prize.[Shalini: Did gave it a first attempt, response wasn’t very good, may be cash prize would interest more audiences and yes this style of engagement can be fruitful :)]

    5. You may want to work on organic search engine optimization by incorporating some buzzing search keywords on your website’s home page so work on website content. You must b knowing that for online, content management is the key to business success.[Shalini: working at it, :)]

    6. I am sure you must be having ur fb page in place. Connect users via using some creative punchlines or using some conversational pics etc.[Shalini:Yes we have http://www.facebook.com/yipeedo 200+ likes so far, please do like it if you like our concept :)]

    7. Target Whatsapp/Line/Wechat Users. Focus on groups/individual to give personalized and customized experience.[Shalini: Need to know more about this? do you mean advertise on these apps?]

  7. “My venture yipeedo.com is a recommendation engine to help users plan their day in city around movies & dine out/hang out at cafe/lounge.”

    (#methinks is that *really* a pain point to the extent people would go to a website, click on bunch of links and plan?  App would be better fit imho but then i’m getting old so i could be wrong here 🙂

    My observations:  Too much cognitive load / too busy UI with too many options. It’s great to read that you’re working on that front. Running a UI contest on sites like 99designs is a good option if you’re limited on the front end resources.

    Actionable suggestions:

    1. Put the intro video on the home page telling what’s in it for the visitors. Don’t make them feel confused.

    2. FB cpc’s are still relatively lower with much granular psychographic/demographic targeting options. IMHO, this should be your main marketing channel as far as digital is concerned from an acquisition point of view.

    3. You can build brand awareness by leveraging Google Display network, especially popular Youtube videos aligned with the target demographic; and running CPC campaigns there instead of CPM. That way you get tremendous brand exposure without incurring heavy expenses like the spray & pray HT campaigns would entail.

    All the best!

  8. Dear Shalini ,

                        A small suggestion from my side that you can include the famous dishes or the particular cuisines or something related to the dine out places . As for what they are specialties are . You can contact the food blogger to write stuff for particular dine out places . 

    You can also tie up with the cafe/lounges for the Alliance Marketing  with them . 

    All the best 

  9. Thanks Yatin, its a great feedback.

    Yes we are working on simplifying UX, we have recieved mixed feedback on UI, somepeople have really liked it and some just didn’t 😛 so we are working to find a middle path.
    About mobile app, well thats the obvious next step. We didn’t start with mobile coz there is an inherent problem of discoverability. Now that we have good registered users they are our ready user base to download app.

    99 designs, google display network are great suggestions will check them out.

    Well our concept video is there on homepage in announcement section, guess its named inappropriately and hence can’t be discovered easily.will fix this.

    Thanks again 🙂

  10. Thanks Varun, bang on!! we are already in process of doing the same for food reviews 🙂 Yes we are also planning to tie up with few lounges/cafes 🙂

    Thanks again, hope to see you on yipeedo !

  11. you are giving a complete package for entertainment..stress on tht..do u hv fb page??

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