What do I need for my online business to grow?

vmhatup

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Aug 18, 2009
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A few weeks ago we went live with our free classifieds site, similar to lapulga, supercarros, and listindiario clasificados. We have the same target population as these sites.

I've been racking my brain these past few days to see what my next step should be with marketing. We put up several minivallas but they haven't had the results I hoped for. Now I'm working on our next mini-marketing campaign, and I'm stuck.

I've come up with a few things, but the fact is that I don't have a solid marketing plan. I was thinking of several different options (a facebook contest, radio, more minivallas, flyers, etc...) but I've come to realize that I'm just throwing rocks up in the air and hoping for a hit. That's a disaster waiting to happen.

For a business with the same demographics as lapulga and supercarros (with a section for services and jobs), what should my marketing plan be? Being a site that's mostly free, I only want the site (and name/logo) to be known.

I want people to post free ads, even if it's to get rid of their 'slightly-used' underwear.

Thanks.
 

Robert

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When you learn what supercarrros actually does to market their site and how much they actually spend, then you'll get an idea of what it takes to penetrate the local market. The same goes for lapulga, learn what they did.

I'll give you "another" golden nugget...

You might want to look at marketing direct to your target audience.
I would go chat with Remo and remolacha.net
 

cobraboy

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Jul 24, 2004
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A few weeks ago we went live with our free classifieds site, similar to lapulga, supercarros, and listindiario clasificados. We have the same target population as these sites.

I've been racking my brain these past few days to see what my next step should be with marketing. We put up several minivallas but they haven't had the results I hoped for. Now I'm working on our next mini-marketing campaign, and I'm stuck.

I've come up with a few things, but the fact is that I don't have a solid marketing plan. I was thinking of several different options (a facebook contest, radio, more minivallas, flyers, etc...) but I've come to realize that I'm just throwing rocks up in the air and hoping for a hit. That's a disaster waiting to happen.

For a business with the same demographics as lapulga and supercarros (with a section for services and jobs), what should my marketing plan be? Being a site that's mostly free, I only want the site (and name/logo) to be known.

I want people to post free ads, even if it's to get rid of their 'slightly-used' underwear.

Thanks.
Did you not budget any advertising costs for your launch?

The days of just launch-and-wait are OVER. The days of just SEO bringing business are OVER. Everybody launches, everybody has solid SEO (well, except for cheesy free sites.) Today one needs to ADVERTISE their site.
 

vmhatup

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Aug 18, 2009
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Thanks for your reply.

Just to have a general idea... what does supercarros and lapulga do to market their sites?

Thanks for your suggestion on contacting remolacha.net. With all the hours I've spent googling marketing in the DR, it's surprising that a I hadn't heard of that site. Live and learn...


I just launched it and have some ideas maybe we can calaborate and come up with some ideas for each other. email if you get a chance and we can shoot the breeze
prymetymexess@yahoo.com
That'd be great. What's your site about?
 

vmhatup

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Did you not budget any advertising costs for your launch?

The days of just launch-and-wait are OVER. The days of just SEO bringing business are OVER. Everybody launches, everybody has solid SEO (well, except for cheesy free sites.) Today one needs to ADVERTISE their site.
What's your point?
 

cobraboy

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What's your point?
You miss my point?

Dude, you have to ADVERTISE your website to gain traction. Pay to play. Unless it grows by some viral miracle or is totally unique, you have to pay to get it noticed.

Eyeballs on any website either takes time or money.

To gain traction my motorcycle tour company paid $2000 per month for the first year to establish eyeballs, much of it with Google Adwords.

People who think a website can grow without WORK and MONEY is sorely naive. Everybody has good SEO now. That is a MINIMUM requirement, whereas just a few years ago it was the Next Hot Thing. In fact, just recently Google changed their algorithms to whack some of the old SEO tricks.

Go look where your potential customers are and buy some banners or something. Hell, now we're even seeing roadside BILLBOARDS and TV/radio ads that do nothing but advertise for a website. Those cost big bucks.

^^^THIS^^^ is about as basic as web marketing gets. Honestly if you didn't budget 40% of your total costs for advertising you failed to do your basic research.

It ain't free and it ain't easy.

Perhaps dropping a few dimes on DR1 would be a way to start.
 

Robert

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If I told you that supercases/supercarros spend up to RD$500,000 a month of advertising, would you believe me?

As Cobraboy has posted, if you want to play with the big dogs, you need to spend some serious $$$ to gain traction or have a site that is very viral. If you have neither, then I hope you have budgeted plenty of time to see some success.

The fact that you never found remolacha.net, the most popular site for your target demographic, tells me that you either need to do a lot more learning or spend some money on someone that knows what they are doing.
 

vmhatup

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You miss my point?
I was laying the sarcasm on pretty thick.

I appreciate everyone's constructive criticism, but where did I write that I was hoping for free marketing?

I've spent thousands on software development, thousands more on SEO, thousands more on marketing. I've spent on billboards, banners, flyers, clothes, etc... Believe me, I know nothing's free. One word: TINSTAAFL. Economics 101.

Anyways, that's not the point of this thread. I know I will be spending money on advertising, but I don't want to continue spending without having a clear plan. I could spend $20k in facebook advertising, but what good will it do me if my target demographics doesn't use the web? That's the point of this thread.

In business nothing's free, and so far, it's been far from easy.

Btw, $14K in advertising/mo on two sites is actually not that much. I spent half of that last month on advertising.
 

Robert

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You have spent all that money and you failed to spot the most important site for your demographic?
I think you need to step back and re-think your plan.

I grant you that RD$500,000 isn't a lot for some sites to spend on marketing.
What's important is how you spend it and also why you're spending that amount :)

Let me give you yet another "white hat" golden nugget.

La Pulga runs Adsense on their site, so target their site directly with Adwords?
Run 100 different ads and see what gives you the best return etc.
Do the same with Facebook ads.

I'm cheap, US$120/hr for "white hat" marketing, minimum 10 hours.
The "black hat" advice is more expensive :)
 

cobraboy

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I could spend $20k in facebook advertising, but what good will it do me if my target demographics doesn't use the web?
Let me see if I understand you correctly.

You 1) have a website and 2) you want/need more eyeballs on it.

But your 3) target demographic doesn't use the web?

Really?

I suspect your business plan is very, very deeply flawed...
 

vmhatup

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You have spent all that money and you failed to spot the most important site for your demographic?
I think you need to step back and re-think your plan.
Well... yeah. You live and learn. Unfortunately, it's part of the process.

Instead of web-based advertising, I was actually looking for more "physical" advertising (tv/radio, billboards, flyers). I don't think that for these types of businesses SEO is that helpful. Two reasons:
1) From personal experience. We have a huge classifieds site here, yet I don't remember ever googling "classifieds" or "anuncios" to find them. I just saw their adverts on the street so many times that I eventually went there.

2) Even with all the SEO they claim they do, I still haven't found a phrase that I can google where the first few links is lapulga. At least for this type of business, I don't think people search. They just go online and hit lapulga.

Let me see if I understand you correctly.

You 1) have a website and 2) you want/need more eyeballs on it.

But your 3) target demographic doesn't use the web?

Really?
What are you talking about? That was a very over-simplified example trying (and obviously failing) to make my point that spending money without a plan is worthless.

I suspect your business plan is very, very deeply flawed...
Maybe it is. That's why I'm posting, to get some help. But it definitely wasn't to have someone tell me that Eyeballs on any website either takes time or money. No sh*t Sherlock.
 

cobraboy

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What are you talking about? That was a very over-simplified example trying (and obviously failing) to make my point that spending money without a plan is worthless.
Your words, not mine.

YOU said your target audience doesn't use the web, yet YOU created a business that requires them to use a website.

Odd, indeed...

What is your URL? PM it to me if you wish...
 

Robert

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Well... yeah. You live and learn. Unfortunately, it's part of the process.

Instead of web-based advertising, I was actually looking for more "physical" advertising (tv/radio, billboards, flyers). I don't think that for these types of businesses SEO is that helpful. Two reasons:
1) From personal experience. We have a huge classifieds site here, yet I don't remember ever googling "classifieds" or "anuncios" to find them. I just saw their adverts on the street so many times that I eventually went there.

2) Even with all the SEO they claim they do, I still haven't found a phrase that I can google where the first few links is lapulga. At least for this type of business, I don't think people search. They just go online and hit lapulga.

1) Flawed logic. Just because you like the color red, doesn't mean I do. You need to test, test and do more testing.
How much split testing are you doing?

2) What IP did you use?
 

Mauricio

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EMarket.com.do is a more visited site as lapulga but I'm positive they are not spending the amounts of money on promotion mentioned in this thread. It all comes down to being on time or too late it's difficult if not impossible to enter this market now with two strong brands as emarket and lapulga.
 

vmhatup

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I could spend $20k in facebook advertising, but what good will it do me if my target demographics doesn't use the web? That's the point of this thread.
This whole thing was just an example, so get over it. My point was that with a good marketing plan this wouldn't happen. That has absolutely nothing to do with my site.

1) Flawed logic. Just because you like the color red, doesn't mean I do. You need to test, test and do more testing.
How much split testing are you doing?

2) What IP did you use?
You may not agree with my logic, but it is not flawed. There are tons of people that use lapulga and have never googled specifically for a classifieds site. And as I mentioned before, I have yet to find a phrase that I can google that will show lapulga as its top result. SEO does wonders with DR1 (I found it via google), but lapulga is a completely different target base. Just to give you a better example to drive my point: my girlfriend's mom doesn't know how to use a computer, but she's heard of lapulga. How can one explain that?

I did not do split testing. That would mean additional development costs, additional graphics designing costs, additional hardware, additional everything. Presidente does split-testing, amazon does split-testing, firms with decent budgets do split-testing because they can afford to hire a marketing firm. I simply cannot afford that.

Let me ask you... if I could do any of that, would I be here asking for marketing help? What does common sense tell you?

The past is gone. I need to think about ways to improve for the future. That's the reason I posted.
 

Robert

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Jan 2, 1999
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Let me ask you... if I could do any of that, would I be here asking for marketing help? What does common sense tell you?

Smart ass arrogant comments like that will win you no friends.

Let me ask the question again.
Did you use a DR IP when looking at Google search results?
What do you use to do keyword and SEO competition testing and analysis?

Does your site use a local TLD?

Who are lapulga back linking with?

lapulga is well indexed. I'm guessing they get a bit of search traffic. What about type in traffic?

Why do you assume split testing is expensive or out of your reach?
I do lots of split testing and I'm not Amazon or Presidente. What does your common sense tell you? :)

I have given you 3-4 golden nuggets, have you implemented any of them yet?

I could go on forever... but I'll stop. It really isn't that hard to compete against lapulga, especially in the DR. You just need to have the right strategy and understand how Dominicans share sites etc.
 

vmhatup

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Smart ass arrogant comments like that will win you no friends.
It's not a smartass arrogant comment. It's the cold hard truth. If I had tons of cash I'd have a marketing firm doing all of this. That's not the case, so I have to research on my own.

Anyways, I appreciate your comments and your suggestions.

It really isn't that hard to compete against lapulga, especially in the DR. You just need to have the right strategy and understand how Dominicans share sites etc.
... and that is the reason why I created the thread. I can try to implement your suggestions, but the bottom line is that, when it comes to advertising, I need someone that understands how Dominicans think, what Dominicans visit, what Dominicans frequent. Otherwise, I'll be throwing rocks up in the sky and hoping for the best.
 

Robert

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... and that is the reason why I created the thread. I can try to implement your suggestions, but the bottom line is that, when it comes to advertising, I need someone that understands how Dominicans think, what Dominicans visit, what Dominicans frequent. Otherwise, I'll be throwing rocks up in the sky and hoping for the best.

Did you actually read what I wrote in some of those nuggets? If you did, you would have understood that these can be applied to target Dominicans directly, in some cases, your target audience directly.

Nobody can give you an absolute sure fire way to successfully market to your target audience. That's why you throw some rocks in the air and test, test and do more testing. That way you will know exactly what is working and what's not. This is why we do split testing, conversion tracking, targeting etc, the basic 101's of any online marketing campaign.

As of right now, DR1 and it's posters has served up a wealth of very valuable $$$ and insightful information on a wide range of topics in order to help you get YOUR business off the ground.

But....

If you're not prepared to invest your time into getting to know and understand the basics of an online campaign, I guess you better get your cheque book out :)
 
Feb 7, 2007
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Vmhatup, listen to Cobraboy... he's been there done that. If you want to do ONLINE approach to promotion, listen to people in the know (Robert, Cobra, etc.). There are zillions of advertising options in the DR. You got outdoors, radio, TV, cable, newspapers, online, etc. have you tried even handing out fliers in front of (at) the universities, Caribe and Metro bus stations? All universities have several message boards... you can even print some letter-size full-color ads, go in there and stick it on the message board! One important thing to remember is to do channel mixing and frequency is what counts! Also, you could offer people an incentive to visit and list on your board. Something like win a weekend stay at AI for two for just listing your article for sale!

You can also try to list something attractive for sale on lapulga (investigate what is a hot piece) etc and link to your website. it might be worth a try, and you could get page hits for a cost of basic listing there. I know lots of people got "frequency" and visibility through ebay listings, auctions nobody could technically win (e.g. a reserve) but they got hits and got their name/brand/product in front of eyeballs. This is called visibility through listings.

Also, have you tried some channel partnerships? If you have something valuable to offer or exchange, maybe you could do barter with the most important online portals in the DR (e.g. remolacha, etc.)

I am sure there are hundreds of other ideas ...
 

DRob

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Aug 15, 2007
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VM,

I think you're pushing back against the wrong folks here. Robert and CB may have their idiosyncracies, but they certainly know about running relatively successful businesses in the DR. I'd heed their advice.

Seems like you're so busy being defensive, you're not taking the time to analyze what they're saying. In the US, those who leap before looking more often than not find themselves out of business (and money) in record time. That goes tenfold in the DR.

They've both given you valuable advice. Put together a real life, grown-up business plan. Do research. Learn. Read and listen more than you type and talk. Test marketing ideas. And take your time, before your money is taken.

If you don't have the time or funds to to that basic stuff, then you probably aren't ready to launch a biz in another country.