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TheHawk

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I've spent the last few weeks developing my idea which I sincerely believe solves an issue faced by potential customers in a certain industry, I've developed a good plan on how to execute and market my website which I believe still has potential.

I plan to have a type of comparison website developed which allows potential customers in an industry choose the right company based upon ratings, reviews and location. Now, this seems like a very saturated idea but it hasn't particularly been applied to a certain niche. I've read a lot of feedback and know that customers can be unsatisfied with what company they choose in this industry resulting in a loss of their time and money.

The main aim of this website is to benefit these potential customers and help them make the right choice based on previous reviews and the company's "effectiveness". However, my main issue is trying to find a way to appeal to these companies to join. Their main benefit would be positive ratings and potential leads in their local area, but a lot of their work already comes from recommendations from previous customers (friends and family etc). This is not a particularly new concept either, websites do exist with the exact same idea but have a very amateurish look and feel to them. I strongly believe this could go really well if executed properly.

After hearing some responses from these companies, they don't seem particularly interested in joining this website and paying for membership to be listed. It appears as though the good ones already have lots of potential customers based on recommendations. However I really want feedback from more companies.

I've really gone into this with the mindset of trying to provide a solution to the customer's problems, but if some companies don't want to be listed then how would any form of monetisation be possible? I don't want to sink a few grand without knowing it could be worthwhile.

What I'm really wondering is how I could monetise this system further down the line, I can't charge customers to access the website as it would usually only be on a one off basis, so recurring customers would be rare. But also, if these companies are stubborn to fork out for a subscription (something like £3.99/mo to be listed) then what else is there?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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Can you make it free? And they only pay for results? That's how I grew my lead-gen company.
 

TheHawk

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Can you make it free? And they only pay for results? That's how I grew my lead-gen company.

Hi MJ, thanks for your feedback. I've loosely considered this option but am finding it difficult to come up with a system where leads can be measured. For instance, the company's listed would want their own website/phone numbers available so appointments could be made without going through the website. I've toyed with the idea of potentially trying to get customers a discount when referred through the website but feel like that could open a whole can of worms in terms of trying to get companies on board, other than this I'm not too sure.

Perhaps a method of getting the customer to notify me when they've booked with the company?
 

MJ DeMarco

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company's listed would want their own website/phone numbers available so appointments could be made without

Pay per click and pay per call. Get paid for clicks to the website. And get paid for clicks to "get phone number" .
 
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TheHawk

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Pay per click and pay per call. Get paid for clicks to the website. And get paid for clicks to "get phone number" .
Thanks MJ, that has never occurred to me. I'll find more companies and see if this would work for them. :)
 

Kyle Tully

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Can you make it free? And they only pay for results? That's how I grew my lead-gen company.

This is what I would do.

Play around with the numbers and see what you come up with... in many cases you'll hit an income ceiling a lot faster with a paid membership model than you would with lead gen. Mostly because you're working with a fairly static number of potential clients and a perceived value associated with membership which can be hard to push that past a certain point.

But with lead gen you're getting paid on performance and scale is only limited by the amount of traffic you can get.
 

Kaizen

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You can generate a unique number for each service provider, which rings directly through to their main line. Charge per call, per sale or appointment, or per call over x minutes long. In certain industries clicks are nice, but calls are money, especially when qualified by your site first.
 
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TheHawk

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This is what I would do.

Play around with the numbers and see what you come up with... in many cases you'll hit an income ceiling a lot faster with a paid membership model than you would with lead gen. Mostly because you're working with a fairly static number of potential clients and a perceived value associated with membership which can be hard to push that past a certain point.

But with lead gen you're getting paid on performance and scale is only limited by the amount of traffic you can get.

This is definitely true, I've stumbled across a few websites offering lead-gen for this industry at around £4 per lead- higher than what I was considering for a month's membership. It makes sense, considering that once a customer is enrolled they will spend over £700 on average.
I also think it can be more appealing to offer free listing on a website with the promise of only charging when business interest is generated.

You can generate a unique number for each service provider, which rings directly through to their main line. Charge per call, per sale or appointment, or per call over x minutes long. In certain industries clicks are nice, but calls are money, especially when qualified by your site first.

I've been looking into this as well, a growing service for these companies is to answer calls for their potential customers and arrange bookings - because of the nature of the industry, most owners won't have access to their phones during working hours.

A recurring problem for these companies is that the leads they're given are often dead, as a result of not being able to catch them quick enough. I was thinking of the possibility of not only generating leads for these companies in the form of clicks to their website and calls made, but also somehow setting up an automated system whereby the customers can "book" themselves in with the company. Perhaps either through the website, or by calling a standard number on the website and "bookings" would be done by myself for the companies listed, resulting in a much higher chance of closing leads.

I'm hoping this would be feasible, as it would seem to benefit both customer and company a great deal.
 

Boo Blizzi

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First thing I would do is search on Google and Bing for local businesses in that industry that are already running PPC ads to generate leads.

Get a spreadsheet and copy down their phone numbers and call them up. These are the people most likely to:
  1. understand the value of a lead in that industry
  2. have a system in place for dealing with incoming web based leads
  3. buy more leads from you at a competitive price
Once you get a few companies to bite, explain that you will transfer leads live by phone. Go to Callfire.com and buy a dedicated local number for each biz (costs $3 or so), they come with call tracking, recording and call whisper. You bill clients by how many calls you transfer, and reconcile accounts via the recordings.

That's just one way to do it ofc. I think if you have to set up the booking process and sell the biz on the idea of buying leads... you are asking for trouble down the road, like payment disputes and unsatisfied customers (not because you are not doing a good job, but due to their inability to convert incoming leads in a timely manner.)
 

Boo Blizzi

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Oh. And another thing.

Your thread is titled, "Need direction after validation", but I didnt read anything to suggest you have actually validated your idea, website or value prop.

Until you actually send traffic to your website and have a lead try to contact a biz owner, I would not consider your idea "validated", even though there are others who are doing what you say you want to do.

We don't know if those guys are really making any money. Maybe they couldn't monetize the leads either so they just make money via adsense?

Keep in mind, if you change even 1 aspect of a concept you are modeling, it can have a significant impact... for better or worse.
 
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Gale4rc

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After hearing some responses from these companies, they don't seem particularly interested in joining this website and paying for membership to be listed.

^ Does not sound like validation.
 

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