Populating a Directory

[jonnybravo]

Hey everyone!

Happy to be here as I start the process of turning my life around.

Does anyone here have experience populating a brand-new directory? I've spent the last 6-8 weeks building a site as a directory in the niche that I currently work in (the horse industry). Although I'll continue to make improvements and add features it's just about ready to get businesses on there.

I think getting users shouldn't be too difficult as the industry really needs this, I already have a plan for this.

But as far as getting businesses on there I'm not sure what direction to take, I'm also well aware that it may come down to trial and error to see what works best.

It's worth mentioning that I'm already an industry leader in what I do and have a sizeable network of people that I can reach out to.

The ideas I have so far are as follows, I'll most likely be executing all of these:

Talking to people and giving them business cards with a QR code on them so it's easy to get onto the site.
Manual input done by myself, not sure of the ethical/legal parameters regarding this.
Putting up posters at well attended events (approximately 3000-4000) people)
Posting on social media, I have a reasonable following of approximately 3000 people

Any suggestions for low cost incentives to get businesses to populate?

I'm offering 3 months free initially and then a 50% off coupon for 2 months after which it'll be CAN$9.95pm.

 

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[jonnybravo]

Brief update:

I took to reaching out to people I know in the industry and replying to social media posts in an effort to get users onto my directory. This has been somewhat successful and I have a few users in each category, in some cases I took to requesting info and signing them up manually, a little laborious but I'm doing whatever it takes to get it off the ground.

This week I'm at a well attended event and it will be my first 'throwing it out into the world' experience with it, I've strategically placed posters on the grounds encouraging businesses to post their services and to create awareness. This service will be free until at least November to give me a chance to populate it.

I've already had many requests for a classifieds section so I will also be adding that before the end of the year. This will draw more users to the service.

Overall feedback on the concept has been very positive, both in the need and the presentation of the website.

Wish me luck....

 

[jonnybravo]

I feel like I'm writing into the void over here so this can be my own personal progress report for me to look back on.

Feedback is still really good, although I think it's going to be slow to get a large number of businesses onto the platform so I've decided to take action on what people have asked for and go ahead with a marketplace section. I believe this will draw more overall traffic to the site and encourage more businesses to register. It will also be a way to further monetize the site.

I'm finding google analytics a nice tool for monitoring traffic and activity, it's funny though, even with all the activity on a brand new site there's not a single hit on GSC!

I'm constantly in design mode, looking for ways to improve it's usability and make it easier for my users.

As slow as this is to get off the ground I'm highly optimistic about it's future, I've put a few months of work in at this stage and I'm more than happy to continue the grind, I think marketing and persistence in looking for ways to offer more value will be the biggest elements in making this a success,

Wish me luck.

 

[DoTheWork]

Glad I stumbled upon this since I'm not on here much and no one has written here yet.

I have a directory of agricultural services. I have more than 3,000 listings which I sourced manually through Google Search.

I'd be curious to hear more about what you're doing. Sounds like there could be some overlap between our projects. Feel free to PM me if you want to keep it more private.

 

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