Deal of the Day
Big Dumb Idea #2
Alright, the New Year is upon us and many of us big dumb marketers may be looking for a new business model to build upon in 2008. Something about those 2007 business models just wasn’t working. Maybe they were just DUMB… or maybe they just weren’t for you. Whatever the case, this could be a great new business model for just about any marketer.
Drum Roll Please….. brum brum brum brum… hmm… maybe thats more like a motorcycle. Anyways….
Create A Local Business Directory
Hmmm… you say, this doesn’t sound that profitable. Well with a little hard work and shameless promotion, you may just be surprised how well you can do with this model. One of the first reasons this model can work so well is that you will be targetting a very small demographic. Well, small in comparison to the whole world wide web. You will just be targeting a city… perhaps your own city. Ok, so what should you do, and how do I get the moneys?!
First you will want to pick a specific type of business that there are lots of in your area. A few of my favorite ideas target markets would be hotels, restaurants, pizza joints or bars. Most decent sized cities have plenty of these, many of which are locally owned. Ok, so lets say you pick restaurants. First you would want an SEO friendly domain such as newyorkrestaurants.com Now likely this is taken, but you may be able to find that type of domain for smaller towns. You may also want to see if .net, .org, .info, .biz or .us are available. They are not your first choice, but you may have to settle.
Now that you have your domain, you will need to create your restaurant directory. This may just be the hardest part, but it can easily be outsourced. My advice would be to find an existing directory script that is similar to what you want, and outsource to have it modified to fit your needs. This may cost a little bit to begin with, but will be well worth it in the long run. One capability you will want to have for sure in that script is the ability to accept paypal payments for listings in your directory.
Once you have your directory setup, you will need to add all of the restaurants in your city that you can to your directory. You want to have that lived in feel before you start marketing it. Add a couple as premium listings that are in a high exposure place on your homepage. Now the money part comes.
Now that your directory is setup, you will want to begin contacting all of those restaurants on your directory, and anymore not on your directory yet and tell them about your targetted service and that they can purchase a premium listing for just $XX dollars. Pricing options are up to you. You can charge just to be added, or charge a monthly fee to stay on, etc… But you have to make it seem attractive to the restaurant owners. The beauty of this business model, the more businesses you add to your directory, the more will want to join and the more your directory will grow.
That is the jist of building a local business directory. It is win win once it gets running since you get paid to list businesses, and the businesses get more business as a result.
To see a site that has done this very well, check out http://www.losangelesrestaurants.com
Until next time, The Big Dumb Marketer Signing Out!
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