Online marketplaces – best practices

Craiglist.com – the classic example of a local classifieds website, thinking global. Great community atmosphere on a no frills utilitarian website.

Reputation: major issue with marketing barter deals

When two companies engage in crossmarketing or co-operative marketing, they both put their reputation at stake. Why? Because they basically recommend each other to their respective client base.
They’re not liable for each other, but if one of your clients is dissapointed because of another firm you recommended while crossmarketing, this client is more than likely to hold this against you.

How to protect yourself? I’m afraid there is no easy solution to this.

The only solution I see is to do your homework on the other firm. Contact the other firm. Talk to them on the telephone or in person if possible. Ask for samples or demo’s. Ask for client referrals. Seek if you already have any clients in common. Check them out on LinkedIn or any other social network.

When in doubt, hold off. There must be enough firms out there targetting your niche.. You can afford to be picky. After all, your reputation is at stake.

Any suggestions on how to help with the reputation issue?

Some websites focusing on barter deals & niche marketing

•  mesh-box, a german blog focused on big brands doing marketing alliances or co-branding
• entrepreneur.com, a very valuable US source of marketing information
• crossmedialog.nl, a dutch group blog on cross media and cross marketing
• Guy Kawasaki, a VC with a very sound view on marketing
• Marketing Sherpa, a good general marketing platform
• Wikipedia, off course, with a great definition of co-operative marketing

Some websites focusing on barter deals & niche marketing

•  mesh-box, a german blog focused on big brands doing marketing alliances or co-branding
• entrepreneur.com, a very valuable US source of marketing information
• crossmedialog.nl, a dutch group blog on cross media and cross marketing
• Guy Kawasaki, a VC with a very sound view on marketing
• Marketing Sherpa, a good general marketing platform
• Wikipedia, off course, with a great definition of co-operative marketing

Definition of targetting criteria for niches (work in progress)

The niche marketing barter deal marketplace is not going to work if companies can’t define their niches properly.
Because everything starts with a proper definition of your niche. Once you know that, you will be able to see which companies match your niche.

Here are some of the main niches:

Search engine marketing: which agency to choose?

Nothing good ever comes for free. Neither does search engine optimisation.

• from 5 to 10 thousand and more for an initial year of search engine optimising
• from 200 a month to a nice percentage for your search engine advertising

How do you get the most for your money?

Barter marketing, attempting a definition

Barter marketing is often a cheap, original and effective way of reaching your target group as a marketeer.
You need to find a company with a similar/idential target group as yours. Then you strike a deal where you will promote the other company to your clients/members. The other company will then promote you in return to their clients/members. If done well, you’re both better off.
No or little cash is exchanged. And the marketing is usually quite credible. Your clients would normally expect you to only promote somebody else if this other business/organisation is any good and relevant for them.
In short, barter marketing is smart marketing.

Niche marketing company start-up looking for partner

Marketing Barter Platform looking for partners.

IntroNiche is a Brussels based start-up about to create a classifieds platform for niche marketings barter deals.