what will you advise to promote web service targeted to Australian consumers?
The website aggregates daily deals from multiple providers (like Groupon, Scoopon, Spreets) and show provide visitors with easy to use way to find deals they really need.
So target audience it pretty broad - virtually everybody in Australia who uses Internet and loves to save on the stuff he/she needs.
The market is pretty competitive and there are at least 5 web services offering something similar. Points of difference are:
keyword search to find exactly what you need;
(related with #1) customized email alerts that users can create to get notified about new deals after they appear
DealsMap - that presents the deals available in particular city on the interactive map
As usual for start-up projects the budget is tight
I will appreciate a piece of wisdom from Sitepoint members.
Also, if you could get a host who was based out of Australia I’ve heard google may be more favorable to you in the Australian SERPs. This may be a legend, but I could really see Google using it as another indicator.
Get a .au domain and set the targeting option to Australia in google webmaster (For organic traffic) . For such deals, IMO Facebook ads should be beneficial as compared to google ads (Paid traffic). DO let me know if you need an other assistance.
It sounds like you’re on the right track with targeting Australia from a technology perspective, .com.au domain, correct settings in Google Webmasters Tools, etc. However, I would re-think your market. It’s not as broad as you are leading us to believe.
Let’s think about what you do for a minute. Your website takes fire-sale deals from other companies and aggregates them together. How many other companies are there like this? Probably less than 5. Let’s make that assumption for the moment. Your target audience needs to include:
People who are already familiar with Groupon, LivingSocial, etc.
People who are savvy enough to realize that there is more than one company like Groupon. (Don’t laugh, this is important)
People who find the design and functionality of your aggregation service easier than Groupon, LivingSocial, etc.
People who have little extra time to search multiple sites and require an aggregator.
From these 4 limited points alone, your target market seems to be very tech savvy, busy people who are passionate about saving. That’s certainly not everyone out there. In fact, it’s not even close to the majority of people using Groupon. The average coupon user has time on their hands, hence why they went to search for the coupon in the first place. That same person is willing to spend the time to ensure they are getting the best deal. They’re probably less concerned with the design of a site such as Groupon which makes them less likely to look for another service to accomplish the same task.
Compare your idea to two other successful aggregators: Google News and Kayak. Google News was successful largely because they provide an unbiased mixture of news articles and provide it in a format that’s easier for a user than browsing individual news sites. That second part is key. If CNN’s website or BBC’s website were just as easy to find the same amount of news, then there would be no use for Google News. That was not the case and hence a need for the news aggregation service was created. Kayak works on a similar idea. The need for travel aggregation is obvious to easily compare prices. However, they rose above the other aggregation sites because of their clean design and easy control. They offered more filters for searching and do so without trying to upsell the customer around every corner. They filled a need that wasn’t there.
You need to find the downfall of Groupon, LivingSocial, etc. and capitalize on those weaknesses. Once you figure out how to capitalize on those weaknesses, you’ll better know who your target audience is and then you’ll have a better idea how to reach them. The three points you offer are nice, but #1 and #2 are already provided with existing services. #3 is important in that it’s not available with most services that offer 1 deal per day, well, because it’s only 1 deal so no use in showing a map. If you’re aggregating deals, I can see the use for a map. Keep going there, it’s nice but not enough of a feature to make people switch.
For the such niche as you stated a nicely planned SMM campaign would work well. One of it’s part would be finding visited forums with your potential customers and creating there polls about Groupon/Coupon sites. Those discussions should be well-planned and there you can cleverly advertise your website. It’s quite time-consuming of course, but I know it works really great!
