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How to spend $5k/mo to market a new social buying site?

by AmericanWarrior
25 replies
Well folks, I've decided to take the plunge: I'm launching a social buying site (for the uninitiated, that's like Groupon or LivingSocial) and dumping every penny of my savings and income into it.

Call me crazy, but I have a gut feeling it's gonna work, and my gut feelings tend to be right on the money. I'm aware of the ups and downs of the business so please don't try to dissuade me: it's a done deal so just please wish me luck.

So how would you spend $5k/mo to market a new social buying site? That's the rough starting budget I've decided on, and I have 2 goals for it: 1) build a huge email list, and 2) sell a lot of deals / coupons.

Please take a few minutes out of your busy day to look over my list below and help out with any answers or advice you might know. Your help literally means the world to me and my family. Thank you in advance.

Here is the list, in no particular order. What % of my budget should I allocate to each item? Items marked free are those I plan on doing myself or getting a friend, family member or someone who owes me money to do free of charge.

UPDATED: 6/4/2011
TENTATIVELY ALLOCATED: $660/mo (13%)
REMAINING: $4,340/mo (87%)

1. SEO ($300/mo?). A small but reputable European SEO firm agreed to do 750 article links + 100 social bookmark links + 250 press releases + 750 blog links + 400 pligg links for $300/mo, which seems like a good deal. Unless someone feels this list is missing something?

2. AdWords ($?/mo). An obvious choice - I'm going to max out my bids and pray for as much traffic as I can get. I have no idea as of now if it'll be $200/mo or $2000/mo worth. Any advice here - can I estimate this more accurately?

3. SOCIAL MEDIA ADS ($?/mo). Same as above - I think that Facebook and Twitter ads are probably a must, right? Same as AdWords, I have no idea how much traffic they're capable of sending.

4. WEBSITE ADS ($?/mo). So far, I've decided to try buying adspace on deal aggregator sites (like YipIt) and deal forums. I'm going to ask them for quotes this weekend, so once again - no idea what the cost is yet, or what % of my budget to allocate to this?

5. EMAIL SOLO ADS ($360/mo?). I'm very seriously considering using the $180 service from optinlistmarketing.com to email 2 million of their opt-in users. Plus they have a special on now that gets you 2 emails for that price. So for $360/mo ($180 x 2) I can send 4 emails (say 1/wk) to 2 million people. Is this the best plan as far as email marketing goes?

6. AFFILIATE PROGRAM ($?/mo). I know this will be a key part of our success, but am only now learning about setting up a program by reading through clickbank.com. We will have software built into our site from day 1 to track affiliates. Can someone please give me some tips on attracting a ton of affiliates? And how many % should I allocate here?

7. FORUMS ($0/mo). I have a family member with lots of spare time who can do this for hours every day until hell freezes over. The idea is to flood every local and every deal-oriented forum with non-intrusive, constructive and helpful posts. Any more advice here?

8. NEWS MEDIA ($0/mo). The same bored family member will spend the other half of their day researching every reporter from every news outlet under the sun, coming up with ideas to interest each in our company, and proceeding to contact them. Any special wisdom here that I need to know about?

9. BUYING TRAFFIC ($?/mo). Haven't looked into this at all yet - is it a good idea and if so, how do I do it properly and how many % do I allocate?

10. BUYING FACEBOOK / TWITTER FOLLOWERS ($?/mo). I'm going to hire some people from these and other forums to do this. I don't know how if I'll get good ROI on this, but the last thing I want is a Facebook page with 150 fans - there's no faster way to scare off potential clients. I want to get into the tens of thousands ASAP so that we look popular. Any idea how many % to spend here?

11. YOUTUBE / TWITTER CELEBS ($?/mo). I think it'd be worth giving this a shot: basically paying YouTube celebs to plug our site. Maybe give em affiliate accounts and let them earn commission? What do you guys think?

12. GIVEAWAYS ($?/mo). How about attracting people with giveaways, like a free iPhone4 every month to a random subscriber or something? Is that worth the money, and how much should I spend on it?

13. POSTERS ($?/mo). Another idea is to find a cheap printing place and print a ton (say 250-1000 to start) of posters and get students or unemployed people to put em up in key locations around downtown and around campuses for really cheap. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna try this, but how many % should I allocate here?

That's all for now folks, these are all the ideas, in various stages of development, that I have right now. Please help a fellow underdog and pitch in with some useful advice, and suggest more ways of making the site popular if you know of some! Thanks very much in advance guys!
#$5k or mo #buying #market #site #social #spend
  • Profile picture of the author onlineinternetbiz
    Don't know that I can provide much advice on your budget here because I am not sure what kind of income you could expect. I am sure livingsocial and groupon make a heck of a lot of money.

    That being said I did bookmark this thread because this is a really good breakout of ideas for marketing a new site

    Good luck to you my friend!
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    Self Help, Goal Setting, Time Management - It's all right here
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  • Profile picture of the author inspiredguy
    I'm not too familiar with these types of sites, but perhaps some offline marketing can help drum up business as well. Maybe some folks on fiverr can place flyers around campuses and key establishments with information regarding your site and it's offering.
    Good Luck!
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    • Profile picture of the author AmericanWarrior
      Originally Posted by inspiredguy View Post

      I'm not too familiar with these types of sites, but perhaps some offline marketing can help drum up business as well. Maybe some folks on fiverr can place flyers around campuses and key establishments with information regarding your site and it's offering.
      Good Luck!
      Awesome, added to #13! I'm gonna research some printing and "installation" prices this weekend!
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  • Profile picture of the author KabirC
    I would recommend taking out a loan for this since $5k a month won't cut it if you plan to go big.
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    • Profile picture of the author AmericanWarrior
      Originally Posted by KabirC View Post

      I would recommend taking out a loan for this since $5k a month won't cut it if you plan to go big.
      Well, that's just for month 1 because I'm spending a ton of money on the domain, programming, etc. I could afford 10-15k for month 1, but honestly I wanna see what 5k gets me first because I will obviously learn some very good lessons (read: mistakes lol) from that, and if I spend too much those mistakes will just be amplified. After the first month, once I know exactly what kind of results I'm getting from each method, I can spend more. Also, every penny (literally every penny) the site makes for like the first year or more will be dumped back into advertising, so that budget is going to double monthly and if all goes as planned will be closer to 50k/mo this fall.
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  • Profile picture of the author Giftys
    Call me crazy, but...
    You're absolutely nuts!

    Just kidding. I admire your courage and mindset. Just be careful not to get too loose with your money or you'll regret it later. It can "disappear" real fast. I don't want to scare you but I've put some small things together before where I had a gut feeling that it would work... and it didn't. I can give you a physical example: Go to Add Your Band(dot)com. Now it's not the "big idea" that you have but it was something that we thought would come together very quickly. IT DIDN'T. I have a very large musician network and huge e-mail list. I just knew it would take off like many of my other sites. IT DIDN'T. For some reason, it died. Yea, it's been done many times bigger and better but I still thought that because it's free, who would turn down free marketing for their band? Live and learn. Not every idea is a good one no matter how much we believe in it. Or in some cases, like this one, it's not that it's not a good idea but I was too late to the game. Could it still work? Of course, but I would have to spend more time and energy into it then we have right now. So we just bailed on it and will probably do something with it later or sell it.

    This is getting long but I thought you might want to hear this experience before you got rolling. The good news is, I have a couple of other businesses that I had a strong gut feeling about that are working out real well.

    I wish you the best!
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  • Profile picture of the author BenFromSoMo
    Don't forget us when you're a billionaire playboy!
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  • Profile picture of the author Bramantya Prakosa
    wew cool thinkin'
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    nice articles http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/1/prweb9121616.htm

    www.seomachinepro.com/jv

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  • Profile picture of the author Wolfster
    It's late here and I can't think of anything right now that hasn't already been suggested, but I think you might want to reserve something for hiring a math wiz to crunch the numbers, i.e., I hope you are planning on watching the stats very closely and are ready to reallocate anything or everything based on ROI analysis.

    Otherwise, like Giftys mentoned, the money can disappear fast. Don't just trust your gut -- confirm that trust by crunching the numbers as fast and as often as you reasonably can.

    But hey, you were probably already planning on doing that. FWIW, that's my advice anyway.
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  • Profile picture of the author stellarbizop
    Hey if you have a plan go for it. That's what it's all about.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jelle Kaldenbach
    Facebook Ads are highly recommended.

    1) Make a FB Fanpage with the same topic of your page. Don't do something like: "Company Name" but something like "I love Discounts".
    2) Start a FB Ad for the Fanpage (Not for the site - IMPORTANT!). Remember to give in some interests like Discount, Shopping or whatever so you know the people who you show the ad to already have interest in your subject.
    3) If you've got a big "army" of fans, start promoting your site.
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    • Profile picture of the author JR Consulting
      Originally Posted by Jelle Kaldenbach View Post

      Facebook Ads are highly recommended.

      1) Make a FB Fanpage with the same topic of your page. Don't do something like: "Company Name" but something like "I love Discounts".
      That's against the TOS for Facebook pages.

      Pages Terms | Facebook

      1. Any user may create a Page; however, only an authorized representative of the subject matter may administer the Page. Pages with names consisting solely of generic or descriptive terms will have their administrative rights removed.
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  • Profile picture of the author MisterMunch
    Without doing any research, I would advice you to go after a different market than all the other Groupons out there.

    I get health and beauty discounts all the time (not interrested) + some cheap resturant deals.

    How about targeting males and provide discounts for tools, cars and hunting gears (no guns). Think males 25-55. Or, you can choose any other market for that matter, as long as it is big enough, and have enough product categories. Most advertising places would let you choose your demographics. It would also be easier to figure what sites and forums to advertise on.

    This way, you would not be one of the 20 discount emails in my inbox each day, but maybe the ONE discount list I wont unsubscribe to over the next few months.
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    • Profile picture of the author AmericanWarrior
      Originally Posted by Giftys View Post

      I just knew it would take off like many of my other sites. IT DIDN'T.

      I wish you the best!
      Thanks and you're right, it takes more than a hunch for something to work - that's just the beginning.

      Originally Posted by Wolfster View Post

      It's late here and I can't think of anything right now that hasn't already been suggested, but I think you might want to reserve something for hiring a math wiz to crunch the numbers, i.e., I hope you are planning on watching the stats very closely and are ready to reallocate anything or everything based on ROI analysis.

      Otherwise, like Giftys mentoned, the money can disappear fast. Don't just trust your gut -- confirm that trust by crunching the numbers as fast and as often as you reasonably can.

      But hey, you were probably already planning on doing that. FWIW, that's my advice anyway.
      Yes, I imagine that's going to be extremely important. How do I track all those categories at once though? And do I really need a math whiz to crunch the numbers - it's it pretty simple to figure out how much each click costs me if I know the total cost and total clicks for every advertising method?

      Originally Posted by Jelle Kaldenbach View Post

      Facebook Ads are highly recommended.

      1) Make a FB Fanpage with the same topic of your page. Don't do something like: "Company Name" but something like "I love Discounts".
      2) Start a FB Ad for the Fanpage (Not for the site - IMPORTANT!). Remember to give in some interests like Discount, Shopping or whatever so you know the people who you show the ad to already have interest in your subject.
      3) If you've got a big "army" of fans, start promoting your site.
      Interesting.. This does make sense actually, but we're launching the site next week so unfortunately we don't have the luxury of lounging around for months and building up a fan base. We'll still do that, but the site can't wait. Also an interesting idea about not naming the page after the site... Won't it look bad on the business if it's own page doesn't have it's name? And you can't rename it afterwards either...

      Originally Posted by MisterMunch View Post

      Without doing any research, I would advice you to go after a different market than all the other Groupons out there.

      I get health and beauty discounts all the time (not interrested) + some cheap resturant deals.

      How about targeting males and provide discounts for tools, cars and hunting gears (no guns). Think males 25-55. Or, you can choose any other market for that matter, as long as it is big enough, and have enough product categories. Most advertising places would let you choose your demographics. It would also be easier to figure what sites and forums to advertise on.

      This way, you would not be one of the 20 discount emails in my inbox each day, but maybe the ONE discount list I wont unsubscribe to over the next few months.
      This is a good idea and would probably make an awesome business in of itself. We're going to differentiate ourselves from Groupon in other ways, but one of them will definitely be that men won't get yoga ads in the email.
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      • Profile picture of the author Wolfster
        Originally Posted by AmericanWarrior View Post

        And do I really need a math whiz to crunch the numbers -
        No. Sorry. That was just an expression, my way of expressing myself. I didn't mean literally. I simply meant that you need people and/or software to keep track of things.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jelle Kaldenbach
    You could make 2 pages, one with the name of your site and one for the interest. Lead the people from the interest-page to your site-page .
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    • Profile picture of the author AmericanWarrior
      Originally Posted by Jelle Kaldenbach View Post

      You could make 2 pages, one with the name of your site and one for the interest. Lead the people from the interest-page to your site-page .
      Hmm not a bad idea, but how would I get tens of hundreds of thousands of people onto the interest page?
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  • Profile picture of the author alecr45
    I am a partner in a local daily deal startup in the Raleigh/Durham, NC area. I saw your post and def. think it would be mutually beneficial to share ideas and brainstorm. Do you have contact info to share?
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  • Profile picture of the author Ralf Skirr
    Given that you have a relatively small budget, compared to Groupon and Co, it's probably a good idea to chose a very tightly defined and relatively small target group, either based on location or on topic of interest.

    Once you know who to target, it will be easier to allocate the money.

    And once you have your foot in the door, you can expand your reach.

    Ralf
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  • Profile picture of the author Vulk
    You have the advertising and stuff down but about creating the actual site and the design?
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    • Profile picture of the author DeVill
      Originally Posted by AmericanWarrior View Post

      Well folks, I've decided to take the plunge: I'm launching a social buying site (for the uninitiated, that's like Groupon or LivingSocial) and dumping every penny of my savings and income into it.
      Originally Posted by AmericanWarrior View Post

      Well, that's just for month 1 because Also, every penny (literally every penny) the site makes for like the first year or more will be dumped back into advertising
      If you dump all of your savings, all of your income, and all of your new business's income into the biz, what money is your family going to live on?
      I suggest you set aside at least 3 months worth of cost-of-living funds plus an emergency fund, and then the leftover can be allocated to the new biz.
      You said you have people who can do the work for free. I hope you're sure they WANT to do the work. Keep in mind that free workers are usually the first to quit. Have a backup plan for replacing them (Fiverr, Warriors for hire, etc.).

      Originally Posted by Wolfster View Post

      It's late here and I can't think of anything right now that hasn't already been suggested, but I think you might want to reserve something for hiring a math wiz to crunch the numbers, i.e., I hope you are planning on watching the stats very closely and are ready to reallocate anything or everything based on ROI analysis.

      Otherwise, like Giftys mentoned, the money can disappear fast. Don't just trust your gut -- confirm that trust by crunching the numbers as fast and as often as you reasonably can.

      But hey, you were probably already planning on doing that. FWIW, that's my advice anyway.
      Get an accountant, or at least get &utilize a good accounting program such as Quickbooks.

      Originally Posted by AmericanWarrior View Post


      1. SEO ($300/mo?).       A small but reputable European SEO firm agreed to do 750 article links + 100 social bookmark links + 250 press releases + 750 blog links + 400 pligg links for $300/mo, which seems like a good deal. Unless someone feels this list is missing something?
      Try this: warriorforum[dot]com/warrior-forum-classified-ads/490786-matt-laclears-page-one-bust-article-link-drip-feed-service-introductory-rates-available[dot]html
      Also, lookup SENukeX (VERY effective).

      2. AdWords ($?/mo). An obvious choice - I'm going to max out my bids and pray for as much traffic as I can get. I have no idea as of now if it'll be $200/mo or $2000/mo worth. Any advice here - can I estimate this more accurately?
      Are you experienced at using AdWords successfully for any previous projects? There's a lot of strategizing to do to get any decent ROI. Remember to split-test.

      3. SOCIAL MEDIA ADS ($?/mo). Same as above - I think that Facebook and Twitter ads are probably a must, right? Same as AdWords, I have no idea how much traffic they're capable of sending.
      Facebook ads may be better than those other 2 options. Target the ad to the locale you want to launch your business in. Even better if you have specific categories of deals you plan to offer, then you target the ads to those buying demographics.

      4. WEBSITE ADS ($?/mo). So far, I've decided to try buying adspace on deal aggregator sites (like YipIt) and deal forums. I'm going to ask them for quotes this weekend, so once again - no idea what the cost is yet, or what % of my budget to allocate to this?
      See if you can do a barter deal wherein you give your clients better rates in exchange for free placement of your banner on their sites.

      5. EMAIL SOLO ADS ($360/mo?). I'm very seriously considering using the $180 service from optinlistmarketing.com to email 2 million of their opt-in users. Plus they have a special on now that gets you 2 emails for that price. So for $360/mo ($180 x 2) I can send 4 emails (say 1/wk) to 2 million people. Is this the best plan as far as email marketing goes?
      I know nothing of that company, but make sure it's a responsive list, not a list full of people who don't open that sender's emails, or worse, report them as spam. Find out the deliverability and open rates.

      6. AFFILIATE PROGRAM ($?/mo). I know this will be a key part of our success, but am only now learning about setting up a program by reading through clickbank.com. We will have software built into our site from day 1 to track affiliates. Can someone please give me some tips on attracting a ton of affiliates? And how many % should I allocate here?
      Create a track record of some success with this business BEFORE offering an affiliate program. That way you have something to entice the prospective affiliates with.

      7. FORUMS ($0/mo). I have a family member with lots of spare time who can do this for hours every day until hell freezes over. The idea is to flood every local and every deal-oriented forum with non-intrusive, constructive and helpful posts. Any more advice here?
      Lookup Xrumer (powerful program).

      8. NEWS MEDIA ($0/mo). The same bored family member will spend the other half of their day researching every reporter from every news outlet under the sun, coming up with ideas to interest each in our company, and proceeding to contact them. Any special wisdom here that I need to know about?
      Focus on the reporters who specialize in Lifestyle and Business segments. Provide value to them. When they choose to do a story, they're putting their reputation on the line, so you better deliver the goods. Put together a professional-quality media kit to present them with when you make first contact. You should have a kit made to present to prospective clients too. Go in with a game plan; don't just wing it. And don't take long getting to your point (time is money. think soundbites).

      9. BUYING TRAFFIC ($?/mo). Haven't looked into this at all yet - is it a good idea and if so, how do I do it properly and how many % do I allocate?
      That's what numbers 1 & 3 above are for.

      10. BUYING FACEBOOK / TWITTER FOLLOWERS ($?/mo). I'm going to hire some people from these and other forums to do this. I don't know how if I'll get good ROI on this, but the last thing I want is a Facebook page with 150 fans - there's no faster way to scare off potential clients. I want to get into the tens of thousands ASAP so that we look popular. Any idea how many % to spend here?
      This might work for upping your numbers in terms of friends/followers, but don't expect much financial ROI from them.
      Try this: On your business's FB fanpage, add a tab that incorporates your daily deal into an iframe, but "fangate" it, so that the visitor can see what the deal is, but to get to the order page, they have to click share on that deal, which effectively turns the deal (and your fanpage) viral.

      11. YOUTUBE / TWITTER CELEBS ($?/mo). I think it'd be worth giving this a shot: basically paying YouTube celebs to plug our site. Maybe give em affiliate accounts and let them earn commission? What do you guys think?
      I like this. Maybe (if their video is appropriate) you can post their vid in your fanpage's timeline for some occasional entertainment.

      12. GIVEAWAYS ($?/mo). How about attracting people with giveaways, like a free iPhone4 every month to a random subscriber or something? Is that worth the money, and how much should I spend on it?
      You need to have a decent number of subscribers BEFORE you start doing that, otherwise it's probably not cost efficient. Giving away promo stuff (like shirts with your brand name on it) would be better for growing your brand.

      13. POSTERS ($?/mo). Another idea is to find a cheap printing place and print a ton (say 250-1000 to start) of posters and get students or unemployed people to put em up in key locations around downtown and around campuses for really cheap. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna try this, but how many % should I allocate here?
      I'm not a big fan of using posters. For one, they can be expensive and not give a decent, if any, ROI, and two, litter laws. If you're going to do this anyway, make sure you post them in places where your target demographic will see them, and have a clear call-to-action on them. I also recommend putting a QR code on the posters that'll send them straight to a mobile version of your site.
      My big question is: What made you choose to do a Groupon-type site?
      I mean, yes, there are good reasons for it, but what are YOUR reasons?
      Are there no other business's in your area providing that service in the way that you plan to?
      Are you posting offers that they won't? (This may be a good strategy.)
      Your reason must be

      If you like my thoughts above and have any other questions, let me know, and I'll try to answer.
      (Also, if you'd like to hire me to help out with business strategies or marketing, I'm interested. )

      I wish you success.
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  • Profile picture of the author graphic1970a
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    • Profile picture of the author MoneySavingLisa
      Websites in my niche love daily deal sites like Groupon. Just email a ton of frugal bloggers about your new website. Will you be offering an affiliate program? That's even better.
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  • Profile picture of the author MoneySavingLisa
    NoMoreRack offers daily free deals that are capped at a certain amount and they offer a flat shipping rate of $2. So even though they are paying $2.. the item is free. Usually cheap items under $20, but people love freebies.
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  • Profile picture of the author workplay
    How much are you spending on web development?

    Are you going to be programming this site from scratch or adopt a white label / CMS?
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  • Profile picture of the author seosuperstar2014
    1. SEO ($300/mo?). A small but reputable European SEO firm agreed to do 750 article links + 100 social bookmark links + 250 press releases + 750 blog links + 400 pligg links for $300/mo, which seems like a good deal. Unless someone feels this list is missing something?

    WE can do above services at just $100. Let me know if you like to hire us.
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