I have come across a dilemma during the planning stage of a site that we (me and a group of developers) want to build, and for the sake of this discussion we can assume its a job posting site.
In order to attract visitors and keep them coming back, you need jobs (lots of them).
In order to attract employers and keep them coming back, you need visitors (lots of them as well).
Now, with a site such as a job posting site, time is a big factor. If the posting is older than 14 days, on average, the job has already been filled. So for a site that is starting up, you need to fill it up with postings AND THEN get visitors…but by the time you get lots of visitors, the posting is old. AND, if you get the visitors too early, there are not enough jobs posted, so they likely won’t visit you again.
So what do you do?
Here are a few ideas/thoughts just to get the ball rolling:
- For the first 6 months to year, don’t charge employers for posting so that its a no commitment, nothing to lose proposition. The problem of lack of visitors/lack of postings as explained above could result.
- Charge the employer ONLY if his/her posting is clicked on (kind of like Google AdSense)…that way, they only pay if their posting received traffic. People generally don’t trust this method with a startup.
- Marketing tactics: social media sites, forum postings (advertising on forums is a no-no though and I personally hate self-promoters), local advertising (mail, events), email campaign, banner ads (on related sites), blog/community participation
What do you think is the best way to overcome this catch-22 situation when starting a site that is aimed to eventually make money from its users (aka. the employer in this situation)?
