Market Research and marketing plan

[CharlieB]

Hi

I've got an idea for a website for investors to interact with entrepreneurs who need finance for their small business, which would be a dating website for businesses where entrepreneurs would have their own profile page and upload a video of themselves pitching for investment. I think its a good idea so I want to do market research to see if it will actually be feasible.

My question is how do I do this? I have two emails of investors so I was going to send them emails to see if they'd be interested in using this and as i've met them both I feel I could get a reply from them. But then how do I get in contact with more investors and entrepreneurs? By joining a network of investors or entrepreneurs and finding more email addresses I think its unlikely that they'd give it two looks as they've never met me so they won't be able to take my online survey. Does anyone know what the best way of conducting market research in this industry would be? As its a website should the market research be online as well or could it be offline?

For the marketing plan, I had planned to make a database of all the people interested from the marketing research and then have a trial run of the website with those people. I would then have a blog and promotion on twitter so spread the word of mouth. Is this the most appropriate marketing plan for this idea with a small budget? What would be a better plan?

Thanks

Charlie

[Milkerz]

Run several search engine queries trying to find investors in all areas of the country/world. Change the searches from investors, angel investors, venture capitalists etc. to make sure that you cover all of the potential investors in the area. Prepare an email and send it to as many as possible - use the Bcc (blind carbon copy) option so that they do not know how many people you have sent it to.

I've been doing this recently and it gets a pretty good response - and from like 60% of signups they then go on to recommend someone else to sign up.

And yes, use all social media available; but use it wisely. Don't just spam peoples timelines or whatever.

Luke

[CharlieB]

thanks for your reply, when emailing potential clients should I be looking to include the name of the website? I think obviously I should but I only own the .co.uk name not the .com name which expires soon and I intend on buying, do I risk people buying the .com name ahead of me if they like the idea and decide to do it for themselves?

[Daniel Smith]

Hello,
I think market research will help one to identify who the target group is and how one should approach them. It is true that there is a ton of information out there for one to gather and at times it can seem overwhelming.

Thanks
Daniel Smith

[CharlieB]

i've just discovered that this idea has already been attempted and failed after a £400k investment... it was even ran by someone who had experience in investing whereas I don't. It failed as it was released at the same time Lehman bros crashed and there was a low rate of overall investment. Also his site was free and my idea was to charge a monthly fee like match.com do... with all this taken into consideration is it wise for me to pursue a different idea now? I still love the idea and a successful entrepreneur seemed impressed with when I told him the other day... or could I still succeed with no experience, less investment but coming out of a recession investment rates will be higher

[CharlieB]

do people think it would be wise to still pursue this idea or not? I'm desperate for a business to get stuck into but I don't want to get involved obviously if it dosent seem intelligent after what i've explained above...

[Anna James]

Market research is important in wondering as to what are the products that a coummunity wants and are looking for.... Simply by launching that product one can gain profits and keep on launching new products in order to promote his business.