Question

Topic: Advertising/PR

Starting A Website

Posted by Anonymous on 6/12/2004 at 3:44 PM ET 250 Points
I am greatly inspired by this website and I am now contemplating on opening up a similar website for marketing professionals in my country, India. As many of the solutions that are offered here are not really applicable to Indian markets, I would want Indian marketing experts to answer problems faced by the Indian marketing community. I have no prior experience in handling a website and I am currently doing my MBA.
I am also planning to havea system of projects sharing for MBA students where projects done by MBA students can be shared with other MBA students for a nominal fee.

My questions to you are:

1. How do I attract Indian marketing experts such as marketing managers in big companies etc. to come and join this website.

2. How much does it cost to start up and maintain a website similar to www.marketingprofs.com

3. Can I have some sort of association with marketingprofs.com

4. What are the other factors that I need to consider in this endeavour?

5. Which would be the best way to promote this website amongst students given my limited financial resources?

I hope you help me get a clearer picture.
To continue reading this question and the solution, sign up ... it's free!
SUBSCRIBE
Or, SIGN IN

RESPONSES

  • Posted by Pepper Blue on 6/12/2004 at 4:27 PM Member
    Hi BizMan,

    Wow! That is ambitious of you, I wish you luck in advance.

    Should the MarketingProfs/Know-How Exchange management read this they will be your best source of answers (and stories), for your startup and organizational questions.

    The first thing that comes to mind regarding "getting the word" out to marketing professionals is to use one of the social network applications like LinkIn, Ryze & Ecademy. I know that there are many Indian professionals that belong to these groups, and you should be able to spread your message very quickly through them.

    Also, you want establish strategic alliances and partnerships with other marketing websites to exchange links and cross-promote each other.

    Regarding the students, I will leave that to what I am sure will be excellent responses from the much more qualified Indian Know-How Experts that will see this posting.

    I hope that helps!
  • Posted by Blaine Wilkerson on 6/12/2004 at 5:01 PM Member
    Well, I'll think about it, but since according to you, our expertise does not apply to te Indian market, I don't know how much help it will be.

    Let me think about it awhile, as Tim said, hopefully the more qualified MBA students from India will jump in to give you qualified advice!

    I'll keep my eye on it!

  • Posted by Blaine Wilkerson on 6/12/2004 at 5:05 PM Member
    The first thing that comes to mind is not to let the competition know what you are up to. Since MarketingProfs gets a lot of traffic from India, they may not want a competing website....OOPS....too late!

    Perhaps one of the staff would be willing to post all the costs, strategies and procedures involved with starting a site like this!

    I am interested as well.

    Still thinking....
  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 6/12/2004 at 9:35 PM Member
    Iagree with Jett. Strategically, it may not have been a good idea to post this on MarketingProfs, as you would likely be competing directly with them.

    Once thing you could do is talk with the MarketingProfs mgmt and see if they would be willing for you to help out (or even run) an area on this site for Indian marketing professionals. There is a link called Moderator Help on the right side of the page which should let you contact the manager.

    In regards to cost of starting up and maintain a web site - that is hard to answer. The physical cost to a web site is minimal - you pay under US$10 for the domain name and then pay to have it hosted. The development and maintaining of the code to run the web site is something that would require people's time, and I don't know the availability or cost for these people in India (though presumably it would be a lot less expensive than doing it in the US).
  • Posted by Blaine Wilkerson on 6/13/2004 at 1:44 AM Member
    Good Idea Peter! Maybe a culturally specific area would be of benefit.

    However, I suspect there is not enough traffic to justify the funding of a clone KHE for India.

    I do believe MarketingProfs would be more than happy to encourage more Indian professionals to become members and answer questions here at KHE. The affiliate program is starting soon and the referral bonus could get quite lucrative if someone were to post an affliate link on an Indian website (or many websites for that matter).

    We could all benefit from having a more diverse panel.

BACK TO TOP

Post a Comment

Related Discussions

Community Info

Top 25 Experts
(Advertising/PR)