Current mood:

chipper

Promoting an online business - how?
Need help from one and all!

Some good friends of mine have launched an online business. Basic premise is it's a recipe website, and all the recipes are tried-and-tested, good recipes, written by an experienced chef. Users pay £15 a year to access them. www.reallynicerecipes.com

The selling point has been the quality recipes, but what I love most is the fact they have photos at every step. I always get scared when cooking that I've made a mistake, when halfway through it looks a bit weird. :o)

Anyway, this is all turning into a bit of a plug, which it wasn't meant to be.

Their biggest problem right now is promoting the site, and getting traffic. Starting up, there is next to no cash for Marketing. I've suggested (a) ads on foodie discussion groups (after checking their policy on ads carefully) and (b) partner links with small sites like organic ingredient sellers, farms promoting quality meat, etc.

What else? I'm in Marketing, primarily producing text, so I've given them a lot of feedback today (possibly more than was welcome lol) on content, look, etc. But I've not been involved in promoting a site before - can anyone think of other cheap methods for when you're getting started?

Comment here. Also, if you have any (nicely put and constructive) feedback on the site, post it here. Ben will be reading....