Kare Anderson of Sausalito, California writes:
“I am a friend of Jenna Raby, co-founder of the company Labor Fair, an online referral community of reliable, quality workers for all on-demand household labor. Consumers get free, real-time access to hundreds of local worker profiles, pictures and professional references. And consumers connect directly with already available, qualified but underemployed workers.
“For the first time, time-pressed consumers have a fast way to find reputable household help online (cleaning, repair, gardening, childcare, etc.) through LaborFair. It just launched in 15 San Francisco Bay Area cities, from San Jose to Sausalito.
“By paying LaborFair just $15 a month for a listing, workers can bypass costly (for them) and time-consuming neighborhood flyer distribution or agency representation that cuts deeply into their take-home pay. Better than Craigslist for this service, think of LaborFair as an Ebay for household services, with fair trade built into the business.
“Can your Hounds think of ideas for promoting this service throughout California?”
One of the great promotional techniques for this type of service is local search engine optimization. Local search engine optimization is the same as the regular search engine, but with a local twist put on it.
When you use local search engine optimization, instead of optimizing for just “plumber services” you will optimize for “plumber services Sausalito”. Of course you will need to optimize on different locals in CA.
Doing this will help you bring exactly the traffic you are looking for, which is local California traffic.
For more information on search engine optimization, read my article “Basics Of Search Engine Optimization” at http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/articles/
Biana Babinsky
When Kare asks a favor, I try to help–she gives so much! I strongly recommend her “Say It Better” newsletter, which I’ve been reading for 10 or 12 years.
A couple of things come to mind:
1. Spend some time with Celebrate Today (John Kremer’s event list) and Chase’s. I’m betting you could find 50 or more events that would be easy to piggyback on.
2. Kare, you’re extremely skilled at forming partnerships that help everyone. Who could partner with such a service? Real estate agents, neighborhood associations, local environmental groups, many others.
3. This story should be sexy to the media, including both general and trade. A few among many possible story angles: a leg up for the workers, referral network helps self-employed people find work, helps busy affluents meet their domestic needs, alternative to icky temp agencies, whole stronger than its parts, etc. I’m tired and not fleshing this out too well–these need to be played a lot more dramatic than I’m giving you–but you should be able to run with a few of these.
Shel Horowitz – Marketing Strategic Planning, Consulting, and Copywriting
focused on Ethical, Affordable, Effective Approaches
413-586-2388, http://www.frugalmarketing.com
Sign the Ethics Pledge: http://www.business-ethics-pledge.org
My first thought is that these folks are independent workers not part of an established company therefore i’m not sure how many home owners would hire them direct from a website unless they have some really special skill so…
thinking most of their business will come from
Somebody Who Knows Them Who Knows Somebody Who Wants Them,
Why not start an affiliate program so those people that refer these workers get paid for the referral seems they might be more motivated to drum up business.
You might want to focus on churches and the like as they problem are already referring amongst members for house work needs but now they and the church could get paid for it.
Maybe an easier search to find workers might be by their language skills, English only, Spanish Only, Bilingual or by skill level with certain tools.
Individually these workers should habitually contact their own network of friends and relatives for their WHO DO YOU KNOW THIS straight out of the MLM book.
As pr goes maybe as part of membership each members agrees to provide 10 hours of community service to religious orgs, the elderly or Habitat for Humanity fixing up as needed.
Show before and after pictures on the site – pictures speak louder than words.
Maybe you could get a group of them together in each town to work on a habitat for humanity, fix a library, home repairs for an elderly couple in exchange for putting out lawn signs.
I think this is a great opportunity for a cross promotion / referral service. This will also add credibility to your service.
Approach some reputable contractors, remodelers, landscapers….After these ones preform their initial services it would be great for them to leave your information so householders can properly upkeep their newly renovated property.
You in turn can have your people refer work to these people as they look to paint or add-on…in the future.
I may also suggest that since Labor claims “reliable, quality workers ” – you should have your referrers stress some kind of GUARANTEE to take away any doubt from the end consumers mind