In the last chapter, we discussed building the B2B marketplace MVP. So what’s next? Onboard users to your multi-vendor marketplace platform.

A two-sided Marketplace platform cannot exist without its users. One of the methods to persuade customers to make purchases in your marketplace business is to keep them interested and satisfied. 

The success of marketplaces may be due to a variety of variables, including lower costs of inventory, more transparency, and buyer confidence. However, very few online markets have been successful in expanding without first coming up with a solution to the conundrum.

There are other factors that could lead to a make-or-break situation in addition to maintaining a balance between supply and demand.

These include the market’s size, your network effects, attempting to grow horizontally, concentrating on short-term wagers, etc. Your market can also slow down if you are not utilizing data to grow and if you are unclear about the appropriate growth metrics.

To attract more users to a B2B marketplace, every single factor is essential. Your strategies must be current and should draw visitors to your website.

5 ways to onboard users in your online marketplace platform.

  • Take Heed of Every Angle Associated
  • Create Awareness of Your B2B Marketplace
  • Make Use of Social Media
  • Take Advantage of Email Marketing
  • Communicate to Users with a Value Proposition
5 ways to onboard users in your online marketplace platform

Take Heed of Every Angle Associated

A marketplace’s services can only be at their best when attention is paid to every single tiny detail related to client traffic. A good online marketplace platform should also be able to think of every possible angle in order to provide the greatest services to its clients.

Each and every thought contains a brilliant onboarding strategy that may be carried out to make money. Determine the expectations of the intended clients and attempt to satisfy them. By doing this, you may draw website visitors who might subsequently become paying clients.

Think creatively and use these strategies to identify your target market:

  • Always remain updated with the online marketplace workflow to provide a great user experience for your customers.
  • Provide them with a smooth checkout process. 
  • Make the platform easy to use.

Now, you have a user-friendly platform from every aspect but your customer knows your presence. Without knowing your presence, how can they onboard to your marketplace platform with you? So, the next step is to let your customers feel your presence. Thus,

Create Awareness of Your B2B Marketplace Platform

When consumers consider the type of products or services you sell, your brand is at the front of their minds because of strong brand awareness and brand familiarity. They are familiar with your brand, which makes it simpler to convey clearly through social media material, particularly in the form of photographs or short videos.

You must, then, be very clear about your brand’s identity and what it stands for. How does your brand appear? Similar to? Hold for?

Which tone do you employ? What dress code do you follow? sarcastic or serious? jovial or serious?

Every format does not need you to utilize the exact same tone. As opposed to, for instance, print advertisements, your brand’s tone on social media may be more lighthearted and enjoyable. It’s possible that your voice will somewhat change from Facebook to TikTok.

But ultimately, your brand should be identical across all platforms in how you talk to them and about your product. As you follow your style guide, select some consistent key phrases and terms.

Share your Marketplace Platform Story

Every business has a story. However, telling that tale is the essential element for brand recognition. Use narrative to highlight your brand’s history, for instance by highlighting significant turning points in your expansion or by highlighting consumer experiences.

Create Value Beyond your Product

Creating value outside of your product is a crucial onboarding strategy for boosting long-term brand awareness. Consider how you can enlighten, educate, or amuse.

Run brand Awareness Campaigns

The social networks all provide campaigns that are primarily focused on brand recognition since they recognize that it is a crucial business objective for many firms utilizing their platforms.

Make Use of Social Media

Reaching out to them on comparable platforms, online forums, business listings, and social media communities makes sense when trying to draw merchants to an online marketplace platform. Another choice is to attend offline gatherings like conferences and meetups.

You should make a list of merchants who might be willing to join you and get in touch with them when planning your software marketplace promotion strategy. An excellent example of this is how Airbnb used Craigslist, a US classified ad website, to attract property owners’ attention and increase traffic to the marketplace.

The startup’s founders manually emailed hosts and suggested that they list their services on Airbnb whenever a new listing in their sector appeared on Craigslist. With the help of this onboarding strategy, Airbnb was able to involve homeowners and boost the reputation of an online lodging software marketplace.

In order to show vendors the advantages of using the platform and renting out their properties, Airbnb soon started a Facebook advertising campaign. Additionally, the team created a script to automatically alert people who are creating new Craigslist listings about Airbnb.

Since then, the company has made adjustments to the design and functionality of its marketplace. Over 900 million guests and 4 million hosts use Airbnb, which is currently the most popular vacation rental software marketplace platform globally.

With social media you can reach more customers but how can you convert them into potential customers? The best way for this is using email marketing.

Take Advantage of Email Marketing

One of the most common and effective methods for turning potential customers into paying customers is email marketing. It aids in gaining the trust of clients, which leads to the creation of devoted clients and the ability to acquire profitable leads continuously.

Today, email notifications are the most popular method of informing customers about new deals and discounts available in a B2B marketplace. It is a proven fact that customers who purchase through email notifications pay more than those who don’t take advantage of these deals.

This indicates that email alerts are thus also assisting you in increasing your income. So, get to work right away to start using solid leads. Numerous products are available on the market that can simplify your email marketing.

The last and most important process in engaging the customers to your platform is to communicate your value proposition with them.

Communicate your Value Proposition with Users

The majority of buyers no longer take the first deal they see. They invest time in research to determine which business, brand, or product offers the best value. For this reason, it’s critical to effectively communicate your value proposition or unique selling proposition (USP).

Users will most likely always choose the competition if you don’t make a compelling case for why they should pick you over them. Customers can pick you up with ease if you have a strong value offer.

You desire that your value proposition be recalled by current and future consumers. The key components of a value proposition are simplicity, concision, and focus. Avoid being too cryptic or ambiguous since this may lead to misunderstandings.

You should include the main headline, a visual component, and supplementary information when crafting your value proposition. For example, Uber, a ridesharing software marketplace, shows its value proposition clearly on its websites.

Main headline: Request a ride now 

Subheading: Transform the way your company moves and feeds its people.

Visual Component: Ride – target the riders & Drive or Deliver – target the drivers

Uber
Source: Uber’s Official site

When possible, share your value proposition, such as when

  • Having a conversation with clients or future clients.
  • Explaining their place of employment.
  • Conversing with vendors.
  • Whenever they mention your business, its offerings, or any of its services.

This kind of interaction may generate a potent word-of-mouth campaign that will help you establish your reputation and value offer. All members of your team have the potential to serve as brand ambassadors.

What’s Next,

Business owners should consider all facets of the user experience when launching their projects, from functionality, interface, and performance to marketing and sales while considering how to create a two-sided marketplace

A two-sided marketplace platform must guarantee that buyers and sellers stick around and often engage with one another in order to maintain its network effects. You have an MVP, also, you have your own users, despite you cannot define your online marketplace platform’s success with this. You need to measure your marketplace success with metrics. But how to measure success, let’s see this in the next chapter of this marketplace academy.