Tag: Marketplaces

14 Niche Marketplaces to List Your B2C Services

Consumer marketplaces are essential to connecting businesses with consumers looking for services.

However, it can be hard for smaller businesses to compete with well-known brands in their market. That is where B2C niche marketplaces can help.

Alongside customer choice, brand awareness and visibility are critical to business success. Niche marketplaces allow businesses to leverage the power and branding of larger platforms to reach their target audiences.

Today, with 11 percent of all shopping is done online, it’s vital you know the digital platforms that will give your B2C niche service brand the reach it needs to flourish. 

What Are B2C Niche Marketplaces? 

A B2C niche marketplace is an online platform that matches vendors who provide specialized service providers with their ideal customers.

A marketplace is a platform that enables consumers and suppliers to find each other. One excellent example is Amazon.

However, the problem with such marketplaces is that they’re often so big that it can be difficult for users to find specialized goods and services. The same goes for brands who struggle to reach their customers—it’s easy to drown in the sea of players (including indirect competitors).

This is where niche marketplaces come in.  

The Benefits of Niche Marketplaces

When looking where to sell online, you need to make the best decisions for your business. While some platforms (like Shopify) are free to set up, they can also take expensive fees for each sale. As a B2C brand, it’s even more important to make the right decision. Niche marketplaces are the solution. Why?

1. Access to a Targeted Audience

One of the biggest advantages of a niche marketplace is that you gain easier access to your target audience when compared with standard marketplaces. With innovative products, services, and brands being added to global commerce every day, it’s becoming an increasingly crowded market to operate in. Choosing a smaller platform that caters to high-intent customers will help you cut through some of the noise and deliver a high-quality product or service. 

2. Less Competition

Niche marketplaces give you the opportunity to target your service offerings to the right audience—without having to compete with other non-related products and services. As the marketplace only promotes services you offer, your conversion rates are more likely to improve. This ultimately results in a boost in revenue.  

3. Lower Marketing Costs

Because the focus of your marketplace is narrower, advertising on a niche market is easier and thus cheaper. As a result, you can focus your resources on exploiting your target market more effectively. Your marketing costs get lower while your return on ad spend (ROAS) improves.

4. Help Boost Brand Loyalty

Niche marketplaces make it easier for your prospective customers to find you. This is an essential step towards creating a customer journey they’ll love. If your customers enjoy the journey right from discovering your products to actually buying them, the chances of them becoming repeat customers and brand ambassadors are higher. 

5. “Done for You” SEO and Digital Marketing

One of the most challenging aspects of running a business online is getting visibility. As a small business, you may not have the money or skill to run effective digital marketing and SEO campaigns to get your business noticed.

Niche marketplaces allow companies to leverage the SEO efforts of their platform and benefit from the success of their digital marketing campaigns. 

14 Examples of Niche Marketplaces for B2C Services 

You’ve heard of Amazon, eBay, and Shopify. They are international brands with millions of sellers. You may not have heard of marketplaces that cater to your niche, so let’s look at some service examples and find the perfect one for your business.

1. Teachable

Examples of Niche Marketplaces for B2C Services - Teachable

Teachable is one of the most popular B2C niche marketplaces for those in the information products niche. 

One advantage of Teachable is that it allows users to run the entire production process on the platform. They can create, curate, market, and sell their information products without needing multiple complicated software programs. This makes it very convenient for niche brands and smaller businesses, as well as helping cut down on costs.

Teachable is especially effective for freelancers who want to turn their knowledge and experience into a revenue source. However, businesses of any size can use the platform to monetize their knowledge and expertise. 

2. Special Guest App 

Examples of Niche Marketplaces for B2C Services - Special Guest App

Entertainment plays a huge role in most events. From weddings to birthday parties, to stag nights and everything in-between, the life of the party is the quality of entertainment. Often, finding the perfect special guest is never an easy task. The opposite side of the coin is also true—finding enough gigs as an entertainer can be quite daunting.

That’s exactly where B2C niche marketplaces like Special Guest come in.

Co-founded by one of Hollywood’s finest entertainers, Damon Wayans, Special Guest is a marketplace that specializes in live entertainment. With a mission to make it easy for live entertainers to find more paying gigs, it’s the best platform to leverage if you’re an entertainer. Customers can choose to pick a “special guest” from their area or from anywhere in the country.

3. Cameo 

Examples of Niche Marketplaces for B2C Services - Cameo

If there’s one thing people love, it’s meeting their favorite celebrities. 

Cameo makes that possible, no matter who you are or where you are.

For celebrities and influencers, Cameo is a great marketplace to find people willing to pay you to create short (average of 3 minutes) personalized videos. You set your own rates and can choose whether to fulfill a request. Besides videos, you can also do live Zoom calls with “fans,” for which you can charge higher rates than the videos.

Whether you’re a well-known celebrity or still building a name for yourself, Cameo is one B2C niche marketplace you should consider listing your services on.    

4. Booking.com

Examples of Niche Marketplaces for B2C Services - Booking

If you offer services in the travel and tourism space, Booking.com is the niche marketplace for you. The premise of the platform is a simple one—to connect people to accommodation, travel options, activities, and other travel needs they may have. 

As a brand providing any service in this area, you can simply create an account and list your service. With a footprint in almost every corner of the world, Booking.com gives you access to an international target audience.

5. Airbnb

Examples of Niche Marketplaces for B2C Services - Airbnb

Affordable accommodation is in high demand. People traveling the world or touring a region of the country are always looking for a place to sleep as they enjoy their travels. 

That’s where niche marketplaces like Airbnb come in.

Airbnb offers users affordable lodging, primarily homestays, that users can book through their platform. If you have a room, home, or other types of lodging you are able to let out, getting your property listed on Airbnb is an excellent way to reach renters. 

Fortunately, listing your accommodation on the marketplace is free, and you’re only charged a 3 percent fee when you book a reservation. As you control the price of your listing, you can easily factor this into your night rate to ensure you get the profit you want.

6. Fiverr

Examples of Niche Marketplaces for B2C Services - Fiverr

If you offer digital services and need a marketplace to promote your services, Fiverr is definitely one to check out. The platform was created to bridge the gap between service providers and their target customers. 

For service providers, especially those just starting out, finding first clients willing to take a chance on you can be difficult. By listing your services on Fiverr, you (almost) eliminate non-revenue generating tasks associated with running a digital services business (such as marketing yourself). 

A well-polished Fiverr profile will help you stand out and attract clients looking for your services. Plus, jobs can be anything from designing personalized greeting cards to web design or writing copy—all depending on what your skillset is. 

7. Upwork 

Examples of Niche Marketplaces for B2C Services - Upwork

Another excellent B2C marketplace to consider for digital services is Upwork. No matter what your talent or skill is, if you can monetize it, you can sell it on Upwork. From writing services to tax preparation, you can list any skill you have.

To get started with Upwork, you first have to create a profile. From there, you can either bid for jobs, pitch your services, or communicate with recruiters as a way of landing your desired project. 

8. PeoplePerHour

Examples of Niche Marketplaces for B2C Services - People Per Hour

As a freelancer offering digital services, getting noticed is essential to your success. Listing your services on PeoplePerHour should be a critical component of your marketing strategy. 

PeoplePerHour is a platform that connects digital service providers to clients looking for specific services. Like Upwork, you have to create and optimize your profile to make sure you stand out. Through simple keyword research, your ideal clients can come to you.

9. Koachee

Examples of Niche Marketplaces for B2C Services - Koachee

Some people are gifted at bringing out the best in others. If you’re such a person and would like to generate revenue by offering coaching services, then Koachee is the B2C niche marketplace to promote your services on.

Koachee is a platform that helps you connect to clients by providing you a marketplace and the tools you need to succeed, such as:

  • client booking and scheduling
  • marketing tools
  • invoicing run 
  • in-app communication

No matter your expertise or industry, it’s free to create an account and profile on Koachee. 

10. TaskRabbit

Examples of Niche Marketplaces for B2C Services - TaskRabbit

Are you good at running errands or hands-on tasks?

No matter your skills and abilities, you can always find people who need your help and are willing to pay for your time and labor. 

A great B2C niche marketplace to help you make money by running simple errands is TaskRabbit.

Whether it’s cleaning, grocery shopping, handyman work, or any time of service you offer, listing yourself on TaskRabbit will help you find customers in your area. Available both as a desktop and mobile app, you can easily find jobs wherever you are, even when you’re on the move.   

11. LoveCrafts 

Examples of Niche Marketplaces for B2C Services - Love Crafts

Almost everyone loves art and crafts, but most people aren’t good at it. If arts and crafts—particularly knitting, embroidery, crocheting, and painting—are areas you’re skilled in, LoveCrafts is your go-to B2C niche marketplace.

LoveCrafts is both a community of creators and a marketplace for selling your services as an artist. For example, if you’ve designed some dress patterns people love, you can list them and get paid for your creativity.

12. Etsy 

Etsy is a niche marketplace for b2c services for selling handmade goods and vintage items.

Another popular B2C marketplace place to sell your handmade crafts (or vintage goods over 20 years old) is Etsy. But Etsy is good for more than just knitted mittens; you can also list worksheets, calligraphy, patterns, printables, and more.

Joining Etsy and starting a shop on the platform is free. However, you’ll be expected to pay listing, transaction, and payment processing fees.

Users love Etsy for its ease of use and the tools available for managing and growing your small business. You also get excellent support and free tips for running your Etsy shop. 

13. Decorist

Founded in 2014, Decorist is a B2C niche marketplace specifically for interior designers to sell their design services. If you have an eye for detail and a flair for transforming homes into works of art, then Decorist is definitely the marketplace for you. 

The application process includes submitting a portfolio and a case study. It also includes a brand review so make sure you have everything in place before applying. According to the website, there’s so much demand for designers on the marketplace that most are usually booked solid. 

14. Meowtel

One of the B2C services that has been growing over the past few years is pet-sitting. For those who love animals, and especially cats, you can find your perfect jobs on Meowtel.

Meowtel was created to make it easy for cat moms and pops to find reliable sitters for their furry family members. Of course, the other side of the coin is that you as a pet-sitter can list your services and get paid doing what you love.

B2C Niche Marketplace Frequently Asked Questions

What Is a B2C Niche Marketplace?

A B2C niche marketplace is a digital platform that connects you as the service provider to your ideal audience. In most cases, only services in your niche are allowed to be listed.

Do I Need to Be Licensed to List on a B2C Niche Marketplace?

You don’t need qualifications or a license to list on most B2C niche marketplaces. However, most conduct a thorough screening process. This is to ensure the platform only registers high-quality service providers.

Can I Make a Full-time Income Listing My Services on B2C Niche Marketplaces?

You can definitely make a full-time income by promoting your services on niche marketplaces. The key is to optimize your profile and ensure you deliver quality services on time.

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Niche Marketplace for B2C Services: Conclusion 

With so many B2C niche marketplaces available, making a few extra bucks or even a full-time living is achievable. 

You just need to know where to list your services for maximum visibility. 

Whether you’re a freelancer or small business, listing your services on the right platforms is essential to finding and attracting your ideal clients, and especially if you don’t have the skills and resources to run your own digital marketing campaigns. 

Leveraging a niche marketplace is the best move you can make to grow your business.

If you’ve used one of the B2C niche marketplaces above, what was your experience?

What Are Influencer Engagement Marketplaces (and How to Use Them)

Influencers are everywhere.

There are roughly 37 million influencers on Instagram, and around 1.5 million of them work on YouTube.

Every day, these creators promote brands across social media, talk up great products, and directly influence how people spend their hard-earned money.

Sounds great, right? There’s just one problem.

It’s really hard to actually find a great influencer to grow your business.

Whether you’re digging through social media platforms for ideas, or spending hours pitching creators, it’s a time-consuming process. In fact, according to Mediakix, 61 percent of marketers struggle to find the best influencers for their campaigns.

What’s the answer?

You need a more effective means of sourcing influencer talent and making connections. Influencer marketplaces can help you do just that, so let me show you how they work.

Why You Should Use Influencers in Your Marketing Strategy

Before we get started, let’s touch on influencer marketing more generally. Is it worth your time, or should you leave the influencer trend behind?

While influencer marketing isn’t for everyone, I think you should give it a go if it makes sense for your business.

Why? Because influencer marketing works.

While I’m not suggesting you should rely solely on influencer-based marketing, the trend is here to stay, and it’s worth trying.

If you’re still not convinced, here’s another way to think of it. Around 26 percent of consumers use ad blockers to hide ads and improve their browsing experience.

There’s a high chance those ads you’re paying for won’t reach their intended audience! For sales-based companies, influencer marketing could be a promising alternative.

Ready to find influencers for marketing campaigns? Let’s explore the mysteries of the influencer marketplace.

Influencer Engagement Marketplaces - Everything you need to know

How Businesses Find Influencers

You can find influencers online in four major ways:

  1. Social media platforms: There’s no shortage of social media platforms to browse for influencer talent, albeit this is a time-consuming process.
  2. Search engines: Google is a great way to find competitors and identify which influencers they use for their campaigns.
  3. Influencer marketplaces: These marketplaces help you match with various influencers in your niche.
  4. Influencer agencies: You can hire an agency to match you directly with the influencer they think suits you best.

Although we’re focusing on influencer marketplaces, remember it’s not the only strategy for finding influencers to market your business.

What Are Influencer Marketplaces?

Influencer marketplaces match businesses with influencers working in their niche, whether it’s beauty, fitness, food, and so on.

It’s a simple premise. You sign up and post a brief describing the services you’re looking for and wait for influencers to respond. If you find an influencer you’re happy with, you can hire them to create content, promote your brand and, well, influence people to buy your products.

You’re not limited to one influencer, either. You can work with multiple influencers across the platform, and you can recruit more talent as you go.

The upshot? Whether you’re running a one-off product campaign or you’re looking for a more stable relationship, influencer marketplaces could work for you.

Some of the more popular influencer marketing platforms include:

  • Influence
  • Intellifluence
  • AspireIQ
  • Webfluential
  • Famebit
  • Influencity

It’s common for influencers listed on marketplaces to work across two or more social media platforms. For businesses, this is great news because you can use one or two trusted influencers for all your content marketing.

Upfluence, for example, primarily pairs businesses with Instagram influencers, but there’s some scope to access influencers working on TikTok and Facebook, too:

What Are Influencer Marketplaces - Upfluence

While HypeAuditor matches you with influencers working across the likes of Twitch and YouTube:

What Are Influencer Marketplaces - HypeAuditor

There’s a huge range of marketplaces out there, so be sure to explore your options. Here are a few things to consider:

Platform Fees

Whichever marketplace you choose, you’ll usually pay a fee for signing up and using their services, so be sure to factor in the cost before you join.

Some platforms, though, like Influence, let you set up a basic account for free. The problem? You’re limited in terms of how many messages you can exchange each month, and how many profiles you can see in the search results. While this might work for one-off campaigns, it may be less sustainable for long-term influencer marketing.

Weigh up the pros and cons of the different fee structures before you commit.

Influencer Marketplaces Vs. Influencer Agencies

We touched on this earlier, but to be clear, influencer marketplaces and influencer agencies are totally different things.

  • Influencer marketplaces allow you to work directly with your chosen influencer. You put your brief out there and look for talent.
  • Influencer agencies, on the other hand, do some of this work for you. They vet their influencers against your brief and select the ones they think are best suited to your needs.

You can use both marketplaces and agencies if it suits your marketing strategy. Just bear in mind that they’re not the same thing.

In short, think of influencer marketplaces like a matchmaking service. While there’s no guarantee you’ll find the right influencer to collaborate with, there is a chance you’ll find a long-term creative partnership.

How to Use Influencer Engagement Marketplaces

Are you excited to give influencer marketplaces a try? Great! Before you jump into a subscription, though, here are some steps I suggest you work through.

Identify Your Goals

Before you even join an influencer marketplace, be clear on what you’re trying to achieve. For example, are you trying to increase sales, generate hype around your brand, or boost your engagement levels?

Jot all your goals down and try to identify which one is your priority.

Next, clarify your target audience and how they best respond to influencer marketing. That way, you can figure out precisely what role the influencer will play in your campaign.

As an example, say you’re a brand looking to launch a new product aimed at millennials on Instagram. You want to build hype and increase sales. Your main goal is to sell the product, so you’re looking for influencers who can not only help you but who can speak your target audience’s language.

Determine Your Budget

Once you know what you need from an influencer marketplace, it’s time to set your budget. How do you know what’s a “fair” amount to pay your influencer, though? Unfortunately, there’s no right answer, but asking yourself the following questions can serve as a guide.

First, what kind of content do you need? You might, for example, pay more for an in-depth product review video than a few short posts on Instagram.

Next, which platform are you targeting? Each platform requires different creator resources, so they command different rates. On average, you might pay an influencer $10 per 1000 followers for an Instagram post, but that goes up to $25 for a Facebook post.

How big is the influencer’s audience? The bigger the influencer, the more they can charge for their time.

Finally, is it a one-off or long-term campaign? You could potentially get better rates if the influencer knows they’ll get steady work from you. Seasonal campaigns could cost you more, since there’s higher demand around this time.

Don’t forget you’ll need to budget for a monthly or annual marketplace subscription, too. Be sure you can afford the fee before you sign up.

Research Influencer Marketplaces

Should you join every influencer marketplace out there? No.

Instead, research your options and choose one or two platforms to start out with. Here are some tips for moving forward.

  • Ensure the marketplace is focused on your industry. For example, if you’re a fitness brand, don’t join a marketplace with only culinary influencers, and so on.
  • Make sure the influencers on the marketplace actually work on your chosen social media platforms. Why join a YouTube marketplace if you’re only marketing on TikTok?
  • Check the marketplace hosts influencers in your price range. There’s no point opting for a platform where you’ll only find hugely popular influencers, i.e., those with a million or more followers, if your budget doesn’t allow for this.

My suggestion? Look to see if a marketplace offers a free trial, or at least a free membership option, before you commit to a paid plan. This lets you test out the platform without putting a dent in your marketing budget.

Remember, if you’re unhappy with the results, you can always review your strategy and try out different marketplaces. Influencer marketing is flexible like that.

Find Influencers Who Fit Your Business

You’ve set a goal, determined your budget, and signed up with a marketplace. Next comes the hardest part: finding the best influencer for your needs.

Honestly, there’s no “right” way to go about this. However, here’s what is most important to consider when shopping for an influencer.

Engagement

If followers engage with an influencer, for example, by leaving comments or sharing their content, there’s a good chance you’ll see better engagement on your content. Influencers with large follower counts but low engagement levels may not be the best fit.

Authenticity

Authenticity matters. In fact, according to Stackla, 90 percent of customers value authenticity when choosing which brands to buy from, so any influencer you work with must come across as “real” and authentic.

Reach

To be clear, you don’t need influencers with millions of followers. For some niches, it’s even better to target influencers with much smaller audiences, but higher engagement levels.

As a general guide, reach matters, but it may be less important than engagement.

Resonance

Does the influencer resonate with your brand identity? If not, it doesn’t matter how impressive the influencer’s follower count is: they won’t help your marketing strategy in the long run, and they may actually deter your target audience from shopping with you.

Determine Performance Metrics

You need to find a way to track your marketing campaign to ensure it’s working for you. How do you do this? By tracking key performance indicators, or KPIs.

The KPIs depend on your overall goal, but common metrics worth tracking include your impressions, engagement levels, follower count, and conversions.

Ultimately, it’s an influencer’s job to leverage their followers to your advantage, so if you’re not getting more traffic than usual, there could be a problem with your strategy.

Here’s the bottom line, though. You’ll know if your influencer marketing is working if you achieve your goal. In other words, if you set out to sell more products, the campaign most likely worked if you sold more products!

Unsure how to measure your performance? Be sure to check out our consulting services.

Review Your Partnerships Regularly

Just because an influencer comes across well on a marketplace doesn’t mean they’re the best fit for your business. Maybe their communication style doesn’t mesh well with yours, or you just find them difficult to work with.

Whatever the reason, it’s okay to cut ties. Just remember that if you do end your contract with an influencer, do it professionally. Influencers talk, and you don’t want a reputation as a difficult client!

Conclusion

Influencer marketplaces make it easy to match influencers and promoters who can help grow your business and generate hype around your products. That said, these marketplaces aren’t for everyone, and you might prefer curating your list of influencers and reaching out to them directly.

My suggestion? Spend some time researching the different marketplaces before you commit to a subscription, and remember to keep a close eye on your metrics to ensure your influencer partnership is working for you.

Have you tried an influencer marketplace yet?