My trade book of business networking

Anton Koulakovskii, director, Sales, Marketing & International Development, MyTradeBook.com

In the booming of era of social networking, MyTradeBook.com has turned to social networking with respect to business networking and B2B marketplace.

Interest Groups feature facilitates collaboration and discussion between users on their areas of interest, opening up avenues for generation of new ideas and business leads.

And, at the same time, users can advertise their products and services for free in the Trade Pages section.

Anton Koulakovskii, director, Sales, Marketing & International Development, MyTradeBook.com spoke to Prasoon Srivastava of CIOL about various facets of MyTradeBook.com. Excerpts:

What drove you to start MyTradeBook.com?

The idea for MyTradeBook came from Mr. Richard Tunstall, who is also the owner of Laser Innovations (UK) Ltd, when he was looking for new ways to sell his world-beating mobile forensic laser.

Running a small business with a global appeal and a limited marketing budget, Richard’s attention naturally turned to social networking and B2B marketplaces. However, the existing websites he used did not provide a clear, simple and, above all, effective way to reach people and at the same time showcase the unique selling points of the products.

At the time Richard collaborated with me, while I had just completed my graduation from Oxford Brookes University, on various web-based projects. And from this marketing problem MyTradeBook was born – to help small and medium size (SME’s) businesses market their products and services in a simple and effective manner and that too for free.

Since 2007 we have all seen the onset of a global recession. As the businesses experience falls in sales and cuts in their marketing budget, we believe that now is the absolutely right time to launch this B2B service. We at MyTradeBook sincerely hope that this B2B service can help all the struggling business out there to exploit opportunities and increase the sales and marketing reach.

What is the USP of MyTradeBook.com especially with regard to SMEs?

There are many small and medium businesses that have products and services with global appeal, but are constrained with limited marketing budgets, which become even more pronounced in the current economic scenario.

MyTradeBook.com is designed to cut through the clutter of the existing B2B marketplaces by offering users with effective ways to reach out, collaborate and showcase their products and services in a much more targeted fashion. What’s more important is that they can do it absolutely free!

What unique features will help users take advantage of registering at MyTradeBook.com?

MyTradeBook.com has amalgamated the concepts of business networking and B2B marketplace. The site is completely free, and the users are free in the way that they use it. Interest Groups feature facilitates collaboration and discussion between users on their areas of interest, opening up avenues for generation of new ideas and business leads.

And at the same time, users can advertise their products and services for free in the Trade Pages section. These posted advertisements can be linked to various interest groups and can be viewed by any site visitor, thus offering users an opportunity to target their advertisements at the most relevant people.

Apart from offering users with the ability to search Trade Page adverts, crucially, MyTradeBook.com also allows users to share them with other social networking sites, creating viral marketing opportunities.

Can you please highlight some direct and indirect benefits for the users? Also can you provide some real scenarios where your site has helped a product, service or a corporate entity?

The direct benefit of being on MytradeBook.com for SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises), is that it offers Indian businesses a brand new and completely free online platform that helps create new markets, generate new ideas and leads, and reach out to potential global customers, in a way that falls in line with the most recent marketing trends.

The indirect benefit is that presence on MyTradeBook.com can differentiate a firm from the competition, and helps towards building its online reputation. MyTradeBook.com has recently been launched, and is in the process of generating its user base primarily in the U.K. and India. We are getting very good response from both of these countries.

As an example, in the first month of its operation MyTradeBook.com has already helped a number of website development companies generate new contracts from new customers. MyTradeBook.com has also helped small companies, like a business providing overnight proof reading services from New Zealand, get more publicity and generate new clients.

As you said that registration is free, then what is your revenue model?

We are going against the current marketing trend of falling advertising revenue, and make money from banner advertising. This is why we made www.MyTradeBook.com completely free for all visitors and users; so the more people use the site the better, as we can serve more page impressions.

In the future there may be some additional paid-for services, but the core functionality as it is today will remain to be free of charge.

How is MyTradeBook.com different from other B2B sites?

Unlike other sites, all the users' advertisements posted on MyTradeBook.com are completely shareable on other social media sites. Any person who sees the advert can upload it to a social network where they are most active and share it with their contacts, thus creating a viral effect. Or the link to the same advert can be easily emailed to anyone.

We believe that no other site offers this kind of share-service. Moreover, the same user adverts can easily be shared between MyTradBook.com users, and targeted to relevant Interest Groups.

So, for example, a website development advertisement can be directed to Interest Groups related to business start-ups and website development. This can be referred to as behavior-targeted marketing, as users in Interest Groups are served only relevant adverts. And, of course, everything is completely free!

Since the launch of the site in April, what is the current status or registration?

The registration picked up slowly and by middle of May 2009, we have very good numbers from both India and U.K. and based on the trend we expect that registration is going to pick up in a fast pace in the days to come. We are planning the launch in other English speaking countries soon in a phased manner.

What has been the response so far on MyTradeBook.com from India ? What is your strategy moving further?

MyTradeBook.com is generating tremendous response from businesses across India. In less than two months of its launch MyTradeBook.com has over 40 per cent of its registered users from India, comprising businesses across all sectors and industries, including non-profit organizations.

MyTradeBook.com has been witnessing visitors from all corners of the world with a registered user base from more than 24 countries and is growing exponentially.

Moving forward, MyTradeBook.com has also announced the introduction of a free Trade Pages advertising upload service for its registered users.

To use this free service, users need to register (free of charge), and send their online catalogue, brochures, product and service profiles and photographs to MyTradeBook.com Support. The Support Team will then work with the user on the adverts and upload them to Trade Pages.

These advertising pages can subsequently be shared by all visitors to MyTradeBook.com with other social networking sites – thus creating a viral effect.

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