Launch marketing for PropTech and marketplace products
A marketplace or data product can be finished and still have no commercial story. Launch marketing here is a sequencing problem: which side you build first, which market you concede, and what someone gets for free before they will ever pay.
How do you launch a PropTech product or two-sided marketplace?
Solve the cold start in one market before widening. Build density on the side that is harder to attract, give the other side an immediate reason to look, and use a free tier to prove value before the paid tier asks for money. One city with real supply beats national coverage with none.
At a glance
- Sector
- PropTech and marketplaces
- Featured work
- HausMart, Logical Planning, FootyGrounds
- Services used
- Launch go-to-market, Pricing and offer design, SEO and content architecture, Proposition and positioning
- Based
- Cheshire, working with clients across the UK
What keeps blocking growth in proptech and marketplaces
Three problems recur in almost every engagement in this sector. None of them are solved by spending more.
The cold-start problem is a marketing decision
Two-sided products fail when both sides are courted at once. Choosing which side to over-serve first, and in which single market, is the highest-leverage decision available.
Free tier as the acquisition engine
In data products the free result is the advert. It has to be genuinely useful, and it has to end at exactly the point where the paid answer starts.
Programmatic structure, not programmatic filler
Large datasets can generate thousands of legitimately useful pages — or thousands of thin ones. The difference is whether each page answers a question someone actually asks.
The services this sector actually needs
Each link goes to the service page that explains the scope, the deliverables and how it is priced.
Launch go-to-market
Sequence the launch: one audience, one market, one reason to act, then widen.
Pricing and offer design
Build the ladder from free to paid so the first sale is easy and the second is bigger.
SEO and content architecture
Structure the site around how people actually search, not how the business is organised.
Proposition and positioning
Decide what the business claims and who it claims it for, before a penny goes into a channel.
Featured proptech and marketplaces engagements
What I was asked to do, what I decided, and what shipped. Every link goes to the client's live site.
- The situation
- A two-sided property marketplace launching against Rightmove and Zoopla. Free listings alone are not a reason to switch, and a marketplace with no supply cannot demonstrate demand.
- What I did
- Anchored the launch to one town — Crewe — so the beta had real stock and real swipe data instead of empty search results. Positioned the product on speed of sale and buyer-led matching, tied to the government's Home Buying and Selling Reform Roadmap, and used a waitlist plus saved-search alerts to build demand before national rollout.
- What shipped
- Launched in beta with live local stock, a clear reason to choose it over a portal, and swipe-level demand data that gives sellers something the portals cannot show them.
“We were about to launch nationally with nothing on the map. Concentrating the beta on one town was Sam's call and it was the right one — we could finally show sellers genuine buyer demand rather than a promise.”
Logical Planning
New site launchPlanning Potential Score with a paid self-serve funnel
logical-planning.com- The situation
- A planning-data product with genuinely useful output — a Planning Potential Score for any UK site — and no commercial story. Landowners, developers and agents all wanted different things from it, and the pricing model had not been decided.
- What I did
- Named one primary audience and one job to be done, rewrote the proposition around 'what could my land be worth', then built the acquisition path: a free first search, a £29 single Site Check and a monthly subscription for repeat users, with search content mapped to how people actually ask about planning potential.
- What shipped
- Launched with a clear ladder from free search to subscription, and a content structure that targets planning, Green Belt, change-of-use and permitted development questions rather than competing on the word 'planning consultant'.
“We had the data and the technology. What we did not have was a way of explaining it that made someone reach for their card. Sam turned it into an offer, decided the pricing with us and built the route people take to get there.”
- The situation
- A consumer football platform with an enormous data set and no acquisition model. Every ground guide, pub and fixture was a page nobody would ever search for by name, and the brand had no audience of its own.
- What I did
- Gave the product one ownable metric — the FootyGrounds Away Day Score — so every ground page has a reason to exist and a reason to be linked to. Then built the search structure around what fans actually type: 'football near me', 'away day', the ground name plus pubs and parking. Alongside the site launch, built the @footygrounds.com TikTok channel as the top of the funnel: away-day clips and ground rankings that send an engaged football audience back to the guides.
- What shipped
- Two results from one launch: a site with thousands of indexable, genuinely useful pages tied to real search demand, and a TikTok channel at @footygrounds.com that went viral — 100k views in its first 7 days and 1.1M post views in the first four weeks (16 Aug – 12 Sep), with 42k likes, 3.1k shares, 2.9k comments and 13.7k profile views. The brand now owns an audience rather than renting attention from search alone.
“Sam got us launched and then got us an audience. The site gave every ground a reason to be found, and the TikTok channel went viral — 100k views in the first week and over a million in the first month.”
PropTech and marketplaces: common questions
Should we launch nationally to look credible?
How do you decide what stays behind the paywall?
Recommended next steps
The engagements above started with these. Each page explains the scope, deliverables and pricing for proptech and marketplaces.
Launch go-to-market
Sequence the launch: one audience, one market, one reason to act, then widen.
Read the scopePricing and offer design
Build the ladder from free to paid so the first sale is easy and the second is bigger.
Read the scopeSEO and content architecture
Structure the site around how people actually search, not how the business is organised.
Read the scopeBook a call
One hour, no pitch. We work out which of these is the real constraint before you commit budget.
Read the scope
Other sectors I work in
The sequence is the same everywhere, but the pattern that blocks growth is not. Each hub sets out the recurring problem in that sector, what I do about it, and which engagements prove it.
Where to go next
A few things worth reading — and the pages most people move to from here.
Related insights
- Marketing StrategyWhy Your Marketing Isn't Working (And It Probably Isn't the Tactics)The positioning and priority problems that make good execution look like bad marketing.
- AI SearchHow to Get Your Business Cited by ChatGPT and Google AI OverviewsThe entity, structure and evidence signals answer engines use to choose who they quote.
- SME GrowthWhen an SME Should Hire a Fractional CMO Instead of a Marketing DirectorThe revenue, team and complexity signals that decide between part-time and full-time leadership.
Related services
- All servicesEvery marketing leadership, strategy and growth service on one page.
- Marketing strategyPositioning, audience priorities and a plan your team can execute.
- SEOTechnical, content and commercial search visibility.
- Book a callA 30-minute call to size up the opportunity.
Related case studies
- PropTech / SaaSLogical PlanningNew site launch — Planning Potential Score with a paid self-serve funnel
- Chartered surveyingMcGarrigle and CoNiche authority — tenant-side surveyor positioned as the specialist
- Property servicesCheshire LettingsLocal market leader — owner-led letting agency with landlord-first positioning
Working in proptech and marketplaces? Start with the diagnosis.
Book a call. I will tell you which of these problems yours actually is — proposition, pricing, demand or visibility — before you spend anything.