Kurdify Marketing Plan
Version 1.0, July 16, 2026. 18-month go-to-market for the $500k pre-seed. Owner: Sia (founder, ex-media-buyer). Ground lead: Hazhar (Erbil).
1. Objectives
| Horizon | Objective |
|---|---|
| Month 4 | Erbil public launch: 1,000 claimed/verified businesses, first 100 paying, 5,000 registered consumers |
| Month 8 | Sulaymaniyah launch: loyalty loop live at 200+ verified merchants, 20,000 registered consumers |
| Month 12 | 400+ paying businesses (base case), 50,000 registered consumers, ticketing revenue live |
| Month 18 | Seed-ready: ~$32k MRR base case, diaspora lane pilot, KurdConnect cross-promotion running |
North-star metric: weekly coupon redemptions at verified businesses (proves the two-sided loop works; everything else feeds it).
2. Positioning and messaging
The full narrative (data, scale, mission, founder + marketing edge, product, Groupon-style offers engine, free-value ecosystem, points-to-bank endgame) lives in positioning.md in Kurdish (Sorani and Kurmanji), Arabic, and English; every campaign and pitch follows that order.
Marketing is the unfair advantage behind this plan: Kavalsia has worked with 50+ businesses and over $100M in marketing and development spend for US, UK, and Canadian companies. That muscle now points at Kurdistan. The go-to-market posture is free value first (free verification, free pages, free tools, real discounts), paid visibility on top, which is why the offers-and-promotions engine (the part Groupon proved) can run without burning merchants.
One platform, three audiences, one promise: trust in Kurdish.
| Audience | Message | Proof |
|---|---|---|
| Consumers (KRI) | Find every business in Kurdistan, in Kurdish, with real reviews. Earn tokens, get real discounts. | 10,900+ businesses, 226,000+ reviews, QR coupons |
| Business owners (KRI) | Get found, get verified free, get customers. Only pay when you want more visibility. | Free verification contract, Top 5 rankings, redemption stats in your dashboard |
| Diaspora | Your homeland, one tap away. Find your community here, send business home. | KurdConnect + Kurdify pair |
Language rules: Sorani first everywhere; Kurmanji, Arabic, English follow. All creative is Kurdish-made, no stock-photo genericism. No inflated numbers, ever; stats quoted from /api/stats.
3. Launch plan: Erbil first (months 1-4)
Ground game (the core motion, led by Hazhar):
- Target list from our own data: highest-quality unclaimed listings in Erbil (restaurants, cafes, pharmacies, salons, hotels first; categories with daily consumer frequency).
- Door-to-door: verify the business FREE (photo, hours, menu/services, WhatsApp button), sign the verification contract, install the QR table tent ("Review us on Kurdify / redeem your coupon here").
- The upsell ladder, only after value is visible: claimed dashboard (free) -> paid setup $280 for new businesses -> Pro plan $450/year -> placements $500+ -> WhatsApp AI agent.
- Weekly quota per rep: 40 verifications, 5 paid conversions. Two reps + Hazhar = ~500 verified businesses/month.
Consumer ignition, same weeks:
- Giveaway campaign (already built into the platform) seeded with prizes from verified merchants: enter by signing up + writing one real review.
- Top 5 lists per neighbourhood pushed on Instagram/Facebook and the Telegram channel; every list tags the businesses, businesses reshare (free distribution).
- Campus and bazaar activation: QR posters, "your first coupon is waiting" onboarding.
4. Channels (ranked by expected CAC)
| # | Channel | Motion | Budget share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ground sales + free verification | Merchant acquisition, the trust land-grab | 30% |
| 2 | WhatsApp outreach | Slow, personal outreach engine to business owners (already built); the WhatsApp AI agent demos itself in the conversation | 5% |
| 3 | Meta ads (Facebook + Instagram) | Where Kurdish commerce already lives. Founder is a media buyer; consumer install/signup campaigns geo-targeted to Erbil/Sulaymaniyah, merchant lead campaigns to page admins. Creative: reels of real verified businesses | 30% |
| 4 | Influencer program | Platform's built-in influencer levels: local food/lifestyle creators paid in tokens + flat fees for review content; every post drives app signups with referral codes | 15% |
| 5 | Telegram | Bazrgan bot + daily channel (prices, news, daily offer). Zero cost, compounding | 0% |
| 6 | SEO + content | 10k+ listing pages already generated (seo-pages), daily magazine (songs, markets, influencers), news hub in 4 languages. Owns "in Kurdish" search space long-term | 5% |
| 7 | Events | Ticketing as acquisition: host/sponsor community events, every ticket is a signup; Newroz is the anchor event of the calendar | 10% |
| 8 | Diaspora | KurdConnect cross-promo, community orgs in Toronto/Vancouver/Germany/Sweden, diaspora press, the Republic community round doubles as marketing | 5% |
Marketing budget within the raise: ~$175k over 18 months (~$10k/month average; front-loaded around the two city launches).
5. The loyalty flywheel (retention)
- Consumer signs up (+points), reviews (+points), refers (+points).
- Points convert to a discount coupon; merchant scans the QR; the discount comes off the bill.
- Merchant sees redemptions in the dashboard = measurable new customers = upgrades to paid visibility.
- Paid visibility brings more consumers; more consumers earn more tokens. Repeat.
Supporting retention surfaces: Top 5 tabs, daily magazine feeds, news, events, jobs, real estate, the /ask Kurdish assistant. Cash-out and gift cards are explicitly scheduled September 2027 and never promised earlier.
6. 18-month calendar
| Months | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1-2 | Hire reps, print contracts and QR kits, target lists, Meta pixel + creative library, grant applications in parallel |
| 3-4 | ERBIL LAUNCH: verification blitz, giveaway #1, influencer wave #1, PR in Rudaw/K24 business sections |
| 5-6 | Erbil deepening: paid conversion push, WhatsApp agent upsell, first ticketed events |
| 7-8 | SULAYMANIYAH LAUNCH: repeat the blitz with Erbil case studies as proof |
| 9-10 | Mobile app beta launch campaign; loyalty loop PR ("tokens for reviews") |
| 11-12 | Coverage push to Duhok; giveaway #2; seed-round content (traction posts) |
| 13-15 | Diaspora activation: KurdConnect campaigns in Toronto + Germany, community round on Republic, Newroz planning |
| 16-18 | Newroz mega-campaign; diaspora commerce pilot (travel/real estate leads); seed raise support |
7. Measurement
- All KPIs live in the owner dashboard (overview, ad engine stats, payments queue, tracker).
- Weekly scorecard: verified businesses, paying businesses, MRR, CAC by channel, signups, WAU, reviews written, coupon redemptions, ticket sales.
- Meta ads measured to signup/claim events, not clicks; kill any ad set at 3x target CAC; scale winners 20% at a time.
- Every campaign gets a UTM; no channel survives two months without covering its CAC math.
8. Brand rules (binding)
- Sorani-first, RTL-correct, in every asset.
- Real businesses and real photos only; never another brand's imagery; no fake reviews, viewers, or engagement, ever.
- No emoji in product UI (inline SVG); no em dashes in any copy.
- Credit Kurdify and Kavalsia. Prices never appear in Iraq ad creative (standing rule for KRI ads).