Recipe Comparison WOM Advice?
A friend and former colleague of mine has started a night and weekend passion project called RecipeComparison.
In a nutshell, the site allows you to “search for, compare, and share recipes” from popular recipe clearinghouse sites. The comparison is unique. It is a side by side look – allowing you to compare amounts and varieties by type of ingredient – like you would comparison shop for appliances or cars.
So…what audience is going to find this feature the most valuable? As a non-foodie, it is very easy for me to see the value beyond folks who spend hours trying to make sure they are optimizing their pumpkin pie recipes (in all honesty, I actually HAVE gone through this process to find the ultimate macaroni & cheese recipe and it was pretty painful without this tool). What about people trying to lose weight and find lighter versions of their favorites? Or heads of household who are cooking for families with food allergies who need to make substitutes?
What would your advice be to the founders of RecipeComparison.com on how to get the word out about the site and its unique features (others include being able to keep a record of searches cross-recipe sites)? Where would you start?
On Wednesday, I’ll post the advice that I gave to the founders, but in the meantime, I know they would appreciate collecting ALL the best practices and suggestions they can. Bring it on!
3 Replies to “Recipe Comparison WOM Advice?”
This is an idea that’s been waiting to happen. It’s like mysimon but for recipes. A few quick 6am thoughts …
1. Def keep it very sharable
2. Rating system
3. Give me an entire meal suggestion when I do a search
4. Seems like a good topic on which to conduct quick polls for promotional purposes (Tweet: 80% of men this paprika is a feminine spice. http://tinyurl.com/xxx
This is brilliant. As someone who as you know cooks all the time, the “lighter” side of recipes would be my main use. Having a breakdown at the end of each recipe for portion/calorie/fat content makes a ton of sense. I picked my favorite banana bread recipe based on the lowest fat component, figuring that makes the most figure-friendly bread. However, all of the ingredients matter, so if there’s more sugar, more flour, whatever… that could skew the results and perhaps I didn’t make the right choice. Who knows? If there’s a way to build that element into the matrix, I think it would be hugely successful. Putting weightwatcher points in as an additional line would be a good idea as well. Finally, I love the ingredient substitution idea, but adding as well a “what’s in your cupboard” option… which I know some sites have, though I couldn’t tell you which… would add another level of useful/usable content.
On the marketing side, I’ve got nothing.
I wish this had been developed sooner! This is sure to be a time saver for foodies and non-foodies alike. I see this being a great resource especially for the weight-loss/fitness space. I think adding nutritional facts for each recipe would be helpful. One way to get the word out about such a fab site might be to partner with an influential community like foodbuzz or sparkpeople. It might be interesting to create a contest on the site to encourage users to submit their own recipes for review. The winner’s recipe and blog would then be featured on the site in the recipe side by side comparison, which could help create buzz and excitement among users.