Promoting new sites

[darker]

Not to informative title, sorry about that.

The thing is, I'm currently developing two websites, one for job listings,and the other one will be a real estate site. These site are being developed for norway, so not international sites.

Both sites has got exellent software (done by me) :) and the quality of the sites can compete with the more established ones.

Difference between my sites and the already established ones are that my sites will generete income not from paid listings, but instead featured listings etc. So, a normal listing is free (usually about 500$ in most sites in norway).

And then, the question:

How do I promote these? Anyone ever done anything like this? My plan was to contact most work agencies + real estaters and tell them about the site, that way generating listings
word of mouth
buying incoming links
Inform online / offline newspapers, maybe someone will write about the sites.

Also plan on printing like 10,000 flyers, handing them out at malls etc.

Anyone got any other suggestions?

[Chris]

In both cases you're going to end up with a catch-22 situation.

You cannot get listings until you have visitors, and you cannot get visitors until you get listings.

As such I think the problem you should tackle is how you will get your initial batch of listings. If you can syndicate listings from another source that would be a good idea.

[darker]

that's my biggest concern aswell. Got a job site, a real estate site etc. coming up now, and they're all in the same situation.

Syndicating listings is not possible, never seen a solution for norwegian sites. So, looks like I'll have to contact the 10 biggest in each category, telling them about this free solution.. that way at least I have listings.

[aeroguy]

darker, you may wish to call smaller clients directly (nothing like a phone call in my experience), offer them like a free 3 month trial, many will list cause of the trial offer and hopefully some will convert to sponsored listing once the trial is over.