Race Cafe To Take On Trade Me

New Zealand's popular one-stop horse and greyhound racing portal web site, Race Cafe, is poised to compete for the equine industry's classifieds advertising and trading dollars this year.

Leigh McKenzie, a former jockey, announced plans today for Race Cafe, which attracts upwards of 80,000 views per month, to compete with the likes of Trade Me   in the digital space this year.

"At present there is no dedicated web site in New Zealand for all things equine when it comes to buying and selling horses or associated products," he said.

Race Cafe caters for gallops, harness racing, greyhound racing and the equestrian sector. The site at present has over 9,000 members, and 80,000 visits per month with visitors staying around 6 minutes a visit. It also has a database of several thousand to market to and through social media advertising can reach more than five million people.

"With its already large on-line community of horse enthusiasts share Race Cafe provides a very good platform for advertisers to advertise to a truly global audience," McKenzie said.

Changes to  Race Cafe have already included a much improved and inter-active design, look and feel for the site as well as the addition of significantly more high quality content about all things equine It will also use digital media at a much higher level than before with Facebook, YouTube and Twitter an increasing component.

"Our forums will still play a major part in the site but now with the human-interest and quality stories there will be more topics for our avid followers to share their thoughts on," says  McKenzie.

"We hope to have far greater participation from a much wider sector of all the racing communities including trainers, owners, breeders, administrators and key industry figures, which will give them all a chance to have their say and for us to be able to have our say and put our ideas to them in a constructive non combative way," McKenzie said.

Race Cafe will feature the ultimate A to Z business directory which will become a who's who of businesses wishing to connect with the equine industry.

"There are many businesses who cannot find a way of connecting with the horse industry but this will provide the platform for this to occur and bring sales to them," he said.

McKenzie confirmed that the new site's editor will be five-times New Zealand Racing Journalist Of The Year Phillip Quay, who is currently the racing correspondent for Television New Zealand. In recent times Quay's business, MediaPA, has been a major player in the field of on line social media/content marketing for global companies.

Quay has a large number of contacts within the racing industry and business sector and plans to connect these on Race Cafe which will create all sorts of new opportunities. He has become a national speaker on social media which will also be a major part of taking the site global on a higher level.

"We will be building up social media and interaction with people as well and will be a major on line force for the entire racing industry in this regards," McKenzie said.

McKenzie  recognised the support everyone had given Race Cafe over the years and was sure they will like the new look.