Final: Business Plan

Executive Summary

Web Expressions is an e-business startup company focusing on today’s web trends in order to build, design, and enhance websites. We believe that with the capabilities of web and mobile technology, the creativity of web and graphic designs, as well as the progression in ecommerce business, our company has the potential to grow for many years. With our growth, we expect to establish our brand and associate ourselves to be a leader in the web service industry.  

This expectation will have profitable results with the right business plan, which follows. It highlights marketing strategies such as consumer targets, advertising, and payment systems.  Research and development plans are also detailed along with the possible risks that may occur. An outline of financial costs and a five year timeline of our predicted growth are also included.     
 

1. Business Description

Web Expressions offer web development, web design, and ecommerce services. We are a small web-based company made up of eleven highly qualified web developers, designers, and programmers. With each having at least 5 years’ experience, we work together to implement the latest technologies and express our love for innovative and creative business.

With web development, we build websites using the latest languages such as PHP, Drupal, Joomla, Ruby on Rails, and JavaScript. With smartphones increasing in sales, our company also focuses on the development of mobile web and applications. These development services offer cross-platform capabilities needed in today’s web advancements.

With web design, we create web layouts following today’s design trends. We also design logos to establish a brand image. Creating web and emails ad designs is also our expertise. All of our designs are created with the latest design software such as the Adobe Suite.  

With ecommerce, we help to analyze and suggest marketing techniques. We implement Google analytics to research web traffic and collect usage information. By analyzing these results we guide our clients to a more profitable approach in conducting their ecommerce business.

All of our services have been successful in not only meeting our customers’ needs, but also reaching prospective customers. With nearly 2 billion people viewing the web (Internet Usage Statistics, 2011), 54% in smartphone sales in the U.S. this past year (US Smartphone Staistics - Q1 2011 Overview, 2011), and 14.1% ecommerce revenue increase within our industry, finding customers is not an issue (U.S. Census Bureau E-Stats, 2010). Imagine, in 5 years, the thought of 2 billion internet users needing our services might not impossible.

2. Marketing Plan 

1. Customers: 

With our company just starting out and based in the U.S., our target consumers would be U.S. internet users, mobile users, and ecommerce businesses. Whether these users have a business or not, having them view our business online will allow for our brand image to expand. Based off the latest Internet World Stats, 77% of the U.S. population is internet users, which makes our consumer target close to 240 million users seeing as there are little demographic limitations because everyone uses the internet (Internet Usage Statistics, 2011). When it comes to smartphones, according to Nielsen wire, targeting the 18-34 age range would be the most beneficial seeing as they have the highest statistics in smartphone usage (Smartphone and iPhone Deomgraphics from Nielsen, 2009).  Last, ecommerce consumers can be easily targeted through small established stores looking to enhance businesses or current ecommerce stores needing a new marketing strategy.

2. Competitors: 

Gravity World and ACS Creative are two companies today that are leading in the web service industry.  They both offer similar services as ours as well as extra strategy and design services. Although these companies seem to have established their name and show a high quality of work, their consumer target has a small range. With Web Expressions, we are dedicated in serving nationwide via phone, email, chat, or video conference. However, with ACS, they are strictly for the DC metropolitan area (ACS Creative). The same goes with Gravity, whereas they are situated in New York, thus much of their potential business is limited to New York (Gravity World, 2010).

3. Advertising: 

Other than having already published our very own ecommerce website, we have already implemented email branding in order to catch clients through email correspondence. Our email brands are beautifully designed which link to our website. We have also established a Facebook group and with 500 million potential customers, it is a great choice in advertising (Facebook Ads, 2011). More known ad techniques would be to set up a Google Ad or a traditional published ad, especially in web magazines such as Web Designer Mag. All of these advertising techniques have great potential in gaining more consumers.

4. Pricing: 

Our services are individually priced such as iPhone application build, web design layout, and 6 month analytics, which range from a one-time fee of $199-$499. However, we promote our Expression Plans on our site to give the customers a bundled package of services based on their needs as well as increase revenue.

Our Expression Plans are bundled by our services.  For example, in our web development package, we offer a website build, an iPhone app, and a mobile web platform. In our web design package, we offer a 5 page web layout design, a logo, and an email brand design. Last, our ecommerce plan comes with 1 year analytics, 1 year advising, and marketing tools such as Google Ads setup. All these plans range from an annual fee of $199-$699.

5. Delivery & Payment: 

Since we are a web-based company, all of our services are delivered via web, either by email, chat or video conference. All of our services are paid by credit card payment electronic cash systems. We have implemented a well-known and secure merchant service for credit card transactions called Authorize.net. As far as electronic cash systems, we use the most popular and secure system, PayPal. These systems have encryption security, which prevent fraud, lessen profit losses, and increase customer service (Schneider, 2011).   

3. Research & Development

Today, we currently service an average of 25 clients per month. About ¾ of those clients purchase individual one-time services. The rest are long-term customers. Our average yearly revenue is at $90,000. However, within 5 years, we expect to at least triple our consumer rate, which in turn would require us to expand our staff. With a larger staff, we would need to establish a physical, home-base location.  

4. Risks 

The only risks we have identified are due to the growth of technology. As technology advances, our knowledge and skills must as well. This could prove to be costly in terms of consistent training and/or staffing. Also, along with knowledge advancements, there are likely to be more competitors that arise. If we cannot build our brand image within a 5 year time frame, establishing our business as a well-known web service could get difficult due to competition. Last, we have one legal worry to be aware of. Although we are skilled in building applications, we must be aware of patents and Apple restrictions so we do not face copyright or trademark issues.

5. Financial 

With web services, equipment and software are the most important aspects, along with knowledge. It is important that we finance in computer hardware such as MacBooks or PCs for our employees, which come with all the web features such as a webcam, mic, drawing pad, fast processor, high-capacity storage drives, and VPN service for secure internet connections (Schneider, 2011). We must also invest in web software and servers keep up with our workload. I would estimate all of this equipment and software at a little over $30,000. However, a $30,000 investment is manageable compared to potentially tripling a $90,000 yearly revenue.  

The next financial investment would be to establish a home-base, primarily in the Baltimore, MD area due to the majority of our developers/designers based in the area. We believe that renting an office space first would be the best approach in establishing our location. Renting would give us time to manage and sustain a physical location. It would also give us the flexibility of reevaluating a location if it proves to be unsuccessful. Most importantly, it lessens our financial strain with a lower cost compared to owning a commercial real estate. In researching some rental spaces in Baltimore, we found office space as low as $450/month, which had the needed space and quality (Executive Suites Baltimore, 2011). Overall, these financial costs will prove to be worthwhile once our company expands and continues to increase profit.

6. Time line

• 1 year--acquire needed equipment and software for staff, build brand image through advertising strategies
• 2 year-- double staff, progress in brand image
• 3 year--increase client average, double revenue
• 4 years-- expand staff by 25%, establish location and brand within web community
• 5 years--successfully established physical location and triple revenue

7. Bibliography and Appendices

(n.d.). Retrieved May 6, 2011, from ACS Creative: www.acscreative.com/web/web.html

Smartphone and iPhone Deomgraphics from Nielsen. (2009, Septemeber 20). Retrieved May 6, 2011, from BitBriefs: bitbriefs.amplify.com/2009/09/20/smartphone-and-iphone-deomgraphics-from-nielson/

(2010). Retrieved May 6, 2011, from Gravity World: www.gravityworld.com/digital/index.html

(2010). U.S. Census Bureau E-Stats. U.S. Census Bureau.

Executive Suites Baltimore. (2011). Retrieved May 6, 2011, from Search Office Space: http://www.searchofficespace.com/usa/office-space/baltimore-executive-suites.html

Facebook Ads. (2011). Retrieved May 6, 2011, from Facebook: www.facebook.com/advertising

Internet Usage Statistics. (2011, April 30). Retrieved May 6, 2011, from Internet World Stats: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

US Smartphone Staistics - Q1 2011 Overview. (2011, March 6). Retrieved May 6, 2011, from SmartOnline: http://www.smartonline.com/mobile-2/us-smartphone-statistics-q1-2011-overview/

Schneider. (2011). Electronic Commerce, 9th Edition. South-Western.

8. Conclusion

According to the last E-Stats in the U.S. Census Bureau, Selected Service Industries like ours was last recorded to have made a total revenue of $146 billion dollars. The year before that was at $128 billion (U.S. Census Bureau E-Stats, 2010). Imagine, in one year, our industry increased its revenue by $18 billion. In five years, we could be a part of nearly doubling today’s revenue statistics. With the advancement of technology, our drive for creativity and better business, and the high demand of services in the web community, we are capable. However, as a start-up company, we need the support to build and the be known. We already have the foundation with our skills, but now we need the finances and management to create a long-standing structure. It is our belief that Web Expressions has the knowledge, strength, and quality to be built.