Business Plan - E-Business

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Business Plan
Creative Platform
Prepared for: Aishling Duhy , E-Business Module
Prepared by: Ionela Visinoaie, Jana Gogova, Corina Burduja
31 January 2016
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DBS - DIGITAL MARKETING 2015-2016

TABLE OF CONTENT:
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1. Executive Summary
2. Company Overview
Business Type
Service Overview
Objectives
Key to Success
3. Potential Market/Customers
4. Market Analysis Summary
Market Segmentation
SWOT Analysis
PEST Analysis
5. Competitive Analysis
6. Marketing Strategy and Implementation
Social Media
7. Business Operation and Finance
8. Comment on Balance Score Card of our E-Business
9. Appendix
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1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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This is a business plan for our business idea Creative Platform.
The purpose of this business plan is to prove in practice our knowledge accumulated
during our course in Dublin Business School, Certificate in Digital Marketing, module:
E-business. Our business plan includes a description and analysis of our business
idea, our potential customers and competitors, as well as a comprehensive market
plan and strategy.
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The main topics outlined in our business plan are company overview, which includes
a brief description of business type, service overview our objectives and key to
success. You will find also an analysis of the market and our competitors.
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When creating this business plan, we were strongly guided by our report of two
companies competitors: Guru and Locationshub.
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When presenting our business idea first time to all class, we have noticed that for
some people is it hard to understand its aspects at first. Therefore, one of our
objective, when creating this business plan, was to efficiently describe and present
our business idea. This was a challenge and we also took some time to create a
short video-presentation, in order to simplify the concept presentation.
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At the end of this document, you will find also a list of websites that we have used to
create and develop our business plan.
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2. COMPANY OVERVIEW
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Creative Platform - is a website which will serve as an online network for film production
companies and video & photo freelancers to connect, collaborate and create together.
Creative Platform will provide businesses the tools for finding and hiring the right
professional for a project, all over the world. Also, our service will offer freelancers the
opportunity to create profiles, share experience and connect with businesses to get a
potential job.
Freelancers and business will find the website user friendly and easy to interact with. The
profile creation and research service will be free of charge, while the payment system for the
service itself is going to be through our site.
Creative Platform is a good place for employers and freelancers to connect, collaborate,
and get work done.
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Online Distribution Strategy

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Service owner
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Intermediary Company Customer
• Freelancers;
• Property Owners;
• Videographers;
• Service providers;
• Photographers;
• Studios.
• Creative Platform
• Locationshub.com
• Guru.com
• Upwork.com
• Airbnb.com
• trivago.com
• Filmmakers;
• Advertising agencies;
• SMB’s;
• Employers;
• Individuals;
• Recruitment agencies.

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Specifics: Creative Platform
Business Type • Creative Platform is a B2B company.
• Creative Platform will directly connect businesses with
thousands of video freelancers.
• Creative Platform is a global marketplace.
Service Overview • Creative Platform serves as a platform for video freelancers
to search and find a job.
• Creative Platform provides tools for businesses to find,
connect, and collaborate with freelancers.
• Provides a payment system for both businesses and
freelancers.
Objectives • To facilitate the process of finding and hiring a
professionals.
• To minimise the costs and efforts of a company when
finding a short-term or long-term service.
• To offer many freelancers a chance to be promoted and
get hired, worldwide.
• To help businesses find and connect with the right
candidate for their project.
Key to Success • Have a plan. We will conduct a full research of our
potential market and competitors; this will help us to
understand better how to strategies and develop a start-up
company idea.
• Be creative. Because our business will be closely related
to creative services like photo and video production, our
goal is to be as creative as our network. We will analyse
our target market and will implement promotional
strategies according to it.
• Provide great service. In order to ensure a high quality
user experience, we will create a well-structured website, a
strong payment and security system and off course
customer relationship management. We will invest time, will
educate and motivate our people, so they could provide a
great and professional customer support.

3. POTENTIAL MARKET/CUSTOMERS
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Because Creative Platform is a B2B company, our main potential customers are
companies that needs a service in the video production or filming field. Our main
target market will include the following businesses categories:
• Film production agencies
• Visual advertising agencies
• Modelling agencies
• Wedding planners
• Online photo and video libraries or stock websites
• Photo and video freelancers
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4. MARKET ANALYSIS SUMMARY
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After conducting a market research this company type of service, we would like to
highlight the following facts:
• The demand of this type of business is relatively small, but with a big potential
and opportunity. This is demonstrated by the fact that video industry is constantly
growing.
• For many companies-competitors, there is a big gap in the CRM and our
objective is to use as much efficient as possible all these findings, to have a
better quality of UX and our service.
• Companies are more used with the classic way of finding a video operator/
freelancer: calling a local agent or hiring a video studio, therefore it will take some
time for our company to gain trustful and loyal customer relationship. However,
the benefits of using our platform will have a big impact on how companies will
work and collaborate with us.

Market Segmentation

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Behaviour Geographic Psychographic Demographics

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Our company will be Business-to-business (B2B), we would like identify our appropriate
markets. For this we will use market segmentation bases and variables on demographics
and geographic such as a Location / State; Variables/ Gender, we will target especially
young female individuals between age 17-29 years for our service, model shooting. We
might also use Psycho graphics bases with Profiling interests of business and targeting the
local business for movie and films go Local by using Yahoo! Local, Think Local, www.
Local.com.
Our working language will be English, as we spread the Word market, we would like
to use Spanish, Russian, and German language. We might establish even the customer
service in different language facility and the payment option will be in above languages as
well.
For example, in Ireland the Internet users were 2,830,100 and Internet penetration was
67.3% in 2010
compare with the UK market where 43,683,900 were Internet users and 76.4% was
Internet penetration. In Germany there were 61,973,100 Internet users with 75.3% of
Internet penetration.
In demographic Segments we might identify demographic niches. Our market
segment that caught our attention are: millennial, ethnic groups, and influentials in
Demographic Segment.
Interest communities such as Social networking communities will join our website for getting
a job ( like Monster.com), or finding a business connection (LindkedIn.com). Users of our
website will possibly pay a subscription fee to join our community. Our competitor will be
Guru.com for an example, what is a trading community where users can exchange services.
Our Internet - Specific Differentiation Strategy will be:
Atmospheric refer to providing visitors with a positive environment to visit, search, purchase.
We will provide to our users a display of our services offered.
Build Trust is our issue, especially when our customers will be paying online, we want
in-build encryption as a password for a security reason.

One of the strongest motivator for customers who make web-based purchase is the
ease of ordering. We would like to provide automated e-mail at each step such as of placing
order, paying for a service, deliver of a service. 

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- With a good marketing strategy and
implementation, there is a potential to become
one of the strongest companies for filmmakers.
- Because this business type involves many
creative fields, the promo concept can bring a
strong brand awareness;
- There are many opportunities in terms of
implementing other types of service in the
same area, such as: film planning, editing.
- Filmmaking and visual advertising industry is
very popular and the demand for creative
filming locations is growing.
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- Brand and company type perception;
- Market is more used with the classic
way of providing video service, and
building a relationship with customers
may take more time than usually a
business would require;
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- Online based company: cost and time
efficient fro businesses and other
customers;
- The competitive sector is not too big, and
there are many gaps that may help us to
improve our service and find a perfect fit;
- Video production is a niche category, but
with a big potential, as the demand for
video service is always growing;
- A potential for growth in this field;
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- Because the company service is quite
niche, there is a risk that the company
will have a small range of customers;
however the plan is to add some more
services in time. This will keep the
business constantly growing;
- According to our competitors, there is
a risk to lose brand awareness, with a
poor management of customer
relationships and SM channels;
Conclusion: We believe that our business model has more opportunities and
strengths, rather than weaknesses. However if we want to maintain a high quality
user experience, as well as a trustful customer relationship and a perfect service,
we have to be aware that there are risks that are affected by many internal and
external factors. Therefore, we strongly believe that we have to focus on several
aspects at least for the first-two years of our business activity. These aspects are:
a strong online system which includes website, payment and security system; a
strong customer relationships(we have to identify our markets target and work
closely with our market.

Company
P
Political
E
Economical
S
Social
T
Technological
Creative
Platform
One political
factor that might
affect our
business
environment is
different
countries
employment
regulation and
taxation law.
Also because
our business will
in involve
traveling across
the world for our
customers,
another political
factor are
travelling rules
and policy of
each country.
One of the
economical
factors that
have a big
impact on
Creative
Platform
development,
is the progress
of filmmaking
and advertising
industry.
Because the
number of
production and
advertising
agency is
growing, the
demand of
video
freelancers will
increase in
time.
One of the social aspects
that will have an impact on
our business environment, is
the fact that people
accepted the idea to work
as freelancers within time.
Statistics says: Freelance
numbers have increased by
45% from just under 6.2
million to 8.9 million in
2013.As people are more
open for new types of online
services, this can only be a
positive point for company
environment. The growth in
social media network
influenced a lot how people
share their knowledges and
thoughts about companies
and services. This could be
a point forte in this business
potential development.
Because the
technology is
developing with a
high speed, this
fact influences
companies
development so we
will have to adapt
with new demands,
and market
specifications.
Changing design,
changing
processes,
implementing new
possibilities. The
progress in
technology has a
big impact on
business operation
in terms of how all
works.
Conclusion: PEST research, helped us to identify and analyse the main external factors
that can have an impact on our company environment and development. We would like to
highlight some important aspects that we think to implement in our company organisation:
service delivery strategy has to be organised according to market expectation and
technology development; people are open to try a different product or a different service
delivery, however market prefers companies with a very transparent structure and internal
environment; there is a big potential for business growth in terms of implementing new
services ideas in the filed, however this has to be well organised and planned in advance.

5. COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
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For the competitive analysis we have selected the competitors based on three criteria:
1. Businesses we consider to be competitors.
2. Businesses found in the natural/paid search results for the same searches as ours, or
the keywords we would like to be found for.
3. Businesses our customers and prospects consider to be competitors.
Competitors Overview:
• Upwork - With over 1.5 million clients, Upwork offers something for every type of
freelancer. It accommodates both short- and long-term projects, hourly or per-project
work and expert-level and entry-level engagements. Regardless of where you are in your
career, Upwork is likely to have something for you.
• Toptal - With a distinctly different approach than the other services on this list, Toptal is
for seasoned, talented freelancers. Passing Toptal's screening process gives you
unparalleled access to meaningful projects with great clients (JPMorgan, Zendesk,
Airbnb, etc.) and fair compensation (no low-bid contests). You’ll also be able to join the
Toptal community for frequent meetups and tech events.
• Elance - removes a lot of the hassle that comes with freelancing. You’ll be able to make a
profile right away without jumping through any hoops, enjoy payment protection to ensure
you’re always paid for the hours you work and more.
• Freelancer - Unlike most other platforms, in addition to offering millions of projects,
Freelancer allows you to compete with other freelancers in contests to prove your skills. If
you’re competitive and confident in your expertise, it’s a great way to showcase your
abilities and attract more clients.
• Craigslist - Although most people see Craigslist as just a platform for buying and selling
miscellaneous things, it’s actually a great source of freelance jobs. You can easily browse
for local offerings if you prefer something in-office, or you can search by major cities if you
prefer working remotely.
• Guru - This site lets you easily showcase your past work experience and offers a daily
job-matching feature to make sure you don’t miss out on any good opportunities. The
Guru Work Room lets you easily manage all your work.
• 99designs - A platform for freelance designers, 99designs lets you compete in design
contests and get feedback as clients choose the best ones. It’s a great way for talented
designers to prove their talents.


• Peopleperhour - This is a great platform, focusing on freelancing for web projects. If
you’re a designer, web developer, SEO specialist, etc., peopleperhour is definitely worth
checking out.
• Freelance Writing Gigs - Whether you’re a writer, editor, blogger, publisher or any
combination of those, Freelance Writing Gigs is a great option for freelancers who have a
way with words.
• Demand Media - is a platform for creative types, including writers, filmmakers,
producers, photographers and more. You work with the site to create unique content,
engage audiences and promote your talents.
• College Recruiter - As the name might suggest, College Recruiter is for college students
or recent graduates looking for freelance jobs of any type. In addition to being a source
for part-time work, it can be a great way to jumpstart your career.
• GetACoder - This site is for freelance writers, web designers and programmers -- exactly
what small businesses need to get a website idea off the ground. GetACoder offers
millions of smaller-scale projects to choose from.
• iFreelance - This platform accommodates some of the usual suspects of the freelancing
world (writers, editors, coders, etc.) but also features freelance marketers as well. Unlike
other sites, iFreelance lets you keep 100 percent of your earnings.
• Project4hire - With hundreds of project categories, Project4hire makes it easy to identify
jobs that suit your skillset, without scanning through large volumes of posts. It’s great for
coders, consultants, designers and more.
• SimplyHired - With a wider range than most other freelance platforms offer, SimplyHired
is perfect for everyone from salespeople to construction workers. It includes a blog with
hiring tips, a company directory and location-based search.
• SmartShoot - Helps businesses and consumers get custom high quality photos or
videos shot on location, in thousands of cities worldwide.
• Blink - Lets the world’s brightest companies and professionals build the first global
network for the media industry
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Top three Competitors:
1. SmartShoot
2. Demand Media
3. iFreelancer
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SmartShoot
Ranking and trafﬁc estimations
• estimated trafﬁc: SEO Rank 52,689 / PPC Rank 0
• keywords they ranking for:
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Search engine friendliness
• website speed: Mobile speed 62/100, Desktop 77/100
• Mobile accessibility (mobile site or responsive design)
Site marketing performance
• they have a blog
• They use video?
• Conversion points they have: contact; contact form, phone number. No live chat, or
email.
Social media performance
• Pinterest 6.928
• Facebook shares 1.601
• Facebook likes 1.149
• Google+ 817
• Facebook comments 460
Key calls-to-action
• key call-to-action on the homepage: Get started / Browse creative / Start a project
• calls-to-actions shown across the site: Login / Find creatives / Post a project
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Keyword Position CPC
Senior photography 8 332
Maternity photography 6 248
Engagement photography 1 228
Real estate photography 4 200
Wedding videos 4 140
videography 8 128
Senior photos 3 116
Senior photography 2 96
Event photographer 1 92
Event photography 5 52

6. MARKETING STRATEGY AND IMPLEMENTATION
 
50%
10%
20%
5%
5%
10%
Blog
Facebook
Twitter
Linkedin
YouTube
Customer support, FAQ'S, About Us
Conclusion: We plan to build a strong communication and relation with our potential
customers using Social Media channels. 50% of the company communication will be
trough our website, about us page, Customer Support Team(live channels like chat and
phone support, as well as email), FAQ’s page. The highest priority from social media
channels has Linkedin: this is due to the fact that our business type is B2B and is strongly
related to the recruitment area. Also, YouTube channel will has a high importance in our
business development, as this is a tool where we will present our service + our promotion
visual advertising will be delivered only through YouTube. We keep a small percentage of
trafﬁc from Facebook and Twitter: this will help to maintain our brand awareness and build
our relationship with freelancers.

7. BUSINESS OPERATION AND FINANCE
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Our finance and pricing strategy is common with the strategy of some of our
competitors. We find it as the easiest way to manage and coordinate with all financial
plan.
Both freelancers and companies will be able to create their accounts/profiles on our
platform and use our tools for free. But we will subtract a transaction fee at the
moment when a service is purchased on the site. The freelancer is paid only after the
client confirms he has received a good service.
Please find below a model of our Pricing and Payment strategy:
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Creative Platform
Customer Freelancer
connects
Acquisition
connects
receives service
pays for the
service
receives payment
delivers service
receives a
percentage from
the acquisition

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8.COMMENT ON BALANCE SCORE CARD OF OUR E-
BUSINESS.
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The Balance Scorecard is approach to performance measurement emphasises the
need to provide management with a set of of information which covers all relevant
areas of performance in an objective and unbiased fashion.
The information provided may be both financial and non-financial and covers areas
such as profitability, customer satisfaction, internal efficiency and innovation.
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Comment on Financial Perspective.
Our goal is to achieve double-digit sales growth per customer. We will measure it
division Euro volume of sales over the two consequent years by Total customers.
Next goal is Lower customer acquisition costs (CAC) in online channel, what is
achieved division of costs for advertising by Total number of customers.
Further goal is Increase conversion rates at web sites, this is achieve the
division of Total numbers of orders by Number of visitors to site. Lately next goal is
Increase individual customer profit on our website, this is achieve subtraction of Profit
contribution over time less CAC.
Lastly but not lately, one of our most important financial goal is to achieve at
least 10% net Profit in the first year on our new service launch. We will measure it by
multiplying Net Profit as a percentage of sales and the ROI, measured by division of
Gross Profit over the period by Revenue.
In summary the goals for our E-Business are to survive, to succeed, and to
prosper. Even though this is not easy goals, we feel it might be feasible for our E-
Business.
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9. APPENDIX
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In order to create this business plan, we have used the following web resources:
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• www.similarweb.com
• www.alexa.com
• Google wikipedia
• www.locationshub.com
• www.guru.com
• www.strategicmanagementinsight.com
• www.trustpilot.com
• www.mysiteauditor.com
• www.adwords.com
• www.archive.org
• www.wordstream.com
• other competitors websites

Business Plan - E-Business

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