EP: GRLab Note on Developing a Web Business Plan

Developing a Web Business Plan

Posted by Jack Powers | April 14, 1996
Revised March 19, 1997

A World Wide Web business plan has two goals:

to crystallize the guiding vision and goals for the site; and
to minimize surprises during the development process.

Because web sites come in so many different flavors and because everyone comes to the Internet with so many different expectations, a clear and complete statement of vision is essential. Since web development is such a collaborative process and since most publishers don’t have years of experience managing interactive media creation, a formal understanding of the relationships and the responsibilities of everyone involved in the development cycle helps keep confusion and conflict to a minimum. A web development plan has five important components:

THE WEB SITE PLAN
THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
MARKETING AND PROMOTION PROGRAMS
COST PROJECTIONS
DEFINING AND MEASURING SUCCESS

THE WEB SITE PLAN: THE VISION, THE GOALS AND THE WEB MAP

Like any creative development project, a web site can have many different purposes:

to support (or supplant) a printed publication;
to sell (subscriptions, products or services);
to promote (specific events, product launches, sale programs); or
to simply “establish a presence” on the web.

The defining vision for the site and the primary goals must be clearly defined and well-thought-out. Internally, the editors, publishers, designers, sales reps, marketers and others must understand and accept the priorities outlined in the plan. Externally, the web developers, page designers, HTML coders, programmers and systems operators need a strong direction for their creative efforts and a comprehensive map of the elements needed.

THE VISION

The defining vision is the simple mission statement for the site, for example:

Our web site will extend our reader service features into the on-line world to provide information in a more comprehensive, searchable and timely form.
or
Our web catalog will make products faster, easier and cheaper for our customers to order and more profitable for us to deliver.
or
Our web forums will enhance our readers' sense of community, increase readership of the printed magazine, and provide our advertisers with new interactive marketing opportunities.

This broad vision should be based on the advantages that a web site has over other communication formats (see the Six Advantages of New Media) and should match or augment a company's overall mission statement, keeping the web effort in line with the firm's main business. While it should not be tied to actual revenues or sales projections, an explicit vision gives decision-makers a sense of the scope of the planned development, whether it fits the company's business and whether it is worth the effort and expense.

THE GOALS

A listing of specific site goals outlines the development priorities. Every list of goals should be ranked in order of importance and provide as much detail as practical to every member of the development team, for example:

The Home Page should match the graphical style of the printed publication and should give as much information as the print Table of Contents page. New copy should appear every two days.
or
Readers should be able to search the whole site by key word, create Boolean relationships, and be able to limit their searches by main category.
or
Information should be accessible with as few clicks as possible. Purely navigational pages must be kept to a minimum.
or
Video and animation should be available as options to browsers that can view them but must not be essential to the site experience.

Often this list of goals is hashed out in a brainstorming session that starts off with a clean slate and gradually builds the site experience element-by-element. Usually there is no shortage of ideas, the hard work comes in scaling and prioritizing the ideas into lists of "must-haves," "nice-to-haves," "should eventually-haves."

The goals should have cost considerations built-in: a sophisticated interactive forum that costs thousands to develop and requires a full-time moderator might not be as attractive as an unmoderated freeware bulletin board routine. Input from web developers and programmers is useful in analyzing the costs of each goal.

THE WEB MAP

Moving further from the general to the specific, the web map is the chart of the features and information that are required on the site, for example:

HOME PAGE
Page One News
Feature Story
Stat of the Week
Ad Placement

This Month's Table of Contents
Ad Placement

Previous Month's TOCsin
Subject-Oriented Catalog

Departments
Ad Placement

Arts and Entertainment
Politics and Culture
Sports

Web-based Editorial Supplement
Ad Placement

Editorial and Art
Sound
Animation
Video

Reader Forums
Ad Placement

Arts and Entertainment
Politics and Culture
Sports
Reader Roundtables

Company Information
Ad Placement (House Ad)

General Background

Recent Press Releases

Staff Biographies
Recent Press Releases
Regional and Local Offices
Office Search Page

Dealer Database
Dealer Search Page

Contact and Email
Sitewide Search Page and Site Index
Ad Placement

The web map often mirrors the directory structure of the site, although non-linear link relationships are easily built for example, between the Sports Department editorial feature and the Sports Reader Forum. The easy part of the map is the boilerplate data and the features that match the regular print publication.

THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS:
WHO DOES WHAT, WHEN

Interactive media development has three primary components:

CREATION, including editorial, art and design;
COMPUTING, including forms building, searching and transactions; and
PRODUCTION, including keyboarding, scanning, coding and web serving.

Different kinds of sites need different combinations of these components. An advertising site might need advanced design and copywriting talents; a complex forum or game site would require heavy programming skills; a web newspaper or reference site that is updated daily needs strong production capabilities. Pick the principal developer by matching their focus and experience to the work that needs to be done.

Be sure that all parties involved in the creation of the web site understands their roles, from the internal editorial and art departments to the outside web developers and programmers to the systems operators and technical staff.

CREATION

While many web developers pitch turnkey site development, doing everything from page design to coding to production and updating, the best web sites are created by information providers who understand a market, own proprietary content and generate their own publication ideas. A web developer can design pages, lay out the file structure, program forums and games and run the system, but the primary responsibility for editorial direction should always lie with the information provider.

Multimedia design elements should be used to support the editorial direction, not just provide "eye candy" or show-off technical wizardry. Choose the most appropriate elements from the list of multimedia data types:

MULTIMEDIA DESIGN ELEMENTS

Typography
Illustration

Standard GIFs and JPG files
Vector files: CMX, ART formats

Photography
Hyperlinks
Animation

Server Push Animation
Shockwave

Sound

Downloaded .AU, .AIFF, .WAV files
Streaming RealTime Audio, Live Audio

Video

Downloaded Quicktime, .AVI, MPEG files
Streaming VDO Video

Virtual Reality

Quicktime VR
VRML

Application Formats

Adobe Acrobat .PDF files
MS Word word processing files
Spreadsheet files
Presentations: PowerPoint, WebShow

Pick the multimedia illustrators who have the best visual sense and the most experience with the particular elements that you need .

COMPUTING

The difference between a compelling interactive publication and a collection of "re-purposed" print pages displayed on a browser screen is often defined by the creativity of the programming features. Well-crafted forums, a good search engine, interesting database hooks and exciting games

PROGRAMMING FEATURES

Input Forms

Email
Feedback questionnaire
Contest submission

Reader registration

Database development

Site search engine
Live data

Web still cameras
Live audio and video
Continuous database updates
Sensor interfaces

Transaction programming

On-line ordering
On-line digital delivery
Computation
Java applets

Games software

Form-based
Shockwave
Java applets

Page customization

HTML on-the-fly
Algorithmic ad placement
Algorithmic editorial

Off-web links

Web/CD-ROM hybrids
Beeper links
Fax links

Electronic commerce

Credit card and electronic funds routines
Inventory and fulfillment system links
Security and encryption utilities

Pick the web programmers who have the best design sense and the most experience with the particular programming feature that you need .

PRODUCTION

There are two phases of production: the initial propagation of the web database and the on-going input of new data. Often the first part is handled through an outside service firms and the second part s handled in-house. Production comprises a wide range of input,digitizing and converting functions:

PRODUCTION TASKS

Keyboarding, proofreading and correcting new copy
Creating new illustrations
Scanning new images
Developing a searchable web database
Converting standing text into HTML
Converting standing high res images into GIF and JPG
Converting standing multimedia into Shockwave
"De-composing" desktop publishing pages into HTML
Distilling desktop pages into Adobe Acrobat format
Digitizing sound and video
Handling transactions

Clearing credit card charges
Shipping on-line orders

Running the server

Hosting the site
Maintaining site statistics

Pick the production house who has the appropriate facilities and the most experience with the particular production tasks that you need . Often, traditional prepress and printing suppliers are best situated to handle the digital text and graphics components.

ASSIGN RESPONSIBILITIES

As you develop the list of multimedia elements, programming features and production tasks, assign responsibilities to the appropriate in-house people or outside service companies. Before committing new ideas to expensive computer code, storyboard and comp every page and multimedia element to be sure they fit the design. Discuss the graphical look and feel of the site as well as the navigation tools. Apply the search criteria on the real database to test what the on-line reader will see, fill out each form to see how real data will fit, and play every game to see what the likely out come will be.

Checking approval proofs of type and artwork is easy, but checking interactivity often means filling in the blanks with dummy data to see how the software reacts. Build in clear approval steps in the storyboarding phase to limit the expense of changes downstream.

MARKETING AND PROMOTION PROGRAMS

Every business plan need a marketing program, and a web site has both conventional and electronic promotional elements. As in the basic development, marketing tasks are divided between in-house personnel and outside service firms.

CONVENTIONAL MARKETING

Advertising

House ads
Paid ads
Direct mail advertising

Marketing

Web launch party
Web promotional literature
Promotional items

Public Relations

Web-site press kit
Press releases and follow-up contacts
Conference and seminar appearances

ELECTRONIC MARKETING

Listing on web search engines

Creation of electronic descriptors
Robotic search engine submissions
Manual search engine submission

Web page links

Searching and targeting related sites
Cooperative cross-links
Paid web ad links

Internet Public Relations

Electronic press kit
Press releases and follow-up to web publications
Newsgroup appearances
Email promotions

Unpaid house ads are the cheapest and easiest form of marketing, but they only reach an audience that is already sold on the publication's contact. Widening the audience through conventional advertising and marketing campaigns are more effective although more costly. Electronic marketing targets the individuals who are already on-line, and a good set of descriptors submitted to the main search engines will probably deliver the most new readers to the site.

Outside web public relations firms that handle both conventional activities--launch parties, press contacts, speaker promotion--and electronic marketing are very effective in drawing traffic to a new site. Pick a PR firm based on their success with similar clients and their contacts with the relevant media.

COST PROJECTIONS

A good web site plan will enable outside firms to bid on the basic web development and on the multimedia elements, programming features and production tasks., but even the most well-thought-out site will need a budget for revisions and alterations. More importantly, the unseen in-house costs of a site, the ongoing maintenance expense and the marketing and promotion costs must be part of a comprehensive cost estimate:

WEB SITE COSTS

Initial development: In-house costs

Developing the web site plan
Approving the development steps
Testing and feedback

Initial development: Outside charges

Creation

Editorial and art
Multimedia elements

Programming

Forms
Searches
Programs

Production

Input and proofing
Systems operation

In-house education

Editorial and design staff
Advertising and marketing reps
Management personnel

Marketing and promotion

In-house costs
Outside charges

Web PR firm
Paid advertising

Maintenance and upgrades

In-house editorial and art staff
Outside suppliers

As a rule of thumb, new web pages will probably cost about 30% more than the same content prepared for desktop publishing formats. The equipment and software are not more expensive, but the design and coding skills are new and untested. Over time, web pages will likely be much cheaper to produce than DTP pages since the web design environment is simpler and the resolution requirements are lower.

DEFINING AND MEASURING SUCCESS

The planning and projecting outlined above will reduce surprises during the creation and roll-out of the site. The last surprise to target is the definition of success: How do we know the site is a hit? In part, this refers back to the vision statement and goals for the project, but once the site is up and running careful monitoring and measurement is necessary to gauge the effectiveness of the effort.

INDEXES OF SUCCESS

Count of unique visitors (unique IP addresses)
Analysis of reader domains
Study of reader demographics
Analysis of popular pages
Analysis of average pages viewed per reader
Count of email messages received
Count of transactions processed
Count of on-line orders received and fulfilled
Count and analysis of referring links
Press clippings, paper and electronic

Decide which success points are the most important, estimate the expected traffic volume, and then assign a financial value to the results. For example,

a site that costs $50,000 and delivers 200,000 readers translates to a $250 CPM;
if it results in press coverage of 1 million circulation the CPM is $50;
if it delivers 50,000 qualified catalog page readers it costs $1 per lead; and
if it generates 2,000 orders each order costs $25.

In the real world, of course, the effects overlap, with readership, press coverage, qualified leads and actual orders all coming from a successful site. Moreover, the main investment comes in the initial development of the site, so second year costs are usually substantially lower.

Define your expectations at the outset and monitor the site's effectiveness month-by-month. Expect a big surge of traffic shortly after the launch date with a tapering off of readership as the newness wears off. The real challenge is to keep upgrading the content and keep marketing and promoting the site to maintain growth.

The World Wide Web offers a unique opportunity to deliver information, communicate with customers and transact business in a high tech/high touch environment. Careful and comprehensive planning are needed to focus an organization's vision, it's content and it's human resources to develop an effective interactive offering.\\

Comments, questions, suggestions or updates?
Visit The EP Diary Forum.