In-Depth Marketing Plan Details

1 - Vision and Mission Statement

Mission - "To assist aspiring filmmakers, online creators and businesses with the post-production aspects of creating the quality video projects they aspire to"
Vision - "Help to create a large variety of impactful and purposeful projects all over the country, while encouraging and improving the creative side of the local area."

2 - SWOT Analysis

3 - Marketing Objectives

Specific - The primary objective of my marketing, from the start of my business's existence, will be to attract, at the very least, as many clients as the company needs to break even in terms of its monthly outgoing costs, and make enough profits for me to cover my living costs.

Measurable - For a specific goal, the company should hopefully bring in at least --- each month.

Achievable - As the company will be ran solely by me, meaning there will be no need staff costs to consider, as well as the fact that it will be worked on from home, leading to more expensive living costs as an exchange for not having to rent out a separate office space and all the costs that would come with that, the business would find it slightly easier to become profitable than a business using more expensive alternatives. However, in 2022, living costs for every average person in the UK (including housing, bills, food, and so on) is a lot more expensive than it has been in the past, due to lots of justifications the government make each year, making the company becoming independently, financially stable for itself and me very difficult on its own.
Realistic - In an attempt to meet these goals though, online advertising (primarily on social media websites) will be made use of in order to attract as many clients to the services the business would provide as possible, which will also be quite a varied amount of editing services in hopes of, once again, being able to take on as many paid briefs as I can. From the research I have done into this type of advertising, the most useful and cheapest type will be advertising on YouTube, conveniently where a lot of creators can be found who may be considering hiring an editor for some projects. Google's AdSense programme also has options which allow advertising to be focused on a specific radius area of the country for the ads to appear in, which would assist towards the "improving the creative side of the local area" potential of my company's vision statement too.

Time Sensitive - Along with all of the other social media advertising I intend on potentially using use of at some point (which include Instagram, Twitter and Facebook), I will plan a set monthly budget for how much I will spend on advertising on each platform monthly. This budget may change and go up or down each month for each platform, based on whatever successes or failures I see occurring from each site's ads at each month's end.

4 - Marketing Strategies

USP -

As is stated in the business's vision statement, part of my company's 'Unique Selling Point' (known as its USP) will be to be an independent video editing company, which puts good communication at the forefront of its operations, while having the capabilities of assisting with the post-production aspects of a wide variety of content types and hoping to improve "the creative side of the local area" as a result.

Place you will sell it -

I have decided that the 'place' I will sell my services will be online, more specifically on the official website of my business. This definitely seems like the best fit, compared to using some sort of physical market for example, due to the digital nature of the services my business is providing, and the freedom of each side of the transactions spending time to think about, discuss and perfect each detail in what is being paid for and what exact service will be purchased and complete. Partly as a result of these transactions taking place online, I also believe that it would be best for the payments to be done using methods such as PayPal or proper Debit payments, quite like how sites like Ebay or Amazon handle transactions.

Price(s) you will charge -

As briefly mentioned above, the business's website will include a list of different options (or "packages") of editing services for customers to consider purchasing. This is due to how wide of a job video editing can be, and the amount of variation of factors such as complexity, video quality and time different kinds of video projects may require, and as a result, the pricing of my services will not be one specific price for everybody, and will be able to be discussed between myself and customers before reaching an amount both of us are satisfied with. For a rough estimate of what kinds of packages will potentially cost what however, I have made a blogpost about it (linked here -- https://willgrimmerl4creativeenterprise.blogspot.com/2022/04/editing-packages-pricing.html)

How will you promote it -

Due to the nature of my business being one which takes place digitally, often assisting in creating content that may be directly posted or talked about online, the marketing I will take part in to promote the business will reflect that, being done primarily on the internet. Specifically, most of the advertising will be making use of many social media sites' advertising programmes, allowing me to promote the business on social media platforms which have common enough advertising for lots of people to see my ads, as well as be I place where I believe a lot of my target audience(s) will be (these sites being YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter). On top of the direct, paid advertising campaigns though, I will also create specific social media presences on each of these sites for the business itself, allowing me to post related content and make use of the platforms algorithms to create free promotion for my business and potentially reach and interest even more customers as a result.

People I involve - The business is going to take the form of a completely independently ran company. This means that I will be the only person working on the business, with no intentions on hiring any staff or working alongside anyone else. However, this does not mean that the idea of having anyone else potentially get involved with the business in the future is completely out of the window, as depending on amount of work being requested and the overall success in the long term, there is the potential that the business (and myself) could benefit from employing others, or benefitting from a 'symbiotic' business relationship with a local general video production company for example. This being said, all of the marketing work that needs to be done, such as designed graphics, video ads and so on, will be made by myself, and all ad campaigns will similarly be handled by myself.

The Process I employ to make, sell and deliver it -

Once a potential client has come across my business and its services, (whether that be from social media or any of its advertising), if they decide that they potentially would like to hire me for one of their projects, they should direct themselves to me website and contact me using the 'contact' section. There, they will be requested to leave me certain details about themselves, such as their name and contact information, as well as a detailed description of what the video project is they would like me to help them work on. Once I have received this, I will respond as soon as I can, and proceed to discuss in more detail (either through email or face-to-face if they wish) what they want me to edit for them, how long it may take me to complete, and a pricing which both of us are happy with (with most of this information likely matching up to the details of the pricing 'packages' I have created, linked above). Once we are both happy with everything discussed, and the files I require from them are sent over to me online, I will set to work editing what they have requested using Adobe Premiere Pro, potentially also using Audition or After Effects along the way depending on said project. Once the edit is to a standard I believe fits what was requested of me, I will send back the first draft to the client, allowing them to give me feedback and ask for any changes they may want once seeing what I have done. After this has been done, I will set out to create set changes, and send the client the final, completed project, both as a video file, and a Premiere Pro project file, allowing them to make any slight tweaks they may decide to in the future.

The Physical Environment I work from -

I've decided that my business would be one that I would benefit from choosing a 'home' work environment, working and running the company from my house. This of course would require telling the HMRC that I am using my home as a workplace, as well as a few other things I would have to do as a result of not working at a separate workplace to the place I live, but I feel due to the nature of the job and the fact that a lot of the resources (if not all of them) I already possess or can easily possess for myself at home, this would be a better idea financially than trying to look for an office to work in for a business which is going to be ran independently anyway.

5 - Implementing the Plan (first year)

Activity1 - YouTube In-Display Advertising

Timescale - Monthly

Assigned to - Me

Budget - (1 ad = ~23p, so, 0.23 x 200 =) £46