 
Business Plan
Jennifer Kelly Media Entrepreneurship April, 2015
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Table of Contents Executive Summary
3
Company Description
3
Industry Analysis and Trends
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Target Market Analysis
7
The Competition
8
Marketing Plan and Sales Strategy
9
Operations and Management
10
Financials
12
Appendix
13
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Executive Summary The Native Ad Virtual Summit is an event that is the first of its kind—an opportunity for thousands of geographically dispersed marketing, advertising and media professionals to gather online and conveniently watch expert interviews over the course of two days with native advertising thought leaders. This summit is uniquely positioned at the start of the online summit boom. With travel becoming a hassle for most businesses, the online summit affords the opportunity to get all the benefits of a conference, without all of the hassle. The market for Native Ad Virtual Summit is advertising, marketing and media professionals. Targeting those who have a growing interest in native advertising, and who need more information about it. The Native Ad Virtual Summit currently has no direct competition. There are currently no other online summits dedicated to Native Advertising at this time. Sharethrough does a live summit on native advertising yearly. This event will mainly use sponsors and guest experts for marketing. There will also be a social media plan that includes sponsors as well as paid social ads from a Native Ad Virtual Summit account. The sales plan is selling sessions of the summit, which will only be streamed for a 24 hour period and afterwards attendees will no longer have access to them, unless they purchase the recordings.
Company Description This event is the first of its kind—an opportunity for thousands of geographically dispersed marketing, advertising and media professionals to gather online and conveniently watch expert interviews over the course of two days with native advertising thought leaders.
The Company’s Mission Native Ad Virtual Summit is committed to providing the best and most up to date information on native advertising in a platform that gives opportunity to learn best practices and emerging trends from leading experts and media organizations. Native Ad Virtual Summit’s goal is to reach thousands of marketing, advertising and media professionals across the globe while expanding the knowledge and potential for native advertising.
Services The Native Ad Virtual Summit will provide in-depth interviews with experts in native advertising. There will be 8-10 interviews over a 2 day period. The interviews will stream for 24 hours, so that attendees can view them at their convince. This will be offered at no cost to all registered attendees. In addition to the 24 hour free streaming period, attendees will have the option to purchase recordings of the interviews for $97 until the end of the summit, and $197 after the summit ends. Recordings will give attendees the opportunity to review interviews again and again for insights of information they will likely forget, as well as the chance to share all of the great information with colleagues and team members.
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Development-to-Date Website Native Ad Virtual Summit currently has a landing page with information about the summit for those who go and visit it at www.nativeadvirtualsummit.com. A video has been recorded that will go on the landing page explaining exactly what the summit is. An additional video has been recorded for a post registration page detailing next steps for registrants and the special bonus of being able to purchase recordings at a reduced price. Guest Experts & Sponsorships Starting with a list of 14 experts to reach out to, there have been 4 interviews secured and confirmed at this time including Joe Pulizzi from Content Marketing Institute, Todd Handy from Deseret Digital Media, Sam Ford with Peppercomm, and TBA from Sharethrough. A total of 38 marketing, media and advertising companies involved in native advertising have been reached out to for sponsorship opportunities. As of now, 5 have been confirmed and we are in negotiations with several others.
Legal Status & Ownership The business structure for Native Ad Virtual Summit will be an LLC, Sub-S Corporation and the owner is Jennifer Kelly. Native Ad Virtual Summit is in the process of trademarking the name ‘Native Ad Virtual Summit’ as well as the art associated with the logo. There will be no need for investors for Native Ad Virtual Summit. Start-up costs are minimal and any other costs will be taken directly out of money made from the sale of recordings.
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Industry Analysis The Native Ad Virtual Summit is uniquely positioned at the start of the online summit boom. With travel becoming a hassle for most businesses, the online summit aords the opportunity to get all the benefits of a conference, without all of the hassle.
Industry Overview
Native advertising has been growing over the past several years with the growth of social media. Banner ads have gotten to the point where they are being ignored, and native ads are being looked at 52% more than banner ads1. According to Forbes and Solve Media, only 25-30% of the marketing and advertising world is using native ads2, so there is a lot of ground to cover. The Native Ad Virtual Summit is going to reach out to that niche and provide important information to marketers and advertisers who are on the fence about native advertising. Native advertising has been a controversial topic for the last few years. There is an ongoing debate over whether native advertising is tricking consumers or providing value. While Kiss Metrics shares that over 80% of users feel mislead by video ads that appear as content3, Sharethrough reports that people are more likely to share native ads on social media. Page 5 of 13
The Native Ad Virtual Summit will provide a forum for these debates to take place, as well as information distribution.
Market Opportunity Online summits are an up and coming information service. The Native Ad Virtual Summit is using this vehicle to reach out to the native ad market. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the advertising and marketing professions have a growth rate of 12%. With more advertising and marketing professionals, and less reporters, the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows a decline of 13% 4, media outlets will begin going to advertisers and marketers more and more for content. Content marketing and native advertising are growing rapidly with the increase of social media and social media outlets. Ad Week shares that the number of social network users will top 2 billion by 2016 5. With growth such as this more and more advertisers are going to turn to ways of engaging their customers where they are, on social media.
Barriers to Entry Building an audience online can be a tricky and time consuming task. Since the Native Ad Virtual Summit is an online only business, launching in June 2015, the audience needs to be built quickly. The first barrier would be not finding high quality guest experts to provide amazing information to oer customers of the Native Ad Virtual Summit. Guests experts are vital to the success of the Native Ad Virtual Summit, and not just any guest experts, there need to be at least a few high profile experts thrown into the mix. Second, finding the best sponsors for the summit. Our sponsors need to have an audience interested in native advertising, and that audience needs to be quite large. The larger their audience, the higher the conversion rates will be for the Native Ad Virtual Summit.
Long-Term Opportunities On a long term basis, the Native Ad summit will be held annually and possibly semi-annually based on the performance of the first summit in June of 2015. Additionally, there maybe an online publication launched out of the Native Ad Virtual Summit.
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Target Market The Native Ad Virtual Summit is for advertising, marketing and media professionals. Targeting those who have a growing interest in native advertising, and who need more information about it.
Market Description Advertising and marketing seem to be taking over reporter’s jobs. Content marketing has created space for advertisers and marketers to develop engaging content that provides value to consumers. The market for the Native Ad Virtual Summit are those markets and advertisers who are diving into the world of content marketing and want to incorporate native ads into the mix.
Market Size and Trends As stated in the pervious section, advertising and marketing professions have a growth rate of 12%. With 13% less reporters6, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows. Social media is also growing at rapid rates and there are new social platforms popping up daily. Advertisers are using all of these platforms to meet the consumers where they are, and native advertising taps into that7.
Target Customers Customers of the Native Ad Virtual Summit are marketing and advertising professionals who are just starting out, or on the fence about adding native advertising to the mix of their marketing efforts. Only 25-30% of marketing professionals are using native advertising now, so the people we want to reach are those not using it. Profile of a Native Ad Virtual Summit target customer: • AGE: 27-45 • EDUCATION: Bachelors and above * PROFESSION: Advertising, Marketing, Executives, Media, Reporters
Market Readiness Native Advertising is growing at a rapid rate with publications like Buzzfeed and Mashable leading the way. Several publications are taking on sponsored content and adding native advertising to their websites. Native advertising platforms are popping up regularly, and companies are hopping on to native advertising quickly. With approximately 70% of companies and marketing professionals not using native yet, there is plenty of room for growth.
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Strategic Opportunities The Native ad Virtual Summit has the following advantages with it target customers. • A genuine interest in Native Advertising • Relationships with experts • Information on Native advertising
Competition The Native Ad Virtual Summit currently had no direct competition. There are no other online summits dedicated to Native Advertising at this time. Sharethrough does a live summit on native advertising yearly. With no direct competition the question why has to be asked. Why isn’t there already an online summit for native advertising? It would be easy to say, because there is no market for it, but that is not true. Luckily, there are many companies starting up who provide native advertising services, which shows the market is ripe. Also, Sharethrough’s yearly live summit has done well for the last three years. The reason there is no direct competition is because online summits are such a new platform, not all markets have been infiltrated yet. The Native Ad Virtual Summit is proud to be the first on this subject. Outlined below are the advantages and disadvantages to having no direct competition.
Advantages • Being the first to create something for the target market • Leading the industry • More customers
Disadvantages • There is no research to fall back on • It can be harder to reach your target market • Motivation to succeed can be lower
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Marketing Plan & Sales Strategy Marketing Message This event will mainly use sponsors and guest experts for marketing. There will also be a social media plan that includes sponsors as well as paid social ads from a Native Ad Virtual Summit account.
Sponsors Sponsors will be asked to schedule and send three solo email communications to their list plus three social media posts announcing their sponsorship of the Native Ad Virtual Summit. We will provide all the pertinent text and graphics with a suggested timeline leading up to the event. At the start of each Native Ad Virtual Summit session, we’ll display a list of all the summit sponsors for the audience to review before each expert interview begins. This will be combined with a call to action from the summit host.
Guest Experts Guest experts will likely promote their involvement on their social media accounts. We will also send them three pre-written social posts to share as well. Many of our guest experts have large social followings, so this will bring several customers to the Summit Landing page giving a greater chance for conversion.
Social Media We will create a like page on Facebook and a Twitter account for The Native ad summit, as well as a social media plan that will include paid ads through Facebook and Twitter. These ads will be targeted ads that will show up in the feeds of marketing, advertising and media professionals.
Sales Structure Since the Native Ad Virtual Summit is a free event, the question is, how will it make money? The sessions of the summit will only be streamed for a 24 hour period, after which attendees will no longer have access to them. To recoup costs as well as make a profit, recordings of the sessions will be sold.
Pre-Sale In the days leading up to the event, registered attendees will receive emails reminding them to order their recordings of the sessions at the discounted price of $97. Attendees will have until the end of the summit to order at this special price.
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Operations Native Ad Virtual Summit operations will run from April, 2015 until June 2015, with subsequent annual summits to follow. It will run out of the homes of the employees since it lives on the internet. There will be no physical location or facilities. Jennifer Kelly and Lisa Kelly will be working full time on the Native ad Summit during the course of those 3 months. They will be updating the website, securing sponsorships, experts, recording videos, implementing social strategies and handling troubleshooting for attendees. Day to day operations will vary between these tasks. The attendance and responses from attendees of the Native Ad Virtual Summit will directly impact whether this will be an annual or bi-annual event.
Technology Technology will be the driving force for this event, because the entire event as well as the products involved are all technology based. Hardware iMac( 2), iPhone (1), Webcam (1), Microphone (1) Software/Platforms Garage Band, Screenflow, Photoshop, EasyVSL, Wordpress, Leadpages, Gumroad, Wistia All of these assets are currently owned or have been acquired prior to startup of the Native Ad Virtual Summit.
Management Key Employees Jennifer Kelly, Owner/Host Jennifer is currently a student in the Media Communications program at Full Sail University. She has 7 years of experience in marketing. During her studies at FSU, Jennifer has taken a heavy interest in native advertising. Through her previous work on podcasts, she has developed contacts who are already in the native advertising industry. Having created and edited several interviews and videos for school work and for podcast clients, Jennifer has a deep understanding of what it takes to create quality online interviews. Her role as owner and host of Native Ad Virtual Summit is to secure interviews and sponsors, record and edit all interviews, troubleshoot any technology issues and oversee day to day tasks.
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Lisa Kelly, Design/Project Manager Lisa has over 15 years of experience as a graphic designer and has developed stellar project management skills along the way. Lisa has worked at key companies such as Sears, Valspar Paints, and Accenture. In her role as designer and project manager, she will be responsible for all design aspects of the Native Ad Virtual Summit as well as project management and the timeline for the summit.
Key Advisors Bryan Kelly Bryan Kelly has experience as a marketing director, virtual speaker and has recently created an online summit that was a success. Bryan has developed a process for creating a successful online summit that he is sharing with the Native Ad Virtual Summit. Bryan will be available as a guide and help troubleshoot any issues that may pop up with the summit.
Management Structure
Jennifer Kelly Owner/Host
Lisa Kelly Design/Project Manager
Bryan Kelly Advisor
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Financials The breakdown of the financials for the Native Ad Virtual summit shows what expenses will be or already have been incurred as well as how we plan to fund those expenses.
Expenses Technical Costs Monthly/Yearly Lead Pages
3 months
Total
$25.00 Monthly
$75.00
9.99 annually
$9.99
WP Engine
$99.00 Monthly
$297.00
AWeber
$19.00 Monthly
$57.00
$25 Monthly + Bandwidth
$75.00
Go Daddy
Wistia Gum Road
5% of sales
TOTAL
$513.99 Equipment Costs
Microphone
$79.99
Skype Call recorder
$29.99
HD Webcam
$129.99
Screen Flow
$49.99
TOTAL
$289.96
Funding Personal Native Ad Virtual Summit has the advantage of already having many of the technical and equipment items. These things have been owned for some time for other business ventures as well as projects. Additional costs will come out of personal funding, as they are small. Pre-Sale The Native Ad Virtual Summit will run a pre-sale of summit recordings, which will cover the costs of bandwidth needed to run steaming of the sessions. The pre-sales and post-sales will also cover any additional unexpected costs that come up.
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Appendix 1
Abramovich , G. (2013). 15 mind-blowing stats about native advertising. CMO by Adobe. Retrieved from http://www.cmo.com/articles/2013/10/21/15_Stats_Native_Advertising.html
2
Flite Blog. (2013). 25 Fascinating Stats on Native Advertising. Retrieved from http://blog.flite.com/home/2013/8/6/25-fascinating-stats-on-native-advertising#.VTP6wFzzcko=
3
Wong, D. (2014). 11 surprising stats that demonstrate native advertising's value to marketers. Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danny-wong/11-surprisingstats-that-_b_5267424.html
4,6
Bureau of Labor Services. (2012). Us Department of Labor, Occupational Handbook, 2012-13 Edition, Advertising, Promotions, and Marketing Managers. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/advertising-promotions-and-marketing-managers.htm
5,7
Bennett, S. (2013). Social Media Growth Worldwide – 2 Billion Users By 2016, Led By India. Social Times. Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/social-media-growth-worldwide/ 493361
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