WEBSITE PROPOSAL
A nd r e a s
Kaitlin Andreas Digital Marketing
Table of Contents Page Number
Executive Summary
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Marketing Objectives
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Demographics and Psychographics
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Behavioral Analysis
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Persuasive Defense
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Budget
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Press Release
13
Press Defense
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Web Pages
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Executive Summary At Andreas boutique we are focused on expanding our business and improving our revenue. We feel the decision to start up a store website would be extremely beneficial to our company. At our brick and mortar store we offer women’s ready to wear clothing for the professional working woman. She is between the ages of her early 20s to mid-30s. She has a career that requires her to dress professionally, but she also has a full social calendar as well and we offer clothing that is easy to alter from work to play. Our website would offer merchandise that is similar to what we offer in our physical location. It is extremely important and crucial for our business to have an up and running website that consumers are able to purchase from because these are busy women. Their schedules are full so they don’t have much time to shop. Our website will allow them to shop from home without the hassle of traffic, limited time, gas money, and any other reason that might stop them from coming into the store. These women are also tech-savvy; they are very knowledgeable about the latest technologies and keeping up with the internet. Most of them already do their shopping online. A website will also allow us to reach consumers who are not in traveling distance to our brick-and-mortar location. We can broaden our market and offer our services to people in other cities, states, and countries. A website will allow us to bring in more revenue and earn a higher profit. Competitors are staying ahead with their websites and finding more and more ways to reach their consumers and the only way to really keep up with them is to find out what works best and do it first, but the first step is to catch up. Creating a website would be completely beneficial to the company and expand our business further into the market. We believe as a company that our customers are our number one priority and in order to satisfy them we have to meet their needs and make sure they feel safe and secure. Our proposed website fulfills these requirements. We are providing consumers with an opportunity to shop our business at their own convenience, as well as, the ability to go beyond shopping and experience what many other websites do not offer with our exclusive features link. Our secure shopping cart system lets our consumers know that by shopping our website they are protected from theft and phishing. We want users to find our website easy to use, inviting and fascinating so they keep coming back to shop, as well as, find new features that we have added to the website or special promotions we may be offering online. We want Andreas to become the new and favorite store that everyone is talking about and by creating a website we have a new way to interact with our consumers. We predict Andreas will become the new affair . . . love affair, that is, that our shoppers won’t be able to hide from their friends and family.
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Marketing Objectives The following points cover the objectives and goals we plan to reach for Andreas Boutique based on the production and utilization of a store website. These objectives will help to guide our business through the decision making, and are based on finding new ways to satisfy consumers and keep our profits rising. An opportunity for an extra source of revenue.
Timeline: At the start up of the website and remaining throughout the business’s continued operation. o
By starting a website for Andreas Boutique we have the ability to sell our merchandise online and ship it to our customers, so revenue isn’t just coming from customer’s who shop our brick and mortar location.
o
People are busy these days and so the chance for our customers to shop online allows them to shop from home or anywhere else when they don’t have time to come to our physical location.
Lower advertising expenses.
Timeline: Within the first two or three months. Advertising may be necessary to jump start the website and build consumer knowledge about the operating virtual store, but plan to lower the advertising expense as soon as we know word is out. o
By entering the technological world, we can set up social networking sites that allow us to reach potential consumers throughout surrounding areas without having to spend thousands of dollars on advertising. The sites would contain direct links to our store website, so people can check out our merchandise and start buying though a few easy clicks.
o
We would also get in contact with other businesses throughout the area that our consumers visit, for example restaurants such as The Melting Pot and 520 Bar & Grill, and set up a couple reciprocal linking functions that people who are interested to visit our site from theirs and vice versa.
Locate new market areas we can expand the business.
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Timeline: Within the first 18 months to two years. It is important that we thoroughly research possible market areas, and we don’t try to expand too soon before we are positive that we are making the right decision. o
Using Geo-location services we can track areas were our website gets a large number of impressions and find new geographic locations that would be beneficial areas to expand our brick and mortar store.
o
Our website will allow us to saturate different market areas that are lacking the products that we sell and based on feedback received by consumers we may find highly opportunistic locations that would greatly improve the success of our business, which we never would have found without the help of our website.
Use the World Wide Web as a channel for less popular items.
Timeline: At the start up of the website and remaining throughout the business’s continued operation. o
Items that may not be selling well in our brick and mortar store we can display on our website. There is a greater chance they would sell over the internet because more people would be able to view the product.
o
Certain products that aren’t resulting in a high turnover may be a factor of seasons or colors that are not compatible with the physical location of the store. By allowing browsers in different geographic locations to purchase these items we have the opportunity to move the product out of the store which will make room for new merchandise that will sell faster.
Utilize a link exchange with companies who maintain a similar target audience without taking away business. Timeline: Within the first month and remaining throughout the business’s continued operation. o
By partnering with other businesses who target a comparable target market, but who are not direct competitors, we have the chance to reach possible consumer who may not have otherwise known about our company by displaying links from our website to theirs and vice versa.
o
Consumers are more likely to shop our store if they know we support other businesses within their community and by sharing link exchanges we are not only trying to promote our business, but we are also helping promote theirs’ as well.
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Increasing overall sales by increasing consumer’s interest in our store. Timeline: At the start up of the website and remaining throughout the business’s continued operation. o
By creating a website that is engaging and interactive, such as our exclusive features page that is accessible to users who activate their own personal account we can not only create an interest in our product, but also in the business as a whole and what we can offer aside from strictly merchandise will ultimately increase our sales.
o
By utilizing our website to display special events that are happening in store, or special features online, like streaming videos we can increase traffic through our website and our brick and mortar store.
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Demographics At Andreas, our main focus is to target women between their mid-20’s and mid-30’s. This also includes women as young as 18 up to the early 40’s who dress to feel older or younger and can also be included among our primary target consumers. Our ideal Andreas shopper is a single or married woman with no kids who has plenty of disposable income to spend on herself. Our prices at Andreas are set at a mid-price range so our model consumer would have a college education, more specifically a Bachelor’s Degree and a mid to higher income.
Psychographics Free time for our typical Andreas consumer is spent going shopping at stores such as, Nordstrom and Anthropologie. Bikram Yoga is popular among our target audience because they like to stay fit and in shape. Many of our consumers have stories from the many trips they have taken around the world. Favorite shows include: Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, and The Bachelor. Andreas consumers listen to many genres of music. Country, rock and pop are all popular. Movies also range from comedies, romantic comedies, action and horror. Based on their lifestyles, social activities and hobbies we can assume that our primary consumers fall into the VALS categories of Innovators, Experiencers and Thinkers. Our younger consumers most likely fall into the category of Experiencers, while the more mature, career oriented consumers more than likely fall among the Innovators and Thinkers.
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Behavioral Analysis Our targeted female is always plugged in to technology no matter where she is. She is a very tech-savvy individual and keeps up to date on the latest features and gadgets. She works by day and is social by night and she manages to keep up with both. She owns the latest Smartphone so she can access her e-mail and social networking sites no matter where she is, even if she isn’t out of bed yet. She has a countless number of APPs that keep her entertained. She is constantly updating her Facebook and Twitter to keep in contact with friends and family and her email is set to notify her whenever a new message arrives, so she is continuously checking in. She recently purchased the latest iPad because it’s more convenient to keep with her than her computer. In order to keep up with the news and current affairs happening around the world her homepage is set to CNN.com where the updates are by the minute. She also has a number of sites she visits religiously throughout the day when she has a spare moment. Sites like Vogue.com, YouTube, Hulu, and Pandora are among her favorites so she can stay up to date on the latest fashion, videos, television and music. Because of her job and social life she doesn’t get much time to go out and shop so she is often browsing through new merchandise that is offered online from some of her favorite retailers. It has become a ritual every night before she goes to bed to check in with her e-mail and social networking sites one last time.
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Persuasive Defense Www.AndreasBoutique.com is a URL that many people will be adding to their list of favorites. The main focus of our website aside from making it a secure safe website to protect our consumers from becoming victims of credit card or identity theft, we will be focused on creating a site that is appealing and keeps users returning. The color palette and layout will be attractive and comfortable for the women in our demographic as well as, tying in the environment of the store. We don’t want to overwhelm our customers with bright colors because it would be too out of character for our business. Our store portrays more of a relaxed, calming vibe, which will not only be represented by the colors we display, but also by our photographs as well. We also hope to gain interest with our “Exclusive Features” webpage which is accessible to users who sign up an account with our website. This page is to provide links that may be of interest to our consumers. It will also construct for a more interactive site and sends users the message that we value their loyalty and put the extra effort into making them feel as if we are interested in more than just selling them merchandise. Customers will also be able to access our social networking pages through our site. According to Research Brief’s August 5th, 2010 article “Women Shaping the Web” social networking sites reach a higher percentage of women than men globally and women present a higher “engagement” with social networking sites. This news is beneficial to us seeing that our targeted demographic is female. With these features we hope to gain a greater number of impressions; therefore, we will be able to tell whether or not our site is serving a purpose. One of the challenges we will encounter with a website is the loss of face to face interaction with our customers; as a result, in order to still be able to suggest other products for the possibility of an upsell we have to alter our selling strategies. An important feature we have chosen to create a suggestion box that will appear once a customer clicks on a specific product to view. The suggestion box will appear on the right hand side to give them ideas of other items they might be interested in based on the specific item they recently selected. They can then click directly to one of those products to make another purchase if they choose. Once the purchase is made and the checkout process is complete an automatic responder will send an e-mail to their personal address confirming that their order had been placed. Another challenge is the possibility of becoming one of the millions of websites that have gotten lost among the deep web. In order to prevent this we have created a list of terms and keywords that a browser might type into a search engine. These terms would place us higher on the 10
list of results which will ultimately increase the amount of traffic throughout the website. These keywords would also include common misspellings and popular searches in order to make www.AndreasBoutique.com easier to find.
These key words include:
Andreas
Andreas Boutique
Andres Boutique
Andrew’s Boutique
Andrea’s Boutique
Bellevue Boutiques
Seattle Boutiques
Bellevue Shopping
Seattle Shopping
Washington Boutiques
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Budget IT (Information Technology) person: $70 per hour Estimated time: 90 hours Total for IT: $6,300 Norton 360 All in One Security: Two year download $134.99 Secure Shopping Cart: $39 per month For one year: $468 Register URL with Google and Yahoo: Free! Register ad words with Google: Daily Budget: $10 Monthly Cost: $300 For one year: $3,600 Register domain name: GoDaddy.com Bulk Pricing: 1-5 names for 1 year: $11.99 Product photography: Artist Eye Portfolio: Hourly Rate: $115 Estimated Time: 40 hours Estimated 4 Product shoots per year Total for Product Photography for 1 year: $18,400 Portrait Photography Artist Eye Portfolio: 4-hour photo shoot: $550 (includes 1 hours retouching) Location Fee: $195 Estimated 1 locations per month Total for portrait photography for 1 year: $8,940
Estimated Total for Start Up and First Year: $37,855
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For Immediate Release Andreas Boutique Contact: Kaitlin Andreas 200 Plaza Building 210 105th Ave NE Bellevue, WA (509) 594-6533 Kandreas@clearwire.net
Andreas Boutique – A Love Affair Too Good To Hide Andreas Boutique would like to introduce the new, up and coming production of our store website. Now, consumers can shop our boutique anytime and practically anywhere! Find out about new merchandise, connect to social networking profiles, chat live with a stylist and even find out about upcoming trends through our highly interactive site. This new opportunity to shop and search merchandise is predicted to be a fun, helpful, and an exciting chance to find sweet deals on merchandise! Andreas Boutique is located in the heart of Downtown Bellevue, but for those who are geographically challenged, we can now be found on the World Wide Web at www.AndreasBoutique.com . This new coming attraction will be available to access August 1st, 2012, so mark your calendars and get ready to shop like you’ve never shopped before! At Andreas Boutique we have chosen to “go global” in order to reach new markets and bring exciting new shopping experiences to consumers worldwide! You won’t want to forget August 1st! This is going to be one affair that you just can’t hide (or stop) . . . so, let all of your fashion friends know because it’s too good to not shop and tell! For those who just can’t wait find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter . . . or just come see us in Bellevue!
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Press Release Defense The press release for the launch of our Andreas Boutique website will be released to Seattle Magazine, D-List Magazine and Women’s Wear Daily. We have chosen Seattle Magazine and D-List magazine to publish our press release in order to promote the start up of the website throughout the area our brick and mortar store is currently located. Women’s Wear Magazine is a daily is the international “fashion bible”. In order to promote the opportunity to shop our website among people who are not located in our geographical position we have chosen to reach our fashion forward consumers through this popular channel. We are hopeful that once the word gets out about the startup of our online company it will continue to spread and our worldwide business will prolong the success and jump start the expansion of our boutique.
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Andreas Home Page
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Andreas Exclusive Features Page
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Andreas Apparel Search
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Andreas Shoes Search
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Andreas Accessories Search
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Andreas Order Screen
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Andreas Checkout Screen
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Andreas Site Map
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