Services Is a Small, Family-Owned

¶ … Services is a small, family-owned editing company. The company has been in existence for nine years and has grown from a one-person operation operated out of a home office, to employing six full-time and five part-time/contract employees. Much of AAA Editorial Service's business has been through previously established relationships with literary agents referrals of their clients. The organization wishes to grow their sales revenue by 20%, through the use of strategic Internet marketing. These strategies will include revamping the organization's web presence, employing SEO content strategies, utilizing PPC advertising, and looking to harness the power of social networking sites and a company blog to increase their business.

Marketing Aims and Objectives:

The primary marketing aim for AAA Editorial Services is to increase their sales revenue by 20%. To do this, the organization's objective is to build its Internet presence and utilize Internet marketing strategies to their fullest potential. Currently, the company's recently closed last fiscal year revenues were just under $500,000. The company aims to increase their editorial services sales revenue by $100,000, by the end of the next fiscal year.

The company has the available human resources to meet this objective. The five part-time and contract employees that are currently on staff have all expressed a desire to increase their hours with AAA Editorial Services. In addition, the company has used an Internet freelancer clearinghouse website, oDesk.com, in the past when they have needed to hire additional editors for a single project. This service, in the past, has provided experienced editors, at a reasonable price. In fact, one current full-time employee and one current contract employee was originally found through this service.

Product or Market Background:

The editorial market is thriving, despite a challenging general economy, thanks to one significant development -- self-publishing. A generation ago, publishing a book meant thousands, if not tens of thousands, of books had to be printed and sold in order to offset press costs. This reality meant that self-publishing was often a very expensive option for writers, and as such, to get their works published, they had to turn to traditional publishing houses. In addition, publishers too were very picky about which manuscripts they accepted for publication, choosing only those that they thought would sell well enough to make a profit after the large print expense.

However, today, print-on-demand technology, and the ability to print single copies of books, at reasonable prices, has opened up the world of self-publishing. In 2008 alone, self-publishing company iUniverse printed more than 13,000 titles. This is compared to Random House, the world's largest traditional publisher which published approximately only 3,000 titles (Rich, 2009), Lulu.com, founded by Red Hat co-founder Bob Young, publishes approximately 1,000 titles a month as well (Kharif, 2005). There are thousands of new authors, self-publishing, without the aid of a traditional publishing house to polish their manuscript, and in desperate need of an editing service just like AAA Editorial Services.

Internet Marketing Analyses:

The competition in the editing services industry is significant. Given the low-cost of entry into the market, there are services that are being formed daily. The competitors range from one-person home office businesses (much as AAA Editorial Services started) to those that boast that they have hundreds of editors on staff. Although it's difficult to determine exactly the extent of these competitors, given their virtual nature, one thing is certain, not all have the same overhead costs as AAA Editorial Services. Many of the editing services that can be found online are from developing nations. These non-native English writers may not offer as accurate an editing service; however, they are able to offer their services at a significant savings to the writer.

In addition, there is the threat of substitutes in the editorial industry. Built in spell check and grammar check protocols in word processing software can often catch many editing mistakes writers make, without the use of an editor. More and more sophisticated editing software is like to be developed, to complement word processors, and to differentiate themselves from their competitors. As a result, many writers, especially novice writers, may not feel paying for an editing service is a value. However, these software programs cannot give the qualitative feedback a good editing service can offer, such as the quality of character development or plot pace.

The target segment for this Internet marketing plan will be primarily writers using self-publishing services. These will be both previously unpublished and published authors. In addition, by building a stronger web presence and the AAA Editorial Services brand, it is anticipated that business will also increase with agent-referral clients.

Marketing Strategy:

The marketing strategy AAA Editorial Services, to grow their business, will utilize will be based solely on Internet-focused programs. Top of this priority list will be the revamping of the AAA Editorial Services website. Currently, the website is a brief introduction of the company and contact information. A search engine optimization (SEO) expert will be hired to develop new, more comprehensive, content for the site, to help ensure it is placed at the top of search engine listings, when potential clients search for keywords such as "editing," "editing services," "proofreading," and more. New content for the website will be keyword rich, to ensure this placement.

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising will also be utilized as part of this new marketing strategy. PPC advertising, as the name implies, charges advertisers depending on the number of people who click through their advertising link, to visit their site. Using services like GoogleAds, and other high traffic sites that can target specifically writers, AAA Editorial Services should maximize their impressions to click ratio. PPC advertising will also be purchased on social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter. Facebook.com offers the ability to set demographic preferences for users who will see the ad, such as writers.

Lastly, developing a company blog, and making sure to use social networking sites to promote the blog, will help drive more traffic to the company's website. Blog topics will be pertinent to writers. These can include writing tips, methods of contacting literary agents, self-publishing how-tos, and more.

Statement of Expected Results:

It is expected that AAA Editorial Services will see an immediate increase in web traffic, once the new SEO website is in place and PPC advertising begins. This increase in web traffic will result in greater brand exposure and increased sales. As the company garners new clients, sales should also increase not only from the Internet marketing strategies that will be used, but also increased word-of-mouth sales. In addition, it is expected that the new company blog will attract a good following, given the valuable information that will be found there. This will help build the company's image as an editing and publishing expert, further building value in the organization's services and differentiating it from its competitors.

Marketing Programs for Implementation:

The product that will be offered is the same as has been the standard product for the company, since its inception. AAA Editorial Services offers publishing quality editing services and feedback to its clients. Standard editing prices are 4 cents per word of the manuscript. This includes not only technical proofreading but also qualitative proofreading as well, with feedback on story elements and flow. Distribution is electronically, to the client, with turn around time estimated at one business day for every ten pages.

Given that AAA Editorial Services is slightly higher priced than other non-native English speaking competitors, it will be imperative that all marketing materials emphasize the quality difference in editing services by native English speakers and non-native English speakers. Simply because a sentence is grammatically correct, that does not make it quality writing. Non-native English speakers often have difficulty making this qualitative judgment, and therefore can not provide the level of editing AAA Editorial Service's staff can.

Controls and Evaluation:

Several controls will need to be put into place in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the marketing strategies. The SEO revamp of the current AAA Editorial Services website will need to be reviewed to ensure the correct keyword density is achieved. This can then be followed with conducting actual searches on the most popular search engines, including: Google, Yahoo, and Bing, to monitor the company's placement in the results. The company will need to place within the top ten results for this facet to be considered successful.

PPC advertising will be much easier to monitor and evaluate. PPC services offer statistical feedback, so the company will be able to monitor which ads are having good impression to click ratios. AAA Editorial Services can then evaluate whether the increased traffic is driving increased sales, as it should.

Lastly, the new company blog will need to be updated regularly. It can include a visitor counter, to determine how many people are reading the blog. In addition, a comments section can help determine traffic and encourage people to return to the same post, for follow-up conversation. Using social networking sites to promote the blog will help develop a following as well. To evaluate whether or not the blog is successful, the company should see an increase in the number of visitors with each post, and an associated increase in traffic to the main website of the company.

Financial Implications or Required Budget:

The financial implications for these marketing strategies are very cost effective. One of the most costly part of the strategy is likely to be the initial revamp of the company website, with hiring a seasoned web content writer, for the new SEO content creation. PPC advertising is very reasonable in price. In some instances, such as advertising via Facebook, the PPC amount is left up to the discretion of the advertiser, with a minimum of 1 cent per click. Currently, their suggested rate is between 47 cents and 69 cents per click. An additional cost to this advertising will be the design of the ads themselves. With Facebook, a simple image and text is allowed in their advertising, or they do offer higher priced banner ads. GoogleAds and other advertising sources, however, will need banner ads designed. Multiple designs should be created, and evaluated for efficacy. In addition, a writer will need to be paid to create the company blog posts. Hiring a contract writer to create blog content can cost as little as $2 per post, and can be created whenever the company wants the blog updated.