Summary of the Project
The advancement in technology and increased Internet accessibility around the world has led to an explosion of e-commerce. As of 2016, the industry value was at USD 1.9 trillion; however, it is expected to grow to USD 4.48 trillion in 2021 (Finkle, 2). The improvement in technology has made it possible for online businesses to set up secure payment systems that customers can use to make payments directly from their bank accounts.
Social media platforms are common sites, which organizations use to market their products and services to potential buyers. However, these online companies depend on their websites to handle all business activities. They are used for advertising products and allow customers to make direct orders, payments and provide feedback on the services offered. Therefore, a website is a critical factor for the success of these firms. Their marketing requires the integration of search engine optimization (SEO) content, which enables the firm to optimize online platforms, making it easy for potential clients to find them on the Internet.
The project intends to develop an online business, which aims to provide search engine optimization content to other platforms. This information aids the accessibility of the companies, thereby increasing sales revenue and profits. Its development is essential for the effective marketing of a website for an e-commerce platform (Bhandari, 35). Entrepreneurs ensure that they have access to effective SEO content, which can be utilized in corresponding programs. However, sometimes, these companies do not have qualified personnel to generate the data; thus, they decide to outsource from other reputable firms.
The concept of outsourcing has gained a reputation among businesses in the world. Organizations implement this approach to achieve different goals, such as reducing costs, tapping excellent quality, and focusing on key business objectives. Therefore, this project aims at providing content writing services to organizations, which may decide to outsource. The goal is to provide quality, top-notch, and unmatched services at a global level.
Project Goals and Objectives
Content development is essential for all enterprises, which handle their marketing strategies through online platforms. A company must have content, which will attract the attention of customers and influence their willingness to purchase. Hence, the goals of this project are to:
- Create a recognized brand for SEO content globally;
- To capture at least 10% of the global market;
- To grow revenues by 10% annually.
The project objectives are:
- To develop a responsive website within six months;
- To train and certify 100 content writers and 20 content editors;
- To develop a website marketing team, which deals with customers’ feedback within a year.
The goal of the project is to develop a brand, which is profitable and recognizable in the market. Platforms such as Upwork and Fiverr are known to offer similar services and are, therefore, direct competitors. However, this initiative aims at tailoring an organization, which fills the existing market gaps. The need to capture a significant share of the global market is the project’s motivation and depends on the quality of services and the marketing strategies the company will adopt. This plan is a profit-making one, intending to improve financial indicators in the long run. Therefore, growing revenues and reducing the cost is a critical concern. The interest of customers is an essential aspect of this initiative. Therefore, recruiting a marketing team is among the objectives of the project to ensure its success.
Customers and Stakeholders
The main customers are e-commerce entities, which are companies selling their products and services through online platforms. These organizations depend on their websites and other third-party firms, such as Amazon, to attract customers. The project will generate content to attract buyers to the client’s site. Other essential stakeholders for the initiative include content writers and editors. They are vital resources for the project’s success: writers ensure that customers’ content is delivered, while editors provide the required quality of the content. The proposed plan’s major stakeholders are buyers and the team of employees, which will be providing services for them.
Key Deliverables
The project’s important deliverables include market research on the content writing industry, development and marketing of the website, and training writers and editors to meet customers’ needs. This stage is an essential aspect of business development; through it, it will be possible to understand the identified problem and establish future opportunities. The research will help determine the nature of the market, the competition, sales performance of the existing agencies, and the customer satisfaction level (Nyukorong, 1). With this information, it becomes easy to tailor the project’s services to meet the customer’s needs.
The next stage is the development and marketing of the website. Through marketing study, the team will identify the specific aspects of the platform, which are attractive to the clients, and the essential steps required to realize the product. The last deliverable is training writers and editors to understand the industry’s conditions and the content they are expected to deliver.
The Timelines for the Project
Table 1: Timelines for the projects.
Project Overall Cost
Table 2: Estimated project costs (Finkle, 15).
Key Staffing and Non-Staffing Resources
The successful implementation of the proposed project is significantly conditional upon the involvement of specialists from different areas. Therefore, staffing resources are one of the key priorities of the business, intending to gain popularity in the e-commerce market by addressing the gap in the described online services. The human resource department will be performing the essential tasks in this direction.
They include searching for suitable employees, conducting job interviews, and making decisions on their skills’ correspondence to the project’s needs. This aspect of the planned initiative is critical for its outcome since the possibility of hiring freelancers for it is accompanied by specific risks. They are connected to the lack of quality, which is explained by the fact that online services are cheaper and less controlled by the management (Finkle, 5). All in all, for the mentioned goals and objectives, it will be reasonable to hire freelance market researchers, web-developers, writers, and editors, and they will be viewed as the key staffing resources.
In turn, non-staffing resources will primarily include the networks allowing to distribute information among the participants and consequently provide it for target customers as well as the necessary equipment with corresponding software licenses. The former will be presented by third-party online services or websites, which the company can use for its benefit to control the performance of various tasks and efficiently transmit data among the managers and employees (Finkle, 12). The latter will be related to the programs used for training the new personnel and web-development. Their combination will be advantageous from the perspective of needs of the project, which are to be addressed through the proper organization of all these elements together referred to as staffing and non-staffing resources.
Conclusion
Project development is an activity, which requires the active involvement of team members for its success. In creating a website offering SEO content to online businesses, the project needs web-developers, a marketing team, and content writers’ participation. However, before determining the nature of the required platform, it is essential to conduct marketing research. It will unravel the existing market gaps and the exact needs of the customers, which the project should satisfy. Understanding the marketing research output ensures that the team does not duplicate the already established plan in the market.
Sources
Todd A. Finkle. 2019. Technology Entrepreneurship: Creating your Own Online Business. p. 1-13. Web.
Ravneet Singh Bhandari. 2018. Impact of Search Engine Optimization as a Marketing Tool. p. 24-36. Web.
Remy Nyukorong. 2017. Conducting Market Research: An Aid to Organisational Decision Making. p. 1-17. Web.