what i'd say business report 20.09.2018...
TRANSCRIPT
BUSINESS REPORT ON
WHAT I'D SAYby khanjan patel
Executive Summary
The rapid shift from the age of technology to the age of innovation has thrown up a lot of disruptions which have been converted into opportunities by many. The rise of digital media is one such disruption which is being capitalized upon by a lot of players. India is also not lagging behind in this technology race. With the boom in use of smartphones, penetration of 4G internet and a large section of young semi-urban population, India is starting to become a high-value market for digital media. This increased consumption of social media has given a special thrust on content marketing. As a result, traditional marketing practices are quickly givingway to online marketing through the use of Social Media, SEO and Pay Per Click marketing models.
Content-based websites have been in India since 2013 and were capable of garnering good response right from the start. Based on the western models like BuzzFeed, the ScoopWhoop, Storypik, and other websites quickly rose to fame by riding the trending curve. 'Whatever trends, has to be written about'; this motto helped them in fuelling their initial user-base but with time it, started reaching a saturation point. This paved way for specific content-based niche websites that focussed on certain categories of content and delivered good quality content. With the user-base segmented, many such content websites started emerging and gaining a name. Very low initial investment, cheap resources for content creation and a large audience to consume the content were the prime reasons behind the instant boom in the industry.
The What I'd Say project has been envisioned as one such content-based website that would focus on generation of content related
to movies, music, literature, travel and other such categories. Before initiating the project, a thorough research on global, as well as national levels, was carried out on the entire content marketing industry. These categories were specifically chosen as they showed high traction in terms of blogs and other such content that was highly welcomed on Social Media. The content was developed with the help of freelancers to lower the cost. The website was created with a clean and minimal design keeping a simple user interface, ensuring that it remains SEO friendly and compiles with Google AdSense norms.
The revenue model was based on earning through Google AdSense, sponsored ads and content marketing for products and services. With daily updates of new blogs, the steady growth of pageviews was ensured as the entire incoming cash flow was based on this metric. With all efforts being made in optimizing the operational cost, the overall cost of production and running the website was kept at a lower end. The business model suggests a break-even period to be 27 months and by the 16th month, the project would be witnessing positive cash flow in terms of profits. At the end of the 3rd year, the project would be able to earn a profit of 28.56 Lacs. Such numbers look very encouraging. At the same time given the constant addition of pages, the website will have around 2190 pages at the end of the third year making it a very valuable product with a high net worth. Both of these aspects make the What I'd Say project commercially viable and highly lucrative.
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ContentsThe Business of Content Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Content Marketing in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Content Marketing Through Blogs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
The Idea of What I’d Say . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Market Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Process of Content Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Developing the Website. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Business Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3
The Business of Content Marketing
To say that we live in a digital age would be quite an understatement. We have long surpassed that era and deep dived into the various aspects of the digital world. This is not
reflected just in the way we are conducting
our daily lives, but even in the way industry,
market and the entire economy is shifting to
technology. And this shift is not gradual.
Technology is advancing at such a fast pace
that innovations are happening on daily basis
and each technology giant is trying to outdo
the other through this. In this entire race, the
big brothers of yesterday are not able to hold on to their positions.
Technology companies are now among the world's largest companies and dominate market capitalization. In 2007, the top 4 of the top 5 companies belonged to infrastructure
and core businesses like Exxon, GE, Shell, and
others. Today, there has been a complete flip
as the top 4 of the top 5 companies are Apple,
Alphabet (Google), Microsoft and Amazon in
that order followed by Facebook, which
stands some ranks below. These five now
make up for more than 15% of sales and profit.
This value is more than any top 5 in the last
two decades. This clearly reflects where the future of commerce is headed.
RISE OF TECHNOLOGY GIANTS
Top 5 public traded companies market cap (June 30)
Source: Ft Global 500 & Ycharts.com
TechOther
4
The Business of Content Marketing
The rocketing growth of these technology companies will result in the equally high consumption of technology. The first world countries will see a lot of innovation, given the
competition, while the developing countries
will witness a rapid spread of reach of
technology. As per Business Insider, it is
approximated that 34 Billion devices will be
connected to the Internet by 2020, which
m e a n s t h a t s o m a n y d e v i c e s w i l l b e
communicating with each other. One can only
imagine the amount of data it will generate.
This technology shift will continue to impact every industry. One of the industries it will impact the most will be the marketing industry. Such an ecosystem will give rise to a very fertile breeding ground for digital media to grow.
The new 2018 Global Digital suite of reports
from 'We Are Social' and 'Hootsuite' suggest
that presently there are more than 4 billion
people around the world using the internet.
Which means over half of the world's present population is now online. Not surprisingly, almost a quarter of a billion new users came online for the first time in 2017. This trend
suggests that another quarter or more will get
online by end of 2018. Another important
number that the reports have shown is that
around 3.2 billion people are using social
media in some form of the other.
Also, it is not just the number of people using the internet that has increased, the amount of time that these people spend on the internet has also skyrocketed. The latest report from GlobalWebIndex shows that presently an average internet user spends roughly around
6 hours every day on the internet. To cover
this huge window, imagine the data that
would be needed to be created, to cater to this
increasing demand. This surge in technology
has thereby made the growth of digital media
inevitable.
INEVITABILITY OF DIGITAL MEDIA
5
The Business of Content Marketing
In this ever-changing dynamic world, endless
options are being provided to us at our fingertips; be it booking a dinner table, ordering a cab, shopping for clothes or fixing a date. Anything and almost everything is being done through the internet. Consumers are interacting with the brands across almost all the industries through various platforms of digital media. These everyday interactions are increasingly influencing their digital experiences and their preferences. Given
such a situation, the organizations are
grappling with the challenge of how quickly
they can adapt to the changes. Some
organizations that are nimble, are quickly
adapting to these changes and getting ahead
in the race for market share, while large
organizations who find it difficult to adapt to
change lose out on the opportunities of
creating impact across the consumer base. The modern marketers have to think smarter and faster to be able to sustain and growin the industry.
Content marketing is emerging as the best
answer to this rising demand for for reaching
out to masses in a fast and long lasting
manner. The latest edition of PQ Media's
Annual Global Branded Entertainment
Forecast says that content marketing is
growing to be a more than $16bn industry
worldwide, as the majority of the marketing
professionals are shift ing away from traditional advertising and investing in newer avenues. The 2018 report indicated a double-digit growth in consumer content marketing a c r o s s t h e g l o b e . C o n s u m e r c o n t e n t
marketing, which includes print and digital
hybrid content, had the fastest growth of 14.5% and increase to approximately $15.61bn globally. Hybrid content marketing came out as the largest platform with a share of $7.87bn.
This explosion of digital media has given rise
to a number of other issues affecting the
marketers, like increased awareness of fake
news, ad fraud, and invalidated data. These
problems have pushed the brand marketers
to use more experiential marketing and
product placement through consumer
content marketing in order to work around the ad blockers and win the trust of consumers. At a comprehensive level for organizations, content marketing is turning into a strategic marketing approach which focuses more on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content which attracts and retains a well-defined audience. This ultimately drives profitable customer action for the organization. As per
the report, 89% of B2B marketers and
86% of B2C marketers report that they are
extensively using content marketing for
increasing leads and driving their brand
forward.
In a very recent survey conducted by Adobe – “Digital Trends 2018”, the prominence of content marketing was highly visible as marketers reaffirmed that investing in content marketing shall be their top priority in 2018.
CONTENT MARKETING IS
THE NEW SALESMAN
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The Business of Content Marketing
Carrying forward this trend, the future seems
to be about getting your content marketing
strategy right to enhance your sales. According to Global Content Marketing Market 2017-2021 by leading tech analyst TechNavio, the content marketing market is set to grow at a CAGR of 16.12% during the p e r i o d 2 0 1 7 - 2 0 2 1 . T h i s s e e m s unprecedented for any form of advertising or marketing technique so far. The report also goes out to suggest that the success rate of
content marketing in a B2B environment is
40%, whereas the success rate in a B2C
environment is 28%. However, in the future, this number is going to see a decline as new businesses will start adopting content marketing more and this marketing strategy will lose its value proposition over the period of time. This analysis makes it imperative for the businesses to adopt this strategy while it is currently at its peak and position them better than their competition.
Content Marketing
Personalization
Social Media Marketing
Marketing Analytics(Including Testing)
Lead Generation
Marketing Automation
Video Advertising
Content Management
Audience and Data Management
Search Engine Optimization (Organic Search)
Email Marketing
Lead Marketing
Pay per click (PPC)
Sales Enablement
Display Advertising
Webinars/ Virtual Events
Affiliate Marketing
50%58%
50%58%
56%55%
49%51%
50%51%
46%50%
50%49%
48%
45%47%
46%44%
48%43%
43%43%
32%40%
34%37%
34%36%
40%36%
29%32%
2017 2018
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The Business of Content Marketing
This unprecedented rise in content marketing has propelled the income charts of the marketing agencies. Those who have ventured early in this domain are reaping
good returns and have evolved into a state of
market dominance. Given the wide array of
services covered in content marketing as a
whole, it is hard to point out who is ahead in
the race and who is left out. There are
agencies who have restricted themselves to
providing niche content marketing services in
an ala-carte manner customizing as per the
need of organizations. While there are some big players who have converted this into Software As A Service (SAAS) business model, retaining their users on a monthly or an annual subscription basis. While the large conglomerates have established their own content marketing cells, that generate the required quality in-house and sometimes rely on SAAS as and when required.
HubSpot is one of the frontrunners who has
positioned itself as the giant in this domain.
Started by two MIT students ten years ago, this firm has managed to keep itself on the top
by riding the change curve and continuously innovating. This has resulted in a dreamlike growth for the company. As per its annual report, HubSpot, Inc. recorded a rise in
revenue by almost 40% by end of FY17.
Subscription revenue made up for 95% of its
revenue. KISSmetrics is another household
name in the industry. It has established itself
as a leader in data collection, analytics and
offers key business insights for supporting
businesses of various sizes regarding their
content marketing systems and strategy.
Influence & Co. can be termed as a pure content marketing firm that tops the charts.
What has been interesting about this sector is
that you do not need much capital cost to start
off with. A decent laptop, a good internet
connection, and well-brewed coffee is all you
need to start churning out content. At a small
and medium-term enterprise level, there are
lacs of agencies who have sprouted out to
make the most of this rising trend. Be it
through brands, influencers or even Google
AdSense, they are sure to be making good profits.
MAKING THE REAL PROFITS
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Content Marketing in India
India by the very virtue of its massive population has been the most tempting market for all industries. The same stands true for the digital media industry. According
to a report 'Digital Opportunity' by E&Y, the
Indian digital segment is expected to cross
200bn by 2020. The rate at which the Indian
economy is growing, it is poised to become the
fourth largest economy in the world. The
increasing per capita income, rising middle
class and access to technology have resulted
in a surge of users getting online. The Media &
Entertainment industry too is flourishing pushing the digital media industry even further ahead. With the penetration of mobile devices throughout the nation, uptake of 4G networks, and traditional Internet and TV
subscription services failing to provide the requisite standard, the Indian digital media market opens up new opportunities.
Given the large-scale millennial population of
India, young and tech-savvy consumers with
r is ing monthly earning and spending capacities are on a rise. These demographics have proven their potential in the past and would prove to be the ones who easily adapt to new technologies. According to a user report published by Facebook, it took the social media giant only four years to get 50 million users in India. The same amount of time it needed to get those numbers of users worldwide. This shows that India is a very ripe
market for digital media.
INDIA – THE LAND OF THE SLEEPING GIANT
There has been a rapid shift in the way media is consumed. Where earlier, traditional means like televisions were prevalent, the focus has now shifted to devices l ike
smartphones and tablets. As a result, there
has been a steep hike in the amount of content
that is consumed. This is opening up
opportunities for large and small media
houses to penetrate the market with their
products and services. As per Economic
Times, India is already the second largest
market for social media giants like Facebook
with over 155mn users and LinkedIn with 37mn users and is likely to overtake the USA to have largest Facebook user base on mobile devices.
The number of smartphones in India has
already crossed 500mn mark making India
the second largest smartphone market as per
the Ovum Telecom Forecast. At the same
time, the use of tablets has grown at the rate of more than 1.8 times from 2016 reaching around 98mn and is expected to grow at a rate faster than the increase in the use of
smartphones. Smartphone penetration too is
expected to grow from 24% to 59% by 2020,
and will create a massive platform for content
marketing.
HIGH PENETRATION OF SMART DEVICES
Source: Ovum Telecom Forecast
Device Penetration in India(mn)
182
155
13
210
98
2004 2015 2016(E) 2017(E) 2018(E)
Smartphones Tv Sets Tablets
500
9
Content Marketing in India
Young India is represented by an urban, middle-aged, English knowing, well to do section of people who are embracing the digital revolution with all vigor. There is a
very apparent rise in the areas in which
smartphones are used. The new audience
which is being targeted is the one with diverse
incomes, uses regional languages and hails
from various parts of India that may be urban,
rural and semi-urban. This diversity in the audience will create an opportunity in the form of generating a target group-specific content for the brands to touch their
consumers on a personal scale through their
content marketing strategies. A lot of content
creators are already in the race to cater to
this changing demography and psychology of
the audience.
FAVORABLE DEMOGRAPHICS
2003 2018
Older 40% over the age of 25 54% over the age of 25
Rural 29% rural audience 40% - 50% rural, semi-urban audience
Gender balanced 2.6 men for every woman 1.9 men for every woman among 18-24-year-olds
Mobile 60% - 70% of the user base 70% – 80% of the user base
Vernacular 45% of the users consume regional language based content
70% - 90% Indian do not speak English, less than 1% as a primary language
Per Capital Income (PPP) USD 5418 USD 6700
10
Content Marketing in India
A few years ago, wireless Internet was a luxury for Indian people that were surviving on snail-paced broadband. However, the internet connectivity has come a long way to
reach the 4G connection. With Wi-Fi being
commonplace in the urban cities, the target
for internet service providers are the non-
metro and rural areas. Although a large
section of society is still using 2G, the shift
towards 4g connections is happening fast. As
per the CISCO Report, 4G is expected to make up for 58% of the mobile data traffic by 2020. Government initiatives like digital India and the huge investments by business giants like
Jio have leapfroged the connectivity for the
Indian users and are still working relentlessly
in the sector. Smart devices with high internet
speed will allow users to consume more
content at their fingertips, making the life
easy for the content marketers.
INCREASE IN INTERNET SPEED
4G growth and market share4G Market in India (in millions)
4G Mobile data traffic in India% of total data traffic
4 Million
346 Million
4.2%
58.4%
2015 2018
Source: CISCO Mobile VNI
2015 2022
Source: CISCO Mobile VNI
India will see a significant spurt in 4G Wi-Fi hotspots driven by Government and
private sector initiatives
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Content Marketing in India
A few years back, online transactions in India were plagued due to low credit card penetration, frequent failures of payment, and other factors. According to Hindu
Business Line, only 1-2% of the consumers
paid for media content online and the
majority of the transactions of debit cards
(almost 95%) were done for cash withdrawal
from ATM. However, this saw a rapid change
with the demonetization drive in India.
A l t h o u g h g o v e r n m e n t h a s a l w a y s
encouraged people to take up as many
cashless transactions as possible, it was only after the demonetisation drive that people actually dealt through them. Also, online transactions were being incentivized. The same report estimated that owing to the government policies, better internet speed and quick developments in the mobile payment infrastructure, the mobile payments grew at a CAGR of 15% in the last two years. Consequently, a lot of traction is being
gathered by Indian E-Commerce as the
majority of the big players have started accepting mobile wallets as a form of payment.
Out of the blue, new Indian wallet companies
emerged. Aided by government policies and
foreign funding they raised capital for investing back in technology, data gathering and analysis. This led to overall brand building through marketing for acquiring new users and merchants. A testimony to this is that PayTM grew at a rate of 160% over the last year to amass 160mn users and its rival MobiKwik has gathered around 45mn users according to a report by Indian Express. The Indian government itself has launched the
Bhim App to promote the concept of mobile
wallets. With such ease of spending, the
consumers are facing less reluctance in
buying online and this makes for an excellent
playground for brands to sell themselves in
the best possible way using their content
marketing strategies.
CONCEPT OF MOBILE WALLETS
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Content Marketing Through Blogs
A strong undercurrent flowing around the concept of blogging is that it is old school and has outlived its life. Just because blogging arrived long before the other social media platforms and because it has more content and takes more time to read, it
does not mean that it is outdated. Ironically, the aspects that
are considered as its weakness, are actually the core strength
of this medium. Consider the facts presented by the survey
conducted by a Content Marketing Institute which states that
80% of B2B marketers and 75% of B2C marketers include
blogging among their current techniques. 52% of B2B and 51%
of B2C marketers expect that blogging will be their most
critical tactic for achieving success in the upcoming year. This
means that blogging as a form of content marketing is not only here to stay but also going to thrive given the conducive environment being created for digital media.
BLOGGING IS STILL VERY MUCH IN FASHION
Given the amount of content that is being generated through the digital media on a daily basis, it is going to be very difficult to differentiate between authentic content and invalidated data and information. A mature consumer would appreciate
content that is thoroughly researched, highly accurate and
worthy of their attention and time. They seek such content so
as to gain knowledge and to be able to make informed choices.
The snackable, short-term posts of social media may be quick to create and post but they often fail to serve their purpose. Good quality, well researched and detailed content will take time but proves to be advantageous in the long run. CMI's 2017 research suggested that 53% of B2B marketers saythey are achieving greater success compared to previousyears as they have started spending more time on creating quality blogs.
BLOGS OFFER MORE SENSE OF VALIDATION
13
Content Marketing Through Blogs
Blogs are often perceived to be long pieces of prose that are boring and difficult to read. But given the dynamics of present-day digital media, the bloggers are quickly adapting themselves as per the market demand and renewing factors like content type and length. According to the CMI survey, most bloggers include at least one image in their blog posts, and about 15% are
including at least one video. Over 35% of bloggers reported that using video in their blog
content resulted in strong viewership results.Bloggers are thus increasingly relying on
multimedia formats in order to engage their audiences as this helps make content more
readable and understandable, and enhances recall value. This also makes the content more
shareable and helps boost a brand’s content marketing performance.
ADDING THE FUN ELEMENTS IN BLOGS
A major problem that all social media marketers face is figuring out ways to measure the success of their efforts. It is only fair, that at the end of the day, the brand would like to see an impact of
the content marketing strategy that it invests in. A lot of metrics are thrown up like reach,
impressions, engagement rate, conversion rate, and others, but it is very difficult to ascertain
accurate impact of a particular post.
In this scenario, blogs provide a very simple conversion rate measurement. Most of the content marketing carried out through blogs either make the user go to the online store or a landing page. The number of people going there can be easily measured. This allows in managing the blog strategy so as to derive the best output from them. An added advantage of blog posts is that it provides requisite information about the product or service beforehand to the consumer leaves an impression even before the buyer visits the online store. This goes a long way in enhancing the conversion rate as the conversion ratio is very high.
MEASURING PERFORMANCE AND DELIVERING RESULTS
R E S U L T
14
The Idea of What I'd Say
Given the content marketing dynamics, a lot of small and big enterprises pop up with the promise of delivering good content but often miss the mark. Also, the consumers are put off
by aggressive marketing that dilutes the
experience (reading, watching, gaming etc.) at
hand. Until and unless the consumer has a
strong need for a product or the services, he
would not go through the entire blog. The
core of content marketing through blogs has
always tried to lure the consumers by giving
them something interesting and then in a very
strategic manner, place the call to action advertisements.
An opportunity had arose for creating a blog
based website that would deliver high-quality
content for selected few trending subjects.
This would have two-fold benefits – the creation of highly researched and well-articulated content, and a platform for earning revenue through content marketing
and Google AdSense. The content of this
website would be initially written in-house
and post its growth, it would open for public to
post blogs. The content manager would be
responsible for regulating this content and its
flow. The website as a standalone product will
also serve the intangible benefits of proving
to be a testimony of qual ity content
marketing skills, thereby attracting more work for itself from the market. With these objectives in mind, the seeds for What I'd Say were sown.
THE NEED
Anne Frank wrote in 'The Diary of a Young Girl' – “People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but that doesn't stop you from having your own opinion”. Having an opinion has
been one of the most basic nature of human
beings and depriving them of the same would
be lessening the intelligence of the human
race. With the objective of presenting a platform to people to express themselves, this website would become an outlet forwhat they would say. The name was also
inspired by a very famous song of the same
name by Ray Charles.
THE NAME
15
Market Research
This upsurge in the need for awareness and urge for more knowledge has led to an information explosion in the contemporary digital world. The content management
system is an industry that has grown
exponentially. In an era when technology has
b e c o m e c h e a p a n d e v e r y o n e h a s
smartphones and laptops at their disposal,
these content management organizations
have become a ubiquitous phenomenon.
Brain Pickings is one such website which tops the charts for highly intellectual and philosophical content. On the other hand, a content platform like BuzzFeed keeps the readers updated about the popular culture
and 'Who-How-When-Where' of the world. It
is indeed entertaining but is hardly enriching.
In between the two ends of this spectrum are
several other websites that offer content on a
wide range of topics. The catch here is that
there is an audience for each kind. Hence
depending on the type of audience one wants
to cater to, one has to derive the content
strategy accordingly.
In India, content based websites gained popularity when ScoopWhoop started in 2013. Based on the similar western model, it
was started by a small bunch of writers and
quickly transformed into a huge organization.
They come up with content that is trending
and include articles in humor, travel, sports
and culture in the Indian context. The success of this website inspired dozens of other players to start their own platforms. But most of them failed to offer anything new. Soon
players realized that they will need a unique
value proposition to stand out offering niche
content catering to specific target audiences.
Today this market has seen a lot of maturity with all major players working hard on delivering the promise of being different and retaining their viewers. The Logical Indian is a website that comes up with insightful, exhaustively researched and unique content which includes political news, social videos, environment and inspiring stories of leaders,
entrepreneurs and most importantly, the
common people of India. These pages do set
the precedent in Indian content management
niche, models of which are emulated by some
other pages like Being Indian, Storypick, and
Daily Social. Your Story triumphs at bringing
tell-tales of prominent and lesser-known
entrepreneurs alike to the digital platforms
which inspire the generation of propitious entrepreneurs. It did not take BuzzFeed much time to realize the potential of the Indian market and the rising era of content-driven websites. Therefore, by the end of 2014, it had launched BuzzFeed India following the same content strategy and business model as its international counterpart.
PLENTY OF EXISTING PLAYERS
16
Market Research
In the niche of its own, these digital content management platforms are bringing a cultural change through information. The best aspect of these content management websites is
that they provide information for free to the
readers. However, the organizations handling
them acquire commercial benefits through
various means. The most prominent source of
their revenue is through Google AdSense,
where they capitalize on the traffic they
generate. However, with the expansion, they
soon realize that this amount does not meet
the demand and they venture into content marketing. This is a very good source of income as these websites charge for putting up an ad in the forms of backlinks in the
written content. They do have to strike a fine balance while doing this so as to not to compromise with their quality of content, which would result into losses.
To understand the existing websites better, a
thorough research was conducted for the most relevant websites. Tools like Alexa and Worth of Web were used to carry out this analysis.
STUDYING THEIR BUSINESS MODEL
The research provided very good insights for identifying the target audience and figuring out the type of content to be provided. Either one needs to opt for trending and light topics to provide entertainment, or one can strongly express one's views in the form of well-documented blogs. Both types have their pros and cons. Interestingly social media does not have a huge impact on increasing website views, suggesting that options strategies that go beyond social media will have to be devised to bring traffic to the website.
Parameter BuzzFeed Scoop Whoop Your story The Logical Indian Story pick Being Indian
Estimated Website Value
$853m $35m $17m $498k $105k $48k
Estimated Revenue Per Month
$6m $149k $91k $13k $7k $4k
Estimated Page views Per Month
2b 50m 30m 4m 2m 1m
Estimated Visits per day
14m 330k 203k 29k 14k 9k
Alexa Global Rank 247 6544 8445 43128 49082 129584
Alexa Rank in India 97 618 654 3361 4554 13496
Facebook Followers 3m 4.2m 1.6m 6.1m 1.5m 7.7m
Twitter Followers 998k 183K 200k 68.1k 148k 45.5k
Remarks More oriented towards clickbait
Goes with the trend with a focus on humor
Entrepreneurial and success stories
Well researched articles on social issues
Regional stories worth sharing
Politically inclined articles
17
Market Research
A key insight emerging gained by the study of currently successful content website models is that choosing a category of content is pivotal in its success. There have been
websites who play it safe and go along with
conventional humor based click-bait content
so as to keep their viewers in good mood.
However, over a period of time, they become a
house of trolls and their seriousness
decreases. Then there are others who pick
social issues or success stories or even politics
as their core for content creation and excel in
it, but at the cost of segmenting the target audience.
Detailed research was carried out in finding the categories which promise maximum penetration. These categories were then intersected with factors like the areas of
interest of the team, content creation cost,
competency available and resources needed
to execute the same. The content marketing
giant HubSpot has recently launched its
content analysis of the previous year which
was highly instrumental in this research.
This report provided inputs on how these
categories are treated and for which
categories do blogs work the best.
CHOOSING THE CONTENT CATEGORIES
Ind
ust
ry K
ey
wo
rd
Overall Online Activity
Search Engine Blogs Social Media
Video Games
Travel
Transportation
Tourism
Sports
Spa
Software
Restaurant
Real Estate
Publishing
Pharmaceutical
Oil
Non Profit
Music
Movie
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
18
Market Research
CHOOSING THE CONTENT CATEGORIES
As evident by the analysis, blogs seem to be
working best for Movies as almost 55% of the
share is captured by this category. This can be
related to film reviews and appreciation blogs
which trend very well across various
platforms on the internet. Next on the block
have been categories like Tourism, Sports,
M u s i c , M a r ke t i n g , H e a l t h C a r e a n d Government.
This research helped to narrow down the
categories which can be opted for creating
content. Focusing on media as a whole,
consisting of Movies, Music, Literature,
Advertising along with other Travel and
Health, came out as a wise choice to build the
content strategy for the website.
Ind
ust
ry K
ey
wo
rd
Overall Online Activity
Search Engine Blogs Social Media
Mining
Marketing
Manufacturing
Lawer
Insurance
Hotel
Health Care
Government
Fashion
Education
Consulting
Construction
Cell Phone
Biotechnology
banking
Airline
Agriculture
Advertising
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
19
Market Research
All good work done in the creation of content would serve pointless if it does not reach the right audience. One needs to ensure that the blogs written on the specific topics need to be
on top of search engines when a consumer
searches for those topics. With the addition of
social media, a new term called Social SEO has
also been formed which talks about the idea
that social media links and interaction also
play a pivotal part in the website's search
rankings. Given the importance of this aspect,
it is imperative to figure out how to best
optimize the website for the search engines.
SEO can primarily be broken down into three different aspects – on the page, offline and
content SEO. The on-page SEO is to be taken
care of while developing the website. From the website code to the way content is put, f r o m w e b s i t e s p e e d t o b r o ke n l i n k s ; everything plays a role in some way or the
other in bettering the website rankings.
Offline SEO is generally done through
enrolling in local listings and other methods.
This seemed to be of lesser importance in our
case. For What I'd Say, the most important
aspect to be taken care of was content SEO.
The blogs that are being written in the chosen
category need to be fully optimized. Before
starting to write the blog, keywords need to be finalized and the same need to be sprinkled across the blog in the right proportion, so that the blog appears on higher rankings when the keyword is searched for.
FACTORING SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Making online money through Google AdSense is not an overnight task. Patience and sound knowledge about how AdSense works are prerequisites for the same. While studying about the ways in which this works,
many important features came to the fore.
There are many factors that affect revenues
from Google AdSense. Google gets most of
the money from AdSense, and the website
gets only some of it. However, it is important
to make the most of it. Before applying, one
has to ensure that the website has sufficient
and high-quality content on it. The design
should be attractive and should allow easy readability.
There are two direct ways to make online
money through AdSense. One is through
Impressions. This is based on the number of
views on pages or posts which have the
Google Ads. This part is more controllable as one would have the power to direct users to the specific pages, be it through proper SEO, or other optimization processes. At the same time, the revenue generated through this is
quite less. The second way is through clicks.
This is based on how many people click on the
ads that are displayed on the page or the post.
Higher number of clicks on the ads result in
higher revenue from AdSense. This is slightly
difficult to calibrate as the user has limited
control over what Ads Google will display on
the page. But the revenue generated through
this method is quite high. For making the most out of AdSense, a multidimensional strategy needs to be developed which targets revenue generation through both these ways, and interweaves factors such as SEO, images, visuals and keyword-based content.
EARNING THROUGH GOOGLE ADSENSE
20
Market Research
Analysing the present market, it was clear that the internet is quite flooded with websites brewing different sorts of content resulting into a content overload for the consumers. This, in a way opens up an opportunity for creating a website which primarily focuses on generating quality content and delivering the same in an optimized manner. The audience needs to be kept
at the heart of the strategy. The idea of generating content first, then finding the audience for it
is flawed at multiple levels. Instead of being content-centric, the website needs to be audience-
centric so as to deliver what its audience wants to read. This also makes it easy to sell the
content.
CONCLUSION
Understanding the audience is followed by understanding the categories that sell well. The
HubSpot report clearly indicated that the categories related to media have been faring very
well. The ease of writing on these topics and the higher probability of it getting viral also support
in zeroing in on these categories. At the same time, so as to not get branded as a typical movie
blog website, other categories need to be added which can provide a fine blend. Travel, Health,
Wellness, and Business were the top categories based on the research analysis. This array of topics on the website will cater to a larger segment of the audience.
Proper time and resources need to be invested in optimizing the website for search engines
through keyword analysis. AdSense would be the primary source of income for the website to
start with but it will soon be able to pick up revenue through promotions and content marketing.
This has to be built in the business model so as to make it sustainable and profitable in the
shortest time possible.
Create content thenfind an audience for it
Identify an audience thecreate content for them
Whatcompanies
want totalk about
Whataudiences
want tohear
Limited Audience Maximum Audience
CONTENT-CENTRIC AUDIENCE-CENTRIC
Copyright@2014 connected social media, LLC
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Process of Content Creation
Once the broader categories had been decided, the need arose for further getting a deeper look into the categories and how they are been treated by people over the internet. As the later process of sharing these written blogs on the internet and social media and getting sufficient views was equally important, the analysis integrated into how these categories did on social
media as well. Using the analysis tools of HubSpot, each and every category was analyzed in a
very detailed manner as shown below –
DEEP DIVING INTO CATEGORIES
As the analysis suggested, 'Movies' as a category has less competition in terms of blogs. Also, such blogs would do very well when shared on Facebook. As expected, LinkedIn would not prove to be a good sharing platform. Using such analysis and keeping in mind the fundamentals of being audience-centric, the whole content strategy for What I'd Say was developed and implemented.
Keyword Opportunity Analysis
Where is the overall online activity? Where is the Social Media activity?
Blogs
SocialMedia
SearchEngines
Youtube
Absolute Activity Competition(out of 100)
Search engines
Max Possible search traffic per month: 111,000 92
Blogs
Blog Posts per month with keyword: 40,69061
Blog posts with keyword in Title: 16,335,597
Tweets per month with keyword: 2,203,639 68
Fans of 10 Most Relevant Pages: 7,110,41873
Posts per month with keyword: 1,692,600
Groups with keyword in description : 314
47Member of top 10 groups with keyword in description:101,555
Questions and answers containing keyword per month:147
Youtube
Videos Described by keyword: Millions59
Views of 10 most relevant videos: 20,684,611
Analysis of“Movie”
22
Process of Content Creation
The writing style for a blog varies as per the genre and the purpose of the blog. For What I 'd Say, a conversational style was chosen so as to make the
content more engaging. This writing style also allowed
the use of less formal tone and helped in getting the
content generated quickly. For the blog topics and
way of representation, many other content
websites were researched for their content, tone,
and USPs on the basis of which they were able to
carve a niche. For movies, websites like Taste of
Cinema, Film Companion and Hollywood in Toto
were studied. While websites like Rolling Stones Magazine and other lesser-known, yet insightful blogs on platforms like Music Business Wo r l d w i d e , P i t c h f o r k , a n d T h e M u s i c Entrepreneur were taken up as a part of the research.
A content manager was appointed who would oversee the entire process of content creation.
The role of this person was to take forward the content strategy, put it in execution and handle
the operations part of the whole content creation process. We broke down the categories, blog
campaigns and series. Hiring an entire team of content writers would prove to be a highly
expensive task so, an array of freelancers was engaged for creating the content. This allowed for
the hiring of freelancers who had a forte in different categories of writing. The content manager
coordinated with them and assigned them the topics, coordinated their writing and assimilated good quality content for the website. For this, a category wise blog calendar was prepared. A target of 150 blogs was set for the first two months, and in the meantime, the website was being developed. Post this, a content rolling plan was developed so as to ensure that at least two blogs were posted every day.
CREATING THE CONTENT
23
Developing the Website
Keeping the Design Simple
While the content strategy was being developed, a similar study was carried out for the design
of the website. Majority of the good content websites had a simple layout with basic colors in it.
Certain websites had a fancier layout which did have a higher recall value but they proved to be
aesthetically less appealing when used over a period of time. Minimalist design has been in
trend for some time. Given the quantity of content that the website will host and the diversity of categories, the website will tend to be complex. Hence the simplicity of a minimal design would serve well to keep the website user-friendly.
Also, taking a cue from the other good websites, the user interface was kept simple with
allowing an easy accessibility for all the blogs. Consequently, we came up with the following
design.
KEEPING THE DESIGN SIMPLE
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Developing the Website
The prerequisites of website development were all carried out strategically in advance. The domain name Whatidsay.com was purchased. Along with that, the hosting for the website was purchased from Reseller hub with a generous 20GB space and high bandwidth speed. WordPress was chosen as the development platform given that it was primarily a blog-driven
website. Also, this will allow a robust content management system to easily upload the blogs.
A lot of importance was given to search engine optimization. All the necessary aspects like creating a sitemap, internal link structuring, optimizing meta tags, canonicalization and header tagging were taken due care of. To enhance the user experience, website speed was optimized in the best possible manner. This was done through image optimization, clubbing of CSS and decreasing loading speed. Tools like SemRush and GTmetrix were used for further optimization.
SEO FRIENDLY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Integrating the front-end design with the backend development was achieved quickly thanks to
the minimalistic design. In less than 2 months, the website was up and running and was being
tested by putting several blogs. Post successful testing, all the 150 blog posts which were ready
by then were posted on the website. Post some minor tweaking, the website was ready for launch. The requirements for Google AdSense were understood and complied with, post which the website was successfully submitted to Google AdSense. This allowed the website to host Google Ads and start earning a revenue.
25
Business Model
The whole idea of the content website would be sustainable if it is made profitable. Given the fact that the revenue curve would take some time to rise at the steep curve, it was imperative that the costs be kept as low as possible. At the same time, no compromises were made in the quality of content or the website. The major costs for this project included –
OPTIMIZING THE COST
The concept of hiring a full time content manager and the freelancers helped in lowering the burden in terms of content writing cost. Major cost went for website development and can be considered as a capital expenditure for the project. The operations cost included cost for running the office, website maintenance cost, the annual cost for domain and hosting, the salary of people, cost of content generation on a monthly basis and other miscellaneous costs. A set
budget was kept for marketing with a higher amount of spending in the beginning so as to create
a buzz for the website. Social media advertisements along with Pay Per Click through Google
AdWords, were also factored in, as the online positioning of the website mattered the most.
Website Development
Cost
Content Writing Cost
Marketing Cost
Operations Cost
26
Business Model
ENHANCING THE REVENUE
The sources of revenue and their volume were going to play a major role in the business model. The primary source of revenue was going to be Google AdSense. The moment the
website was ready, it was registered for
Google AdSense and display of Ads was
s t a r t e d . T h o u g h t h i s w a s t o b e d o n e
judiciously so that the consumers would not
get repelled by the amount of ads. A similar
source of revenue would be sponsored Ads
wherein clients directly approach the website
for putting up their Ad banners. This would be
difficult to acquire initially but with an increase in the volume of the website, this can become a good source of revenue. Content
marketing by putting in backl inks or promotional links about certain products or services is another good way of earning revenue. Though the income per link would be
low, the volume of links could be quite high.
To quickly boost the revenue numbers, it was important to spend on marketing and business development. The heart of the business model lies in the increase of page views. And as the number of blogs would increase, the page views would increase exponentially. This will enhance the Ad views and push the revenue further top.
ASSUMPTIONS FOR BUSINESS MODEL
All business models are based on certain assumptions both for cost and revenue, and they are based on validated sources of information. Similarly, the business model for What I'd Say was based on the following major assumptions –
Ÿ There be an addition of 2 blogs per day on
the website.
Ÿ Initial 250 pageviews per month were
predicted, which would increase by 8%
for the first year as viewer acquisition
would be higher and then by 4% and 2%
for second and third year respectively.
Ÿ Av e r a g e R P M ( a v e r a g e r e v e n u e
generated from 1000 page impressions)
will be 0.7 for the first year and same will
reduce to 0.5 in the second year and 0.3
in the third year as the volume of Ads on
the website will multiply with an increase
in pages.
Ÿ Revenue for sponsored Ads and content
marketing are predicted to be 5000, with
a quarterly increase of 5000 in them.
Ÿ Marketing cost is taken as 30,000 to start
on a high note, and then is gradually
reduced to 20,000 and kept constant
there.
Ÿ The salary for one content manager and
one business development manager are
considered and same are given as per
industry standards, with a 10% hike
every year.
Ÿ Hosting is enhanced in the second year
to cater to the high rise in traffic and so is
web maintenance cost.
Ÿ Initial website development and content
generation cost are built in the first
month itself.
Ÿ The dollar conversion rate is considered as 1USD = 70INR.
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Business Model
BUSINESS MODEL PROJECTIONS
Based on the above assumptions, the projections are built for three years to check the growth of the business.
Profit & Loss Statement:
Amounts are in INR Lacs Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total of 3 Years
Operational Cost
Marketing Cost 2.85 2.40 2.40 7.65
Website Maintenance 1.10 1.20 2.40 4.70
Content Generation 4.35 3.96 4.36 12.67
Content Manager Salary 4.80 10.08 11.09 25.97
Business Development Salary 3.60 3.96 4.36 11.92
Domain & Hosting 0.03 0.18 0.24 0.45
Miscellanous 0.60 0.60 0.60 1.80
Total 17.33 22.38 25.44 65.15
Revenue
Google AdSense 4.04 23.97 52.11 80.11
Sponsored Ads 0.95 2.85 3.00 6.80
Content Marketing 0.95 2.85 3.00 6.80
Total 5.94 29.67 58.11 93.71
EBIDTA -11.39 7.29 32.67 28.56
Profit & Loss Statement:
28
Business Model
BUSINESS MODEL PROJECTIONS
Month till Date Projections for Break Even Analysis:
Profit Year on Year:
29
Business Model
KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM PROJECTIONS
The business model projections as shown in the charts above show very encouraging prospects for the business model of What I'd Say. As expected, the revenue graph will take
some time to take off and it would incur a loss
in the first year. However, the break-even
point, which is the most important metric for
business model analysis, is around 27 months th
for this project. So, by the 27 month, all the
investment made so far would be recovered
and the project will start earning a profit. In
terms of having a positive cash flow, the
project would be making operational profits from the 16th month. Google AdSense will make the most share in terms of revenue making (85%), while content generation and management make up for the major costs (59%), followed by business development (18%).
These projections are based on the current market scenario and may differ in reality. However, projections have been taken in a slightly pessimistic manner so as to make up
for the market trends. For the business to
remain healthy, and make profits, the focus
has to be given on quality content uploaded
on the website in a most disciplined manner,
so as to not loose on the growth of pageviews.
At the same time, the role of business
development is also pivotal for getting direct
sponsored Ads and content marketing. If
more thrust is given in these two areas, then the revenue can be further increased. Overall, the business model seems highly favorable as at the end of three years, the project will be cash rich by 28.56 lacs with a high revenue curve.
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Conclusion
Given that the content marketing industry is
set to grow at a CAGR of more than 16% in the
next five years, investing in such a project
would be highly profitable. Though the rising
trend of this industry can be seen in some
recent years, it is yet to reach its peak. This
coupled with the increasing reach of social media and fast speed internet along with smart devices, the ground seems very fertile for a new venture. Content-based websites were a matter of skepticism initially as the industry pundits thought they would grow no bigger than a mere hobby project. But they were proved quite wrong as the volumes of these websites grew frantically and they quickly turned out to be profitable ventures.
The other strength of this industry is that it
requires very less investment to start
with and the return of investment has been
quite high.
In case of What I'd Say, the initial investment was of around 2 lacs to kickstart the project. Though it would take 16 months for the project to start showing profit, the rate of growth of profit has been exceptionally high. The key in the business plan has been the rate of growth of page views. This tactic employed is in response to a number of page views being
the vital factor for influencing Google
AdSense and thereby maximizing the
revenue. This has been achieved by ensuring
two new page additions per day. With this, the
volume of the website would escalate, which
would be helpful not just for revenue by
AdSense but also in getting sponsored ads for
content marketing.
The numbers coming out of the projections looked very encouraging with a break-even period of only 27 months. The expected total net income from the project would be around 28.56 lacs. But the more encouraging trend is of the rise in revenue. By the 36th month, the
project is predicted to generate a total
revenue of 6.02 lacs against the expense of
2.12 lacs and would result in a net profit of
around 3.90 lacs. Going forward, this number
would only increase. All this with, a low
investment, makes the business model highly
successful.
W h i l e t h e p r o fi t s a r e t a k i n g c a r e o f themselves, one point which is not to be missed out is that at the end of the first year would have about a thousand blogs. Such colossal ecosystem consisting of well
researched, highly articulated blogs will be
extremely useful for the consumption of the
users. The website as a whole can be seen as
one product of very high net worth and the
option of selling it as a whole to another
player can also be lucrative in case the need
arises as, by the end of the third year, the
website would value at around 1 Cr INR. All
these aspects make the entire project highly lucrative and extremely tempting for any investor to become a part of.
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