Every businessman is faced with the need to promote their goods and services. And given the fact that in recent years no one can imagine life without the Internet, the first thing that comes to mind is the creation and development of your own website.
By creating an interesting and high-quality resource, you can attract a huge number of new customers. However, the business person simply does not have time to understand all the intricacies of site building. And therefore, he most likely will prefer to turn to the real gurus of this matter - that is, to a professional web-studio.
There is no doubt that web studio as a business is really a promising and highly profitable project. But where to start and how to organize everything correctly? Let's try to figure this out together.
Step 1. Registration of activities
Of course, there are many freelance performers on the network who receive orders and pay for their work without signing any contracts. But will a large prestigious company begin to trust a person “from the street”, about whom she knows nothing and who can fail at any moment? Hardly.
In order to work officially, to be able to hire employees and, of course, to cooperate with serious companies and organizations, legal registration of activities is simply necessary.
If you have firmly decided that the main source of your income should be a web studio, the business plan should begin by registering with the tax office as an individual entrepreneur or as a legal entity (LLC).
It is noteworthy that opening your own web studio does not require serious financial investments - registration of an IP will cost you about 1000 rubles (the whole process takes about a week).
Step 2. The choice of services
The web studio, the business plan of which you draw up, should offer customers a certain list of services. Without clearly defining the areas in which you plan to work, talking about further business promotion does not make sense at all.
What does a web studio do, and what services are most popular among customers?
First of all, this is the creation of sites of varying complexity:
- Sites “business cards” are small in volume resources that host basic information about the company, its activities, publish news, etc.
- Online stores - sites that give the user the opportunity not only to get acquainted with the basic information about the company, but also to order goods, choose a method of payment and delivery online.
- Information sites (for example, electronic magazines and newspapers, sites like KakProsto, etc.) are resources designed to provide a large number of people with information.
- Dynamic flash sites are beautiful services with an original design and animation, more reminiscent of a cartoon or a computer game.
- Forums and thematic portals are resources that have great functionality and are completely dependent on user activity.
In addition, the most popular service is website promotion in search engines (SEO) and advertising on social networks (SMM). It is logical that it will not be enough for people to get a site, a small "cell" on the World Wide Web - they will want to beat competitors. This is where you can offer additional services related to promotion.
Step 3. Office Search
It’s worth mentioning right away that the web studio, the business plan of which we are drawing up today, does not have to have its own office. All your employees can work remotely while sitting at home. However, over time, a small room can still come in handy.
At least because in the eyes of your potential customers a studio with its own phone number and office will cause more confidence. But spending money on rent and equipment of a large area is clearly not worth it - however that may be, most workers will still prefer to stay at home whenever possible.
Step 4. Purchase of equipment
When compiling a business plan for a web studio, it’s worthwhile to dwell on this point separately. Of course, the main expenses will be associated with the acquisition of modern and powerful computers. In addition, a variety of office equipment can be useful - color printers, scanners, etc. And a truly important condition is the conduct of a high-speed stable Internet.
Step 5. Recruitment
You can hire full-time employees or look for suitable candidates on freelance exchanges. However, the first option is still preferable - constantly collaborating with the same people, you, as they say, “work together” and begin to understand each other literally. And, of course, you will be sure of their reliability, which is equally important.
To start the work and development of the project you will need a director, manager, programmers, layout designers, an artist-designer and copywriters.
As for the implementation of accounting and legal support, at first it is more profitable to use the services of specialized firms.
Step 6. Advertising and customer search
Of course, it’s simply impossible to optimize the web studio’s business processes before starting work. But in order to start a project, you need people to know about you. Thinking through the advertising campaign of your enterprise, you should “hit on all fronts simultaneously” and capture as many sources of targeted traffic as possible.
For this purpose, you can use:
- promotion and output in the TOP search engines of your own site for the selected keywords;
- posting announcements on thematic forums of webmasters;
- advertising services on freelance exchanges;
- advertising on TV, radio, in print media;
- contextual advertising;
- sticking-up of announcements, distribution of leaflets, business cards and booklets;
- promotion on social networks (VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Facebook);
- calling companies;
- e-mail newsletters.
It is imperative to create a quality selling website for a web studio. After all, if you are not able to present and advertise yourself well, how can you offer such services to other people? When working on creating your own website, you need to give everything 100% so that your potential customers see what you are capable of.
Step 7. Estimation of starting and monthly expenses
Let's now try to calculate how much penny your own web studio will pour out. The business plan of the standard form includes the following items of expenses:
- IP registration - 1000 rubles (+500 rubles for unforeseen expenses);
- hosting services - 5000 rubles;
- services of an accountant-lawyer - 2000 rubles;
- Internet access - 500 rubles;
- entertainment expenses - 2000 rubles.
To this it is worth adding more remuneration to employees (about 40 thousand rubles per month) and tax deductions (6% of profit).
Step 8. Assessment of the project prospects
Finally, we turn to the discussion of the most pleasant part. Namely, to the calculation of projected profits. The payback of the studio will occur around the middle of the 3rd quarter. And already in the fourth year of activity, it is quite possible to achieve net profit of up to 1.5 million rubles a year. Moreover, this is really a real amount for a studio creating about 15 sites of varying complexity per quarter (8 business card sites, 2 thematic sites, an online store and product catalogs and 1 promotional site).
Tips for planning your own web studio
First, try to articulate your main competitive advantages as clearly as possible. Among them, among other things, the following items must be present:
- quick indexing of a resource in search engines;
- convenient control system;
- constant support and bug fixes;
- high level of protection against attacks and viruses;
- the possibility of simple and quick implementation of additional functionality.
Secondly, learn to speak the language of your customers - do not offer specific products and technologies, but an effective solution to the problem. As a rule, the customer does not care how you do it. Much more important is WHAT he will get as a result.
Thirdly, do not try to compete with large web studios - they will “crush” you anyway. Enough work for everyone, and you will not be left without a well-deserved profit.
