Need to draft a Marketing Proposal

[ganeshjacharya]

Hi,

I need to draft a Marketing Proposal to a company on a Cost-Per-
Conversion basis.

We want to propose a quote to a company
that is selling something hot, but it's still not in the market. The
idea is to share the company's profit for a longer duration.

How should I go about this,

My primary concerns are:-

1. As far as Search Engine Optimization, if the listings are once
ranked among the search engines, they remain their for a long time and
sales are automated.
2. How should I quote my exit clause in this business deal. How long
should I quote my exit clause
3. How should I plan my clients exit clause, how should I sustain the
client for a long duration, I again mention, the sales get automated
once it ranks in the search engines for a long time.
4. It takes huge amount of time, and effort redesigning websites and
getting them ranked and I would need to exercise my company's, time
and money to a business running in to profit.

Parameters that I would have:-
1. Profit margin per conversion
2. Number of Conversions

Thanks!
Ganesh

[ganeshjacharya]

No replies, YET?

[Marcia]

Ganesh, sorry we missed your post! I've moved it to the Outsourcing forum, because many of the issues relevant to outsourcing projects also apply to shared cost/profit business models.

It's a very good (and important) topic you're bringing up, because many of us have revenue sharing opportunities and the different factors involved really need to be examined. You've mentioned exit clauses as an emphasis, but I believe there's a lot more to consider.

1. As far as Search Engine Optimization, if the listings are once ranked among the search engines, they remain their for a long time and sales are automated.

The sales aren't really automated; a lot depends on the customer support and the site factors that influence conversion. But it's true that once a site ranks well, the SEO benefit and the traffic it brings can be, and often are, long-lasting. So whoever ends up as the owner of the site in the event of a termination (exit) by either party ends up keeping and benefitting from that search engine traffic for a long time to come.

So the first question would be:

Who would the "site" - meaning the site itself and the domain name - legally belong to in the first place?

[ganeshjacharya]

Marcia, thanks about moving this thread to the right location.

The domain name belongs to the client, and we would be doing the SEM for them (both PPC and Organic). But, client will pay us only on the conversions we get them.

FYI:I am only planning to organize a proper business model that's hot and "sellable" that I can present to the client.

You are right that, SEM's do not control all the conversion part, but certainly, we can websites good amount of leads.

So, instead of quoting on Cost-Per-Conversion, it's better to work on Cost-Per-Lead sent to a website.

Again, I land on the same problem. What kind of a exit clause should I quote here, as I really do not control the number of leads that will approach a website from natural search??

Ganesh

[ganeshjacharya]

I've posted this at many places. I am surprised not to find very convincing replies from anywhere yet..

Ganesh

[beu]

Yeah, sorry I missed your question!

Since SEO is all about rankings, "Cost-Per-Conversion" is a tricky area. The problem with "Cost-Per-Conversion" is tracking and analytics.

To track conversions, sales and revenue back to the original referrer so you get paid, the analytics setup must be almost flawless. (IE no 301/302 issues, http/https issues, code/session ID issues)

Without real analytics expertise on your team you could have major problems attributing conversions to search.

Either way I'd check this clients analytics first, paying particular attention to traffic, revenue and orders from "bookmarks", "none" and or other. The percentage should be about 30%. If you see a number like 50% or above "just say no". Also, you might consider some minimum payment as well as taking credit for a percentage of conversions that can't be tracked back to the source.

So, I hope that helps!

[Marcia]

Ganesh, this is definitely something that should be overseen by an attorney.

Added:

I've posted this at many places. I am surprised not to find very convincing replies from anywhere yet..

You have to realize that people generally do not divulge their business model, especially publicly for the benefit of competitors to emulate them.

[ganeshjacharya]

Originally Posted by Marcia

Ganesh, this is definitely something that should be overseen by an attorney.

Added:

You have to realize that people generally do not divulge their business model, especially publicly for the benefit of competitors to emulate them.

Well, people today are developing softwares those are openly available, I think there should be no problem for some old noble human who's old enough to propose the right ways to do business who might want to teach us here. I know one has to be unselfish to reply these. But, I am trying to make an attempt. I know it's very tough for people to answer these. :-)

Added: If someone answers these I am sure searchenginewatch would have an added information to it

Ganesh J. Acharya

[Marcia]

Actually, I've been made an offer by someone just recently to do a revenue sharing arrangement with them on a site.

The domain belongs to them, and they've already had a template with graphics designed. They would supply products, take the orders and payments and ship the products - and the customers would be theirs, including future purchases. You have to think in terms of "customer acquisition" sometimes, not just a one time sale, where certain products are concerned.

My part would be to use the template to design the site and do up the shopping cart, maintain the site, add products, do updates, and do the promotion and SEO, etc.

I was offered a percentage split of the profits. So in developing the idea from the question you've asked, and for the sake of discussion, do you see any points in what I've described that you would consider good or bad, and that could relate to the business model you're considering?

[Kevin Heisler]

Marcie and beu make some excellent points. A "hot product" may be one people aren't searching for yet. I'd be careful with assumptions that sales will become automatic once you're ranked in the search engines.

I've seen lots of new companies looking for SEO/SEM partners they think should "prove" their worth by shouldering the entire burden of marketing and e-commerce. It's a great, no-risk business model for entrepreneurs with no SEM skills; not necessarily a great one for you.

[beu]

Kevin, you hit the nail on the head! If you have proven results and real skill, why take on all of the risk.

I did what Ganesh is trying to do only in a different way a few years ago and I have no complaints at all. My store servers two purposes it helps market my prints (Official Artist for the University of Georgia) and I get a percentage of all sales. The key is my store is at my site, if my partner goes out of business all I have to do is call the guy down the street! At the same time nobody can say that something they did or some other ad resulted in a sale on my site. Even if there were no analytics I still get credit for sales because it is my site. My store is beussery dot com /beuga or you can find it by searching for "Georgia merchandise" on Google.

By having merchandise other than my own, I "catch" folks looking for other stuff and show them my prints one of which is on the right hand side of most pages.

Add e-commerce to your own site and set it up so that money is deposited to your partner and so that you both get an email when orders are placed on your site. At that point, you just send an invoice for sales from your site each month.

[Marcia]

The key is my store is at my site

That's the first and foremost key: the ownership of the domain.

if my partner goes out of business all I have to do is call the guy down the street!

Or if the relationship terminates for any number of reasons, unless the terms and length of the agreement are firmly specified in advance.

That's exactly what I had to do a few years ago. I had a small e-commerce site selling a sub-set of products on a drop-ship basis with an SEO client whose site I'd been working on that was doing very well, so I was made the offer. For a variety of very good, valid reasons I decided not to continue to work with their site, so that was the end of that.

Fortunately, it was my own domain, and I had checked into the availability of alternatives before even starting, so within a week of the termination of the working agreement for my site, I had all the pages and products swapped out for affiliate programs, which is actually how I started with affiliate programs. There was really no other alternative in that case, but I had protected myself in advance and ended up doing better with the new model than I had been with the original arrangement.

[beu]

For me it's as much ownership as freedom from analytics.

[nawazshahzad]

Hi

You can fetch an idea if trying search on Google for "Draft a Marketing Proposal Sample" i believe that you'll be able to have your hands on something worthy!

Good Luck
Nawaz Shahzad
Seo Expert