Business Plan

Edhat, LLC.

PO Box 3846, Santa Barbara, CA 93130

https://www.edhat.com/

June 2019

This document contains confidential and proprietary information created by Edhat LLC. This

document is issued exclusively for informational purposes, and may not be reproduced without the

consent of Edhat LLC.

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Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary…………………………………………………………………………….2

2. Client Overview…………………………………………………………………………….......3

3. Target Customers/Segments…………………………………………………………………….5

4. Overview of Products & Services………………………………………………………………9

5. Advertising Objectives………………………………………………………………...………10

6. Marketing Strategy…………………………………………………………………………….12

7. Advertising Budget……………………………………………………………………………14

8. Sample Advertisement…………………………………………………………………………15

9. References……………………………………………………………………………………..16
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1. Executive Summary for Edhat LLC

Edhat’s mission is to provide accurate, timely news to the locals of sunny Santa Barbara.

Edhat serves Santa Barbara and its surrounding areas, providing a place where you can talk with

your neighbors, tell others about community happenings, find out about the latest events, and share

your love of the place you live. As an online news website, Edhat receives its contents from the

community. All the news that we publish are submitted by our locals who know the best about the

on-goings of their home.

Considering our current audience, Edhat hopes to expand and target to repertoire readers

who are light/medium users in the young adult demographic, as well as in the White ethnic group.

Edhat plans to inform our already loyal readers, keep up our reputation, create brand awareness,

and engage and expand the current target market. Relying mainly on social media, Edhat has

learned in the past that the most readership comes at times of excitement or of crisis, which isn’t

easily plannable. By being prepared to report when these events occur, Edhat should be ready to

launch our advertising efforts seamlessly.

In terms of Edhat’s budget, Edhat is a non-profit. Expenses are predicted to below, but

Edhat does receives revenue by selling ad space on our website, as well as selling subscriptions.

This concludes the executive summary of Edhat LLC.

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2. Client Overview

Client: edhat LLC. (www.edhat.com)

Edhat is a local online magazine serving Santa Barbara and its surrounding areas. Unlike a

standard news outlet, articles shared and submitted to Edhat are written by the community, for the

community. Edhat is a non-profit, independently owned by a long-time employee with no political

affiliations, no corporate funding, and no outside influences.

“It's a place where you can talk with your neighbors, tell others about community happenings, find

out about the latest events, and share your love of the place you live. It's kind of like a big online

neighborhood block party.”

SWOT Analysis:

Strengths:

- Loyal readership

- Local

Weaknesses:

- Relatively small reach

- Other larger and more trafficked news sources

- Little to no funding (donation based)

Opportunities:

- Charm as a “local” and “small” business

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- Option to expand in the future (to more diverse readers)

Threats:

- Most readers are in the older range, not as used to technology

- Others new sources have larger reach and funding

Business Objectives:

Edhat just hopes to serve their local community with current, up-to-date, daily news. They hope to

engage and encourage their readers to contribute and share what they see occurring in their local

communities.
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3. Target Customers/Segments

Background:

Behavioristic (Purchase Behavior):

User-Status Variables:

→ Sole Users (Most brand loyal): Readers who have subscribed ($52/year)

→ Semisole Users: Readers who are not subscribed yearly, but have subscribed monthly

($5/month)

→ Discount Users: Readers who are not subscribed, but may if there is a discount in subscription

prices

→ Aware Nontriers: Nonreaders of Edhat, who know what Edhat is

→ Trial/Rejectors: Readers who have looked at Edhat, but may not have liked the organization or

layout of the website

→ Repertoire Readers: Nonreaders who most likely subscribe to other, more known news sources

User-Rate Variables:

Light Users: High schoolers, young teens, etc.

Medium Users: College students, younger locals

Heavy Users: Older, locals or professionals who have lived in Santa Barbara for a longer time
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Purchase Occasion Variables:

Since Edhat is known for it’s fast and up to date news reports, people will look towards Edhat first

during times of crises, such as during the Thomas Fire or the mudslides that occurred earlier this

year.

Benefits Sought Variables:

We are assuming that our customers want to be able to receive accurate reports on what is occuring

in their community. They also take pride in the symbolism that Edhat is a local news source that

relies on the knowledge of each other to share what they know.

Geographic:

Santa Barbara is known for being an urban area with a large appeal to tourists as a resort

destination. It is located on the West Coast with a Mediterranean climate. Santa Barbara’s charm

comes from the fact that while it is a fairly decent sized city, it is pretty isolated from other large

cities (with the next large city about an hour drive away) which gives its residents a big sense of

community and respect.

Edhat appeals to this sense of community and reciprocity.

Demographic (According to the 2010 Census):

→ Gender: For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 97.7 males.
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→ Age: 18.6% under the age of 18, 12.2% aged 18 to 24, 29.7% aged 25 to 44, 25.2% aged 45 to

64, and 14.2% who were 65 years of age or older

→ Ethnicity: 75.1% White, 1.6% African American, 3.5% Asian, 1% American Indians, 0.1%

Other Pacific Islanders, 3.9% Two or more races, 14.7% Other

→ Occupation: The top two principal employers in the Santa Barbara County are the University of

California, Santa Barbara and the County of Santa Barbara

Psychographic (Appeals to emotion and cultural values):

→ Group people by values, attitudes, personality, and lifestyles

Ideals (Basic Principals): It’s important to understand and know what’s going on in your

community

Achievement (Tangible markers of success or accomplishment): Seeing that you have a

subscription/having member status makes you feel better about yourself/better than those who

don’t have a subscription

Self-Expression: You want to support your small, local business

Target Customers/Target Segments:

We already know that Edhat appeals to older readers, who are our current customers. However

looking at the background, we should try to target and appeal to our repertoire readers, who do not

already read Edhat, as well as try to reach to younger readers to get them involved. Over 50% of
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the population is between the age of 25 to 64, so we should also try to outreach to this group, with

those aged 24 and under as a secondary group. The main ethnicity of the residents in Santa

Barbara is White so we should still continue to target this groups.

→ “One rule of thumb suggests that 20% of users consumer 80% of of the product” (Page 94)

*Highlighted = Target Customers

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4. Overview of Products and Services

What:

Edhat is an online news website that takes in reports and stories from locals in Santa Barbara.

Edhat offers fast, free, and updated news from your neighbors. It’s a place where you can

communicate and discuss current affairs and upcoming events or get updates on important ongoing

crises.

Content can be submitted by subscribers who can send in comments or snippets of news they’ve

seen or have heard. This content is then continuously updated by others who contribute with their

first-hand observations. Edhat staff rarely writes articles themselves--most articles are ones people

feel strongly enough about to submit.

Why:

Edhat is community based. We rely on you--the locals who know the best about their home--to

chip in and share what’s important in your community. We encourage you to share by being your

own reporter, sharing your pictures, commenting, suggesting events, asking questions, or

suggesting links.

How:

You can send in your story by emailing ed@edhat.com or by submitting through this link:

https://www.edhat.com/node/add/news.
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5. Advertising Objectives

Objectives:

Inform:

- Edhat is a news outlet whose main purpose is to inform its readers about the ongoing local

affairs occuring in the community. This is the main fact that we want to show to our

audience.

Reputation:

- Edhat is already a reputable business in that many locals know about us. We want to be

able to keep up this reputation and expand on it so that more people will want to look at us

as their first source of news.

Brand Awareness:

- There are so many other news outlets around that also provide similar features that we do.

We want to be able to create market our brand and make it a familiar name that people

know.

Engage Target Market:

- Edhat currently has a large readership in our older locals who have lived in the Santa

Barbara area for a long while. We want to be able to engage and continue to bring our loyal

subscribers news that they want to see.

- Goal: Target to retain readership by 70% every year.

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Expand Target Market:

- Although we do already have a loyal readership, we want to be able to branch out and

connect with our younger readers so that they’ll continue to look to us as their news source

as they grow.

- Goal: Target to expand our readership by 15% every year.

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6. Marketing Strategy

→ What type of advertising will you use (e.g. Print, TV/Radio, Social Media,

Giveaways) and why?

- We will rely primarily on social media to outreach to our audience. As a news outlet based

solely on the internet, we reach out to our audience and inform them of __ through the

web.

- We have tabled and have had booths up advertising ourselves at local events and markets in

the past, giving out merchandise and stickers. We could consider this this idea again.

- As a secondary, we like to describe ourselves as sort of like an online neighborhood meet

up where we can talk to our neighbors about local news. We could use this prompt and

print out flyers promoting our website and place them at local cafes and shops where many

locals gather.

- As a news source, it would not be practical to advertise ourselves in a competitor’s print, so

this will not be a strategy we use.

→ When will you launch your advertising?

- We get the most viewership whenever there are big events--local events, disasters, etc. We

could plan to wait for the next time something big occurs, but it could happen sooner or

later.
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→ Why should your client do this (what is the expected business benefit)?

- By starting the advertising plan after a big event, we can work to retain the readership that

we gain from it. If we start the advertising plan during a normal, average week, it would be

harder to reach a new audience.

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7. Advertising Budget

The key to Edhat is the participation of its subscribers. Edhat is a nonprofit that earns revenue from

advertising (from other companies) and subscriptions. Subscribers pay $5/month or $52 a year.

Advertisers pay to have an advertisement spot on their websites. This money goes back to the

upkeep of the website.

Advertising Budget:

I recommend the objective/task method. This method has three steps: defining objectives,

determining strategy, and estimating the cost to execute that strategy. Since Edhat is not a very big

company, this method would be best because it lets them plan as they go and it works around their

needs at the time. Edhat also has primarily, in the past, used word of mouth to advertise. They

don’t have too many expenses.

Item Annual Cost

Website $240 (@ $15/month)

Flyers/Posters $200

Total Expenses $440

*Some of the expenses get paid for through the revenue they get from advertisers and subscribers
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8. Sample Advertisement
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References

Roger. Edhat Santa Barbara, www.edhat.com/.