Video Television Production Business Plan

Evergreen TV Productions

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Strategy and Implementation Summary

Home Division:

1. Create a "gotta have it" campaign. Our marketing efforts need to focus on a) introducing our specific brand of video scrapbooks and b) telling our customers why they and their friends all need one.
2. Emphasize service and quality. Especially as this is a fairly new product to be launched into the market, customers need to know that we will cherish their memories and create a quality video.

B2B Division:

1. Emphasize variety and cost savings. We must differentiate ourselves from the large programming services by detailing the variety of news stories and affordable pricing.
2. Build a relationship with schools and stations. Build long-term relationships with professors, deans and news directors to continue service and sales annually.
3. Focus on key schools and markets. We need to focus on building a client base of schools who know and believe in our student oriented objectives, and who will help promote those objectives yearly. We also need to build loyalty and consistent quality with target small market tv stations/news directors.

Competitive Edge

Home Division:
Our competitive edge in producing video scrapbooks is in our business system, which allows us a) to produce large numbers of videos while retaining quality, thus giving more customers a grade A product with a short turn-around time, b) to maintain consistency at every location, so customers can be assured they will get the same quality at one store that their friends/family received at another, and c) to train all employees using consistent customer service guidelines from initial consultation through any complaints/issues.

B2B Division:
For TV stations, our competitive edge is having a variety of news topics to offer, and at a much more affordable cost to small market tv stations than larger programming services can offer.

For students, our competitive edge is offering a FREE resume service, FREE marketing service for that first job out of school, and a DIRECT connection to news directors in markets known to hire graduating broadcasting students.

Sales Strategy

Home Division:

1. We need to sell the memories and emotions of these videos, not the product. While we produce videos, we create and tap into a lifetime of emotions cherished by our customers. Our advertising and marketing need to reflect this concept.
2. We need to understand exactly what our service is, so our customers will also understand. Our customers must feel confident that we value their memories and emotions as much as our own, and will treasure them individually. An order for a video is not a product order, but a piece of family gold we are holding in safekeeping.

B2B Division:

1. We need to sell both the company and the product. As this is a new venture into an antiquated system, generating sales will require an enthusiastic approach in order to renovate the tv news programming concept. In-person sales are essential in the primary stages of generating sales. A reputation for service excellence, news variety and affordable pricing will continue the momentum of sales in the future.
2. We have to sell our service and support to schools nationwide. Gaining the support of deans and professors is a vital element to generating inventory on a yearly basis. By developing a loyal clientele of professors, we ensure continued inventory growth annually.

Sales Forecast

Yearly sales forecasts are shown below and the initial year's monthly forecast is shown in the appendix.

Strategic Alliances

Home Division:
Strategic alliances with photographers, photo processing centers and travel agents will be key to generating sales in the first few quarters. We plan to initiate a co-marketing campaign, by possibly adding on 30-second commercials at the end of each video, promoting a photographer or travel agency. These will be tasteful and placed at the end of the tape, but will also co-promote a like business. In the future, we could sell these spots to like businesses to generate revenue.

Additionally, our alliances with retirement villas will be instrumental from start-up. While these will not involve co-promotions, it will be necessary to build a strong relationship so the villa officials welcome us to their facilities.

B2B Division:
We heavily depend upon building a strong alliance with schools to create a substantial inventory to generate sales. The greater the size of inventory, the greater the variety we have to offer stations. We need to concentrate on making as many contacts with schools as possible. If we cannot offer students a marketing position, i.e., a substantial time frame in which we market their stories and post their resumes, we will not have their interest and it would follow, their stories to add to our inventory.

After the first year, the inventory will grow at a consistent rate. However, the first year's inventory size could well determine our company's sales success.

Marketing Strategy

Home/Travel Divisions:

1. Build relationships with primary target customers (Market Segmentation section) and like businesses, such as photography shops, photography processing centers, and travel agencies.
2. Emphasize service and quality while building a referral basis.

B2B Division:

1. Emphasize variety and affordability.
2. Emphasize service while building relationships.
3. Focus on schools with tv stations and broadcast communications programs.
4. Focus on small market tv stations, bottom 115 Nielsen markets.

Positioning Statement

Home Division:
Initially, for people celebrating an event or recognizing a lifetime of memories who would like to share photos of those memories in a video scrapbook with friends and family, our videos provide a special and unique gift opportunity. Unlike standard production companies which produce video scrapbooks in a random and time-consuming fashion, our videos meet consistently professional standards in quality in a timely manner. (See Competitive Comparison section.)

B2B Division:
For students about to graduate and seek their first job within the tv news industry, EvergreenTV Productions offers an incredible marketing and resume posting service. Unlike www.tvjobs.com and others, it offers these services for free, and for a longer period of time (i.e., three months as opposed to one month).

For small market tv stations which need news stories daily to fill their newscasts, EvergreenTV Productions offers an affordable programming service. Unlike larger programming services such as Dr. Dean Edell and TravelNet, it offers a variety of programming at half the cost.

Pricing Strategy

Home Division:
Our business system has helped define our pricing strategy. If our video scrapbooks are too time-consuming, the customer will be charged an exorbitant amount. If our video scrapbooks are even middle to low quality, we cannot charge the customer low enough. By making the productions both time-efficient and consistent in high quality, we can maximize our pricing to acceptable market levels. Our strategy is also based upon the fact that we are introducing video scrapbooks on a large scale into the market, with no previous history for this product. As our video style becomes more popular, we will be able to adjust the pricing accordingly. We are offering four package styles from which our customers may choose. By charting the most popular package, we will better determine the right price for our product.

B2B Division:
Our pricing strategy is key to our offering. If we charge too much, or even 3/4 the price of larger programming services, we are undercutting our potential orders. The market of small market stations cannot bear the higher prices offered by larger programming services.

Likewise, by offering a free resume and marketing service to students, we are ensuring continued interest in our service in exchange for news stories. We need to be positioned to offer payment for these stories a few years down the road. As the popularity of EvergreenTV Productions grows, so will the number of programming services offering similar services.

Promotion Strategy

Home Division:
Initially, we will depend upon presentations and business relationships to reach new customers.

1. Retirement villas "social nights:" We have been invited to attend certain nights set aside at retirement villas for residents and family members in which we will present Photo Memories thru discussion and a brief video presentation.
2. Photographers, photo processing centers, and travel agencies: We will form business referral relationships with like businesses to promote the product.

B2B Division:
We depend on direct contact with communications deans and professors as our main way to reach students. That contact will be made to specific schools.

1. Promotional Kits. We are sending colleges, universities and technical schools with tv stations on campus promotional kits which will include our objectives and student guidelines for various topics.
2. Campus Visits and Phone Calls. We are contacting the professors and deans directly, either through campus visits or phone calls, to gain the support needed from deans and professors, who in turn are encouraging their students to submit news stories to us.

Distribution Strategy

Home Division:
Our primary distribution will be through our storefront, which will also be the order center, consultation location, and production office. To make it easier for our customers at retirement villas, we offer to accept orders at and deliver to these locations.

B2B Division:
Our distribution will focus mainly around our website, taking orders and processing them through direct mailings. In the initial period, we will be distributing tapes during person-to-person presentations.

We are prepared to mail on order, via the USPS. Stations may order for regular three-day delivery, up to overnight shipments, depending upon their needs.

Milestones

Part of the business's success will be based on planned tasks and timely completion of those steps. The table below lists steps, timeline and estimated budgets.