Have you ever thought about building an online business? Perhaps you have an online business and are looking to boost its’ growth. Either way, this new series will be for you.
This series, which we are naming The Million Dollar WordPress Business Challenge, is going to follow us, in detail, building a WordPress business with the goal of a total lifetime revenue of $1 million.
Why are we doing this challenge?
The primary reason is to give the resources and planning for how to successfully build an online business, such that, anyone can apply it in their own business.
Why $1 million?
We selecting total lifetime revenue of $1 million as a goal simply because it sounds good and on a broad level, most entrepreneurs would be very happy with that outcome. As part of the series, we will get more into detail about the financials and making more tangible projections. It’s good to have a lofty pie-in-the-sky goal, but we’ll need a hard detailed plan to get there.
In case you missed it, what is WordPress?
WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) that allows users to create and manage websites easily. It is the most popular CMS in the world, powering over 40% of all websites on the internet. In fact, you are currently reading this article on a WordPress website. Learn why you should use WordPress here.
The Elevator Pitch
Every business owner needs be able to describe their business in one sentence. Having a single sentence provides the following:
- Clarifies Value: A concise statement forces owners to focus on the core value they provide, helping both them and their audience understand the essence of the business.
- Captures Attention: In fast-paced environments, like networking events or elevator meetings, attention spans are short. A single sentence pitch makes it easier to grab attention quickly.
- Enhances Communication: Being able to clearly and succinctly describe the business allows for easier communication with potential clients, investors, and partners.
- Improves Focus: It helps the business owner stay focused on the primary mission and goals of the business without getting lost in unnecessary details.
- Facilitates Marketing: A one-sentence description is easier to use across marketing channels, such as websites, social media bios, or advertisements.
The Brand for this Challenge: Tuff Money
For this challenge we are going to be creating a new website and brand called Tuff Money. Tuff Money is focused on the stock market and helping investors.
For this business, we will use the following sentence as a guide:
Stock market news, expert market analysis, and investor education.
This statement will aid in determining where to spend our time while operating this business. We can validate if a task will help the business or be a distraction.
As time goes on, this sentence might evolve to something more specific. Perhaps we narrow in on a particular tool or education model that really drives business. If that is the case, we will want to update this statement to focus on that successful line of business.
The Business Model
In order to reach the revenue goal, there needs to be a solid plan in place. There needs to be detail and well thought out steps. Now that being said, there also needs to be flexibility. We are building a plan today, but down the road it might need to be adjusted. We need to boost what works and eliminate what does not work.
To help us visualize the plan we will outline the business model using the key concepts described via the Business Model Canvas. This is simply a structured way to think about a business plan. There are obviously many ways someone can plan a business, but if you don’t already have a favorite, it is a good place to start.
Key Partners
In progress.
Key Activities
In progress.
Value Proposition
The will become more specific as products are built and the marketing is more defined, but essentially is giving investors the best content & education such that they can succeed in their plans.
Channels
This will require some A/B testing and just time in general. The main channels will be organic blog traffic and organic social media engagement. Blog articles, video content, and all other social media posting will be the drivers. We will look to match up the content categories for social posting with post categories.
Revenue Stream
The initial plan is generate revenue through the following 2 sources:
- Ad revenue from the blog: Creating premium content for our audience to consume for free with the presence of ads.
- Sales of course and e-books: Developing high-level education products to give investors the knowledge to execute their plans.
Waiting for perfection?
Will we be waiting for perfection before taking action on key activities? No. Digital businesses need to be comfortable with a more agile approach. Agile in the sense that releases need to small and often. Marketing needs to be ever constant and can not wait until a product is perfect. There can always be updates and progress made down the road, customers actually appreciate updates that result in benefits for them. Even a blog post like this can be initially published and then updated as time goes on. That is exactly how this post has been created.
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[…] the previous episode, we introduced the challenge as well as the brand. We then started to outline the business model […]