Xamun is a SaaS based comprehensive software suite for Consulting companies and freelancers. This Marketing Plan aims to acquire 50,000 subsribers on www.xamun.com within a period of 1 year and with a budget of $100,000

1. PROJECT FALCON
A Marketing Plan for
www.xamun.com
Madhuranath R
MBA 2012 | Cohort-7
Asian Institute of Management

2. OVERVIEW
Problem Statement
1 2 3
Identifying the Go-To-Market
need Plan
Action Plan
• About XAMUN • Positioning: Feature • Objectives
• Product v/s Price • Budget Allocation
• Customer Profile • Pricing • Key Recommendations
• Competitor v/s • SEM Cost/Benefit • Marketing Plan Timeline
Feature Map Analysis • Client Acquisition
• Conclusion • Value Proposition • Freelancers Acquisition
CONCLUSION

3. Problem Statement
Create a marketing plan for Blast Asia to
acquire 50,000 subscribers on www.xamun.com
by April-2013 within a budget of $100,000.
Suggest an ideal mix of corporate & freelancer
subscribers and a strategy for client retention.

4. IDENTIFYING THE NEED
Customer  Product  Competitor

5. About XAMUN
XAMUN is a global consulting platform on cloud. It
provides a comprehensive suite of solutions for
managing a consulting business totally online for
companies & freelancers. It provides a marketplace
where experts and customers can meet for business.
Keywords: Consulting, Cloud, Comprehensive , Market

6. Product BENEFITS
Features Functional Emotional
• PM • Integrated • Community
• CRM platform • Reliability of
• HRM • Low cost Microsoft
• Market • Scalable Azure Cloud
• Freelance (Cloud-based) • ISO Certified
• Dynamic Assurance of
• Networking service quality
Resource
Management

7. Customer Profile
Industry Geography Customer
• IT • USA/Canada • SME
• Legal • Asia (Corporates)
• Training • India
• Marketing • Philippines • Freelancers
• Accounting • Europe (Individuals)
• Engineering • UK/FSI
• Benelux

8. Competition v/s Feature Map
4 HRM
NETWORK
2 XAMUN
PM
0
0 CRM
1 2
Competition exists only in one or two feature spaces & are thus partial solutions

9. Conclusion
• SME companies & freelancers /experts offer
Customer
consulting services across different industries
• Whole solutions for managing their consulting
Needs
business and related resources/talent
• Only comprehensive product which also
Product
provides marketplace & networking features

10. GO-TO-MARKET PLAN
Pricing  Product  Promotion  Placement

11. Positioning: Feature v/s Price
XAMUN is a low-cost, high-features solution unlike competition

12. Pricing
XAMUN is very competitively priced compared with competition

13. SEM Cost/Benefit Analysis
Metric 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Cost per click (CPC) $0.38 $0.32 $0.62 $0.71 $1.03 $1.24 $1.37
Click through rate (CTR) 1.50% 0.70% 0.30% 0.30% 0.30% 0.70% 0.63%
Average Ad Position 4 4 3.9 4 3.6 3.7 3.9
Cost per 1000 impressions (CPM) $5.56 $2.38 $1.95 $2.16 $3.34 $8.55 $8.67
Conversion rate 3.80% 4.00% 7.00% 7.50% 6.00% 6.80% 7.60%
Cost per conversion $10.18 $7.63 $6.41 $7.02 $12.60 $13.14 $13.68
Invalid click rate n/a 3.50% 6.50% 4.90% 5.50% 6.70% 7.90%
Subscribers Cost Pages Cost Hours Cost SEM Cost/Benefit Analysis
500 $6,840 8 $ 675 5 $ 350 SEO Optimization Cost $ 3,825
9 $ 725 10 $ 700 Cost / 1000 clicks x clicks x Days = Cost
1,000 $13,680
10 $ 775 15 $ 1,050 $5.00 1500 365 $ 2,738
1,500 $20,520 11 $ 825 20 $ 1,400 Cost / click conversion
2,000 $27,360 12 $ 875 25 $ 1,750 $13.68 243 $ 3,326
2,500 $34,200 13 $ 925 30 $ 2,100 Total SEM + SEO Cost $ 9,889
3,000 $41,040 14 $ 975 35 $ 2,450 CTR CVR ICR
15 $ 1,025 40 $ 2,800 3,833 261 243
3,500 $47,880
16 $ 1,075 45 $ 3,150 Total Impressions 547,500
4,000 $54,720 17 $ 1,125 50 $ 3,500 Total Sales 243
4,500 $61,560 18 $ 1,175 55 $ 3,850 Revenue/Sale $60
5,000 $68,400 19 $ 1,225 60 $ 4,200 Total Revenue from SEM $14,589
XAMUN can utilize SEM techniques tactfully to reduce spends.
Total Cost $ 3,825
Source: http://www.web-sem.com/seo-rates.html
Part of revenues from SEM can be fed back to SEM marketing
to reach the target customer base within the given budget.

14. Value Proposition
XAMUN provides low cost, cloud-based, comprehensive
software for consulting companies and freelancers.
It also creates a networked community of consulting
companies and professionals that can benefit each other.

15. Action Plan
Objectives  Actions  Metrics

16. OBJECTIVES
Acquisition Goals Constraints
50,000 subscribers overall Marketing Budget = $100,000
10% subscribers are corporate Time to Market = 1 year
90% subscribers freelancers Only Corporate customers pay

17. Budget Allocation
XAMUN has very low budget
for marketing and hence
needs innovative promotion
& placement strategies.
New Channel: Hackathons
Promotional Activity Budget Allocation Per Dollar
PhilSME Expo & other World Fairs $ 20,000 20%
Cnet, SiliconIndia, Inc.com $ 10,000 10%
Ads in Google, Facebook, LinkedIn $ 10,000 10%
Ads in Tech Mags $ 5,000 5%
Hackathons $ 25,000 25%
Office in USA $ 5,000 5%
Sales Team in India $ 25,000 25%
Marketing Budget $ 100,000 100%

18. Key Recommendations
Promotion Pricing Placement
• Sponsor • Low Price • Geographies
Hackathons • Partial licenses • India
• Trade Fairs • Bulk discounts • Philippines
• SEM • Referral • USA
• Advertise in discounts • Membership of
• E-zines/Tech • PSIA
Mags • NASSCOM
• Social Media

19. Implementation Timeline
Business Expo & IT
Fairs
Advertising on job
portals, social/business
networking sites and
Business Magazines
Client testimonials
and creating
training content
Hackathons in
India & Philippines
Free trial for
new SMB
users
Apr Aug – Oct Nov Dec Jan – Mar

20. Metrics: Client Acquisition
Cost of Acquisition v/s Target Achieved
Cost for adding 1 user 1 user = $ 25
For every 250 subsribers added Cost = $ 9,889
Revenues earned from 250 users Cash = $14,589
Cash earned for adding new users Number= 585
New cost of adding 1 user $ 6,064
Reduction in cost of acquisition 39%
Increase in customer base 48%
Using compounded growth rate of 48%
# of subscribers in < 4 iterations 5,802
XAMUN will be able to achieve the target of 5,000 paying
subscribers using the SEM techniques and feeding back of cash
earned from the customers acquired into SEM expenses again.

21. Metrics: Freelancers Acquisition
Freelancers Acquisition via Hackathons Cost of Acquisition v/s Target Achieved
# of top engineering colleges in India 250 Cost of sponsoring 1 hackathon $ 1,000
# of zones across these colleges 5
Average # of students/college 500
Prize money offered for 1 hackathon $ 1,000
Average # of programmers/college 100 # of hackathons planned for India 5
Average # of participants/college 40% 40 Total Cost of sponsoring hackathons $ 10,000
Total # of participants across India 10,000 Cost of acquiring 1 freelancer via hackathons $ 1.00
Total # of impressions 125,000
Revenue earned from 1 freelancer on XAMUN $ 12.00
Total # of potential freelancers 25,000
Total # of actual programmers/freelancers 10,000
Marketing Efficiency of hackathons strategy 1100%
Total # of freelancers acquired through this channel = 10,000
However, positive network effect will kick in around these numbers and the
overall # of freelancers acquired can increase by 500% in 6 months of contests
A cost/benefit analysis of the Hackathons strategy shows that the efficiency in
this method is best suited for XAMUN marketing
The cost of acquiring “skilled” freelancers is difficult in this method as college
graduates will need little mentoring initially

22. Conclusion
Summary  Limitations

23. Conclusion
 XAMUN is a great product with clear value proposition
 It is built on proven, reliable & credible technologies
 Since only Corporate customers pay for the licensing of
XAMUN it has potential to attract more freelancers
 Creating an interactive community of consulting
companies & professionals is the end goal of XAMUN
and this marketing plan is aligned with that strategy
 However the budget allocated for the purpose is
limited and the results may be slightly less than targets

24. THANK YOU