Subscription, Target Audience and Advertising
Subscription
Due to the nature of this website there is going to have to be some sort of subscription for users. This will be a variable cost over time but when a member first joins there will a one off fixed fee. This fee will be representative of the cost of the website and results of extensive market research into competitive sites and the cost to join.
Upon initial subscription users will gain access to the website allowing them to upload any image of there own, have access to the free stock images that are available on the website. The user will also have access to a limited number of other user art and design that are available for download. Note: For the user to gain access to other users art work the user who owns the work has to agree that it can be used by other people (this will more than likely be done upon upload with a simple box to tick or not).
If the user wants extensive access to unlimited images and stock images then a top up fee for the site will be requierd each year to cover the cost of providing ownership for the photos/images
Target Audience
Due to the nature of this site it is hopefully going to be widely accepted by most age groups. However due to the nature of the site it will more than likely be appealing to people who are just getting interest into the world of picture editing which can be at any age but more than likely aimed at the younger generation.
Due to the sharing nature of this website it might be relevent to aim the site at people who will use sites such as Facebook or Flickr as these people will be very aware of the sharing capabilities and the ability to share photos. One thing to mention about flickr is that they are a photo sharing site and might be a problem if the edited images are distributed through there. Could cause certain problems with content and people getting photos through other means than paying to get the advanced access on LayerMix.
This is very vague but without a website to compare agaisnt or any information it is just my opinion.
Advertising
There are a variety of ways in which websites can advertise but for the size and scale of this website when it is first set up adverts will be a very importan stream of revenue for the website. Advertising will be done by allowing other websites that have some relation to LayerMix (or in some cases not) to be desplayed on the LayerMix website and a nominal fee gets paid to LayerMix for this, whether this be pay-per-click or pay-per-buy.
Below are some examples of advertising techniques that won’t cost anything to add onto the website and would be good for LayerMix to encorporate to get the website known:
Google Ad-Sense - Searches the internet for adverts that are similar to a websites content and audience.
Google Ad-Words – Advertises your website on the google webpage when a search is created for what is similar to that on your website
Pay-Per-Click – This is offered from many websites, it involves placing adverts that link to another website and then everytime the link is clicked your website will gain so much money. It never is usually alot but this can be built on
Facebook – Seeing as a possible target audience is going to be people who use sharing websites then it would be a good idea to advertise on facebook.
Flickr – The same principal as above could be made for the website flickr which is a photo sharepoint site. This would be a very good idea for advertising as LayerMix is to do with photos.
Money can also be made through the linking of a specialist product website that will give users the ability to buy top of the range products. If there is a sales then the website would make a small amount of money it is accessed through LayerMix
