Included in this sale:
- WisWeddingPlanner.com domain and developed website with paying customers.
- MyWeddingInspirations.com domain and developed website.
- ShareWeddingIdeas.com domain, displays the MyWeddingInspirations.com website.
- 2 Community Websites that seamlessly integrate into WisWeddingPlanner and MyWeddingInspirations
- 2 MySpace accounts one for WisWeddingPlanner and one for MyWeddingInspirations.
- All files and any additional accounts associated with running this business
- Not Included:Remaining Inventory of Wedding Organizers
Overview:
These websites provide free information and tools to engaged couples. Including: Wedding Directory, Articles, Contests, Checklists, Save their favorite Venues, Bridal Shows and more. I started WisWeddingPlanner.com (Wisconsin Wedding Directory) in 2006, and started creating MyWeddingInspirations (50 States Wedding Directory) this year (2008) because I seen the potential, and was receiving tons of traffic from other areas on my Wisconsin website. There is so much potential for these sites – I have honestly only reached 10% or so of it. There are so many businesses that could be added, and more traffic to be gained if you have the time spend. The traffic for the Website now is constant but if you put in work, it will go up even more.
Revenue:
I charge $79.99 for advertising in the directory on WisWeddingPlanner, but sometimes cut the rate in half as promos. For MyWeddingInspirations.com I charge $49.99 for advertising in the directory. I just finished automating the directory this last quarter in 2008, so it was very hard before that to keep track of all of the businesses listed and email them to renew. I did receive over 50 renewals that I counted so far this year, plus there will be more. This is not counting the new businesses revenue I received. I have not spent much time emailing new businesses this year to advertise as I was busy doing the back end work - working on the new website MyWeddingInspirations and automating them. Most of the time spent before that was getting new customers and emailing current customers. The more new customers and renewals the more profit.
Technical:
The websites are built with DotNetNuke technology. The websites are very easy to maintain. You log into the website and create / delete edit pages or text. You do not need ftp software. When you edit text you get a graphical editor box that looks kind of like a word document. I have spent a lot of time and money this last year upgrading the websites to become automated. I knew that I would be selling it soon and wanted to make things as easy as possible for the next owner. The whole registering, receiving initial payment, directory listing and directory listing renewal is all automated. I do manually check things to make sure the system was correct for renewals and such.
Maintenance:
The costs to maintain this website include renewing the domain names and hosting annually. I currently host with ihostasp.net and I have paid under $100 for the year for hosting. Basically the biggest thing would be updating and marketing the websites, providing more interaction and generating new customers. There is an a bulk emailing module on the website to let you email all businesses or brides easily.
Advertising:
I currently have 1 annual publication that I print yearly for WisWeddingPlanner – an annual calendar that has wedding checklists in the back of it and has advertising on each calendar month. I have done this for the last two years, and have 10,000 copies printed. They are distributed for free at local bridal shows and local businesses. I have all the files and the printing company's information that will be transferred to you if you would like to continue this. This is the only marketing cost I incur. I have submitted the sites to wedding directories that are free. I did sign up for a google and yahoo ppc account and received the free credit and did a couple clicks here and there.
Stats:
You can run very detailed stats reports on both of the websites. You can enter in a date range and it will give you charts of: top pages, ip lookup, google keywords, yahoo keywords, users, referrals, and more. There are a couple stats modules included on both of the websites. You can keep track of how many visitors you have per month and the page views and users. I have been keeping stats since I started the website just of visitors and page views, you can view them here: http://www.wisweddingplanner.com/Vendors/SiteStats/tabid/393/Default.aspx. I did find that when I ran contests on the website, even if they were for little things I was receiving more traffic. I ran a contest pretty much every month in 2007 and didn't run any in 2008. There is a really neat contest module on the website that will do this for you. I just emailed all of the businesses on the website and seen if they wanted to give a gift certificate for the contest. I always had someone wanting to do this. I started saving the chart stats from 2008 if you would like to see them please email me.
I have optimized the websites for keywords and they do well organically in the search engines.
Why Selling:
I work full time and started this business as a hobby while my husband went back to school. Now that he is graduated and the business is more established I would like to sell it to spend more time with my family.
Legal Info:
Wis Wedding Planner, LLC is currently registered in the state of Wisconsin as a LLC. I went through a lawyer for all of the legal documentation a couple years ago to form this. I even had them write up the terms on my website for advertisers. I can dissolve the LLC once the websites are sold.
I will be filing the taxes for the 2009 year. I don't guarantee the potential of the profits made as it is the new owners responsibility to maintain current customers and establish new customers.
Contact:
If you have any questions please feel free to email me at Stephanie @ WisWeddingPlanner.com. I am looking for any reasonable offer as I would like to see these website carry on. If you have any questions or would like more details please feel free to email me at: stephanie @ WisWeddingPlanner .com