The Pitch: 'Insight' My Entrepreneurial Idea

Video Pitch

Introduction

My idea is a Social Media Consultancy (working title: Insight), which focuses primarily on social issues and aims to inform the wider public about them. The aim is to then promote companies/organisations with an invested interest in that field. Some of these companies will have a product they are selling.

For example, Care Protect is a potential first client, whom I will be able to trial this idea with. They champion the idea of having CCTV cameras in bedrooms, in nursing homes.

Through a website/blog setup for my consultancy I will post content relating to the issue in a journalistic fashion, presenting posts more like news articles, than typical advertisements. This content would then be backed up with other content from social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, specifically setup for the consultancy.

The ultimate aim as this illustration shows is that the client will experience an increase in interest/sales in the product/service they provide, or the social issue/area they’re looking to make a change in.

This demonstrates the key value proposition for my potential customers, my thought process for which can be seen in further detail – HERE

I also expanded on this by thinking through in more depth about how my service could relieve any pain caused by barriers in the path of my potential clients, that can be seen - HERE

Target Customer/Audience

My target customer would be any organisations looking to further increase the visibility of an issue they’re involved with. This could be a private company or even a charity. What they’re selling could even be as simple as an idea or campaign for change, not necessarily a tangible product as is the case with my trial client Care Protect.

The audience however would be separated into two parts:

Firstly, potential customers for my client, so for Care Protect it would be organisations in the care sector who could potential pay Care Protect for the service of installing their CCTV operation.

Secondly, general members of the public, due to the sites journalistic approach to content, the content would be accessible to anybody not just potential customers.

This could also work in the favour of clients, as word of mouth could spread the content far and wide, especially since the content would be posted across multiple platforms and shared on social media.

Competitors/Similar Ideas

In terms of competitors I have not come across a competitor who is doing anything identical. Maybe I am wrong! But from looking I can’t find one yet.

It would be similar to a review website. For example, there are websites which review mobile phones talking about their features and benefits and then contain a link to where people can buy the device. They get money from phone companies as this acts as a form of advertising.

Tech Radar is one of the companies, they review the handsets and even offer to email visitors to the site with a reminder when the product goes on sale. http://www.techradar.com

My idea is very similar to this but in a more indirect way. The idea of the content I will produce will be that it won’t look like “in your face” advertising, it will be subtle and the information presented in a much more journalistic fashion.

SCIE (The Social Care institute forExcellence), who describe themselves as a leading improvement support provider and independent charity, publish articles and resources about different issues relating to care. They’re funded by bodies such as the Department for Health.

They post blogs and utilise social media to talk about issues in the care sector.

This approach is very similar to my idea, though there are differences. In that they are centred on publishing resources and are a charity, rather than ultimately being a tool to promote a product/service, which can be purchased by perspective customers. But seeing how SCIE do things could be important in terms of the development of my social media consultancy.

Next steps

The next steps I will take will be:

• Setup the blog/website and social media presence for my enterprise
• Formally meet with Care Protect to discuss using their company as a trial client for the enterprise
• Continue to research any competitors which may be out there
• Draft some content which would go on the blog/website and social media channels to demonstrate the feel of it and get a more tangible feel for what the enterprise will look like

Links to further information

Creative process – a few weeks ago I used creative tools to further refine my idea and much of what is in this final pitch was generated from that process.

Initial thoughts – this shows what the idea has developed from really, I initially thought I was heading down the ‘social enterprise’ route but as I have got further into it, I’ve come to find that’s not what I am proposing here.

(I have not trialled this with my initial client yet, but am open to any organisation contacting me who is perhaps interested to know more, my contact information can be found on the ‘about me’ page of this blog.)