Enterprise idea - INSYCMK
INSYNC-MK is a new online lifestyle magazine, targeting young adults and students in Milton Keynes. The platform will cover a range of topics such as news, music, fashion and food; with a range of subjects available, the magazine aims to appeal to both males and females in Milton Keynes, between the ages of 16 to 25.
My online magazine will allow my audience to stay updated with everything new in Milton Keynes. With experience writing for online publications already, I will meet my target audience’s needs by creating engaging modern content which will be shared across the website and social media. This is included within my value proposition to provide quality and trustworthy material for my readers.
Please see below my mind map which shows my idea development, which is also shown in my week 1 and week 2 blog posts.
Target audience
After conducting research upon my target audience, I feel as if this audience is neglected and not targeted by other news platforms in Milton Keynes. I made sure that I filled this gap in the market by creating content to suit this niche market.
Milton Keynes is a growing and establishing town particularly for young people, as the population of 16-24-year olds in the town is expected to rise by 10% between 2015 and 2026 (MKInsight.) This shows that my audience is growing – and this is the perfect opportunity to create a news platform to appeal to them.
As well as my readers being my main customer segment, I have a multi-sided market which also includes advertisers and partners for my magazine. By meeting the needs of my readers by providing new and engaging content, I will gain a high visitor count, which will make advertisers more interested in paying me to advertise their company on my platform. This will create a revenue stream for me, especially as my magazine will be free to access for readers.
Please see below my Business Canvas Model, Consumer Profile and link to my week 3 blog, which further illustrates my customer segments
Mission Statement: INSYNC-MK is an online news platform appealing to young people in Milton Keynes, to provide them with the latest news, events and talent in the area.
In order to evaluate my idea to ensure that I have looked into the strengths, weaknesses and challenges I may have, I have conducted a SWOT and PEST analysis which you can see below. By analysing ways to improve, as well as factors which may affect my enterprise, I will be prepared and in a better position if any changes were to occur in the industry.
Competition and inspiration
The main news outlets in Milton Keynes include MK Citizen and Celebrate:MK, who tend to appeal to a slightly older audience as their main focus is on local news. Even though these publications target the same geographical location as me, they do not provide the same content to appeal to my age range. Therefore our aims are different due to targeting different demographics.
I also worked at Style Birmingham, which is where I gained inspiration from. This form of hyperlocal journalism is very successful to their Birmingham audience, and upon looking for a similar platform in Milton Keynes, I found this was missing.
Market research
After conducting both primary and secondary market research on my idea and industry, it is clear to me that there is a gap in the market and a demand for my enterprise to be successful.
Evidently, in my primary research below, I have demonstrated that there is a demand for my enterprise idea. Over 75% of participants in my online survey agreed that there was both a gap in the market, but also that if it was fulfilled, they would engage with this type of platform.
I conducted market research on my industry to back up my decision to create an online platform instead of print. As you can see from the below graph, there has been a strong decline in print magazines over the years. Whilst print is dropping, statistics from Print Week show that there has been a growth of 37% in online consumer magazines. This provides great evidence for my decision to create an online platform due to the journalism industry turning digital.
Further market research can be found in my week 4 blog post here.
Next steps
The ‘Next steps’ for my enterprise idea will be mainly about networking, establishing and maintaining relationships with smaller companies, potential investors and advertisers.
I will conduct further comprehensive market research to create a deeper understanding of the industry - such as looking at what content is the most popular, and what times are the best to post online. This will help to attract my readers to my website, which will further benefit my multi-sided market through my advertisers in order to begin creating revenue.
As well as this, I will begin to plan how I can upgrade my enterprise idea by gain support from funders and partners in the industry. I could consider setting up a CrowdFunder in order to help develop INSYNC-MK further.
You can see my current developments below, which include my logo and website, as well as referring to my week 5 blog post here.
Link to pitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFT6NIDqeQM