Summary: Promote pre- and post-event engagement/conversion through digital sketchnotes for presentations and events

People say these sketchnotes are awesome. They love these 1-page summaries I do of business and technology events. What if I build a digital sketchnoting service for content marketing agencies who want to help their clients wow their prospects and customers through engaging, relevant visuals captured in real-time? What about working with consultants and professional speakers who give lots of talks to make sure they’ve got great follow-up content that can lead into their back-of-the-room sales?

I’ll specialize in same-day or next-day production of sketchnotes and speed-drawing videos of live webinars and presentations so that companies and speakers can amaze and convert their prospects, clients, and listeners while their expertise is top-of-mind. I’m also curious about the opportunities in coordinating other value-added services. For example, I can work with people to offer transcription, e-book/whitepaper formatting/editing, audio-synchronized sketch videos, and social media publishing.

Offers:

• Creative brief to give organizers more control over the process
• High-level sketchnote summary of the talk that organizers can use for pre-marketing the events
• 1-page visual sketchnote summary delivered same-day or next-day
• Transcription and e-book production
• Blog post drafting and posting
• Sketch video (speed-drawing – condense to 3-5 minutes)
• Sketch video synchronized with voice
• Sketch video synchronized with voice and slides
• Presentation design
• Visual communication coaching
• Social media management / follow-up
• Content marketing coordination – partner with an agency

The key competitors for this are:

• No or minimal event follow-up- missed opportunities!
• Existing follow-ups such as slides, transcripts, and recordings- desire for different ways to engage with the content in a more visual and more time-effective way
• Graphic recorders and paper-based sketchnoters – my workflow makes it easier to incorporate branding elements, colour-match logos, and share images/videos faster and more reliably, which allows organizers/speakers to feed the buzz on Twitter and other social networks. Other companies: Pinkfish, ThinkLink Graphics, Crow Hill Conversations, Wittmann Studios, Creative Life Spark, People with Pep, HNL Consulting, The Chrysalis Solution, Thinking Visually…
• Other digital sketchnoters – I can ally with them to offer different styles and services. I can build a niche for premium/integrated services. I can take advantage of my technical background (great for understanding what’s going on!) and my interest in entrepreneurship and business communication (I can draw and help you simplify what you want to say). Other companies: The Grove Consultants International, Imagethink, See in Colors, The World Cafe, WrightMarks, LearningTimes, Virtual Visuals…

I’m motivated to explore this because…

• People love the sketchnotes, and it would be great to help more companies and people communicate more effectively; companies tell me they want it
• I can more easily learn about marketing and sales because the service is more visual and easy to communicate
• I want to learn how to build a business outside IT, particularly one that creates opportunities for lots of related services that I can outsource or bring in through partnerships
• I like sketchnoting, and it’s a great way to get even more out of the business/tech learning I’d be doing anyway
• I can turn the spotlight onto great ideas
• This helps me meet and connect with lots of people
• It’s less stressful than software development, and lends itself more to fragmented or prescheduled time
• I can use the skills and ideas to build information products down the road

In order to test my assumptions and find out if this is a valuable idea, I can:

• Research competitors’ services, positioning, and prices
• Meet with content marketing agency owners and professional speakers to see if this offering resonates with them, and if they see gaps or the existing solutions are just fine for them
• Build relationships and knowledge by sketchnoting webinars and events
• Develop a one-page business value summary and see if people love it
• Connect with other freelancers with complementary skills
• Work out a good value model with people

Pricing considerations:

• Time and materials? Conference recorders / graphic facilitators: $1500-3000/day. Illustrators: $50-100 per hour. This could be a premium service because of quick turnaround, so I could pick $75/hour as my starting price and experimenting from there.
• Value-based? I was leaning towards this because it will allow me to align more closely with what clients want and need. This also means I can start by offering a premium service and see who can turn that into even more value, giving early adopters that exclusivity instead of saturating the market. There’s a lot more uncertainty around this, though, and I’m realizing that waffling on pricing is holding me up when it comes to talking to potential customers and learning more about fulfilling their needs. So I’m going to go with time and materials for now, then develop value-based pricing models when I’ve got great demonstrated value.
• Delight guarantee =) Lower risk, more happiness.

Growing this business:

• Talking to people and finding out what their needs are, what makes them curious about this
• Getting gigs
• Building relationships
• Building a library of visual metaphors
• Adding complementary services
• Offering visual communication workshops
• Training and coordinating people – illustrators, transcribers, etc.

Does this look like it would help you? Talk to me to help me figure out how to shape this into a business that’s perfect for you!

- Sacha (sacha@sachachua.com)