The fundraising has been put on hold for the moment, simply because I’ve not had chance to complete our new business plan. Most of my time is taken up with PR and marketing – I reckon about 80% at the moment.
Of course it’s all worthwhile, and especially now we’ve had confirmation that several articles about us are going to be published in print (incl the Evening Standard’s Home & Property supplement, in the Really Useful Column on Wednesday 3rd April), on websites, and I’ve got various groups distributing our cards. And it’s all making an impact and we’re getting results from it.
However we began to recognise that this can’t carry on for much longer, because it’s taking my time away from the strategic planning which is crucial to the development of the business as well.
So we’ve taken the plunge……we’ve employed a PR agency (again!).
I met Caroline from Crush Communications at a networking event a couple of weeks ago, and I was very impressed with her. Not least because, one of her client’s was also there (a fashion designer and image consultant), and she was singing her praises. She assures me she wasn’t paid to attend the event by Caroline!
Caroline contacted me after the event, which led me to discuss a potential project we were planning and which we would like help with – an Easter competition, primarily with the objective of getting media coverage and attracting new members.
So Ross & I met Caroline and her partner, Vanessa, at their offices in Manchester yesterday. After a productive meeting we’re now working together! Partly due to our previous experiences with PR firms, we didn’t want to tie ourselves in to a long-term arrangement, until we’d seen the results they could get. And because of the structure of the fee arrangement we agreed, which is much riskier than a normal assignment for them (but I wasn’t prepared to work on any other basis than the one we’ve agreed), they are happy too to work on this short-term assignment as a test for them as well.
So both sides are happy!
Now I’m just confirming the prize – a luxury spa weekend for 2! Which ties in nicely with our strapline (…& now you can relax) and putting together the information for the press releases, which will be issued by Crush on Monday afternoon. Perfect! So far, so good.
If things work out well, then I’m sure we’ll consider working with them on a longer term basis, because we’ve been impressed so far, and we do seem to get along well.
From the website content side, things are especially ramping up on the travel reviews. We’ve got a fantastic range of holidays planned in for the next 8 weeks, which will make those pages really diverse.
The Easter activities are being continually uploaded as we speak, and I’ve got another 30 songs to input, and we’ve got another 10 or so arts & crafts activities to upload.
Looks like we have been joined by a celebrity too! Lizi Botham is from CBeebies’ SMarteenies, and she’s just started a children’s arts/crafts party business called ‘Bizi Lizi’. Co-incidentally she’s from the same town as me, so we’ve been in touch and she’s going to provide some activities for the arts & crafts pages too, in return for us using her logo next to them on the site.
I presented a training course (still paying the bills just!) to a group of young accountants last night, about the benefits of networking and building contacts. And I used quite a few examples from the website where I’d met someone, or got in touch with someone, because there was an opportunity for both of us to benefit from some arrangement – usually linked with PR for one side or both. It’s all about contacts! Seeing the opportunities and having the guts to do something about it.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that easy. Simply because you’ve got to be on top of everything you’re trying to do, you have to be mega organised to keep track of who you’ve contacted, then follow them up. I’m sure I’ve missed quite a few things where I’ve not followed them up. Must trawl back through my ‘sent items’ box and make a list of things to follow up. Yes, another list!
We met Lee on Tuesday and started to look at our statistics – hits, page impressions, exit and entry points, conversion rates etc. It’s not very helpful at the moment because the figures are skewed by people just being nosey, and also a lot of PR companies who are wanting to see if their client is listed on our site. I guess when they find out they have to pay to get that information, many don’t.
We’ve had a good click-through from my diary – so thank you for having a look! But I’d love your feedback if you did go and look at the home page. Did you join? If not, why not?
- Was it the price (£3.50 for a single month or £12 for a year)
- Was it too fussy and you got bored?
- Did the copy not grab you enough?
- Or did it just not apply to you as you don’t have kids and you were just looking because you read this?
Please let me know – it all helps!
kirsty@entertainthekids.com or www.entertainthekids.com
Another baby show tomorrow, this time in St Albans but we’re not exhibiting with a full stand, so we won’t get the same impact we had at Bambinos. I really must look at the full list of baby shows and decide which we’re going to do. Otherwise they’ll be full and we’ll have missed the boat.
Next week will show us what impact we’ve got from the press/media coverage. It will be very interesting to see the results. We’re also going to combine it with a targeted direct mail campaign to potential introducers (mainly nurseries & kids clubs) with another competition for them – the highest number of members referred by one introducer will also win a luxury spa weekend! One day I’ll get to go on one of these myself! So I’m off to the stationers now to buy more envelopes and cartridge ink to start printing all those labels again!
Kirsty
entertainthekids.com
31 March 2006
27 March 2006
2 weeks in!
Is it really 2 weeks since we went live? It has absolutely flown by and I think I’m just catching my breath. I don’t know where to start!
At the end of our first week we exhibited at Bambinos, a baby & toddler exhibition in Harrogate. It was an ideal opportunity to meet the public, promote the brand and see whether, after all our market research, we were right about people being willing to pay a membership fee to use the site.
Were we right? YES! Fantastic, problem 1 sorted! We received such a favourable response, and even pregnant mums were buying an annual membership (£12). So we’ve overcome that issue. Now we have many more issues to deal with:
- promote, promote, promote the brand
- overcome apathy and actually get people to logon and have a look
- review our stats to understand our ‘numbers’ – response rates, conversion rates & later on, renewal percentages, so we can plan a bit better
- keep the content up to date and expand it
- and promote a bit more – efficiently though!
Although the visitor numbers at Bambinos weren’t as high as expected, and therefore it wasn’t as cost efficient as it should’ve been, we realised that this form of marketing was very effective for us. We have a very visual stand, with the website being projected onto a big screen. I was very proud of our stand. It looked good, and we had plenty to draw people in – a kiddies colouring table and some cool water for all those pregnant mums! We also started off with some helium and lots of branded balloons, but unbelievably, half way through the first day, we ran out of helium!
So I’ve now done some research into the other baby shows around the UK. There’s the big one, The Baby Show, sponsored by Practical Parenting, which is now in 4 locations during the year. The advantage to exhibiting at this is that it’s very well established and gets massive visitor numbers, 20,000+. The disadvantage is cost, although on a cost per visitor basis, it’s probably the best value. However, cashflow is extremely tight, but more about that later!
There are several other smaller shows, usually much shorter in length, but some also running for the first time (like Bambino) so you take a risk on visitor numbers. However, sometimes the cost is so low that it’s worth taking the risk. So I’m in contact with the organizers of these now, and over the next couple of weeks we’ll decide which other shows we are exhibiting at.
I’ve also been investigating advertising costs. There are some ideal places for us to advertise offline, and I’m looking at the relative costs of all of these at the moment. The online advertising is still up for discussion and review. Of course we’re doing all the ‘search engine optimisation’ (seo) work with Lee and it’s on the agenda to be discussed at tomorrow morning’s management meeting. But I think we need some more information about online advertising before we take it any further.
We have been interviewed by some local newspapers, and I’ve been distributing the advertising/business cards around various groups. So the public relations (PR) is still gradually building up, and hopefully that will show results soon.
We’re now looking at the next phase of our funding requirements. The funding we had to date was mainly to get us to the current stage, and now we have 2 options. We can either have minimal expenditure, and wait for the business to grow by word of mouth and PR, before we spend any more on advertising etc. Or we can go for another phase of fundraising, this time for a much larger sum, and get the budget to really go for marketing & advertising in a big way.
To a funder, we are at the stage where we have a product, it has been proven, and we have met all our deadlines, so to some extent the management team is also proven. Therefore any risk will be reduced.
However, we still don’t have adequate proof of our membership assumptions. We have quite a unique offering and so we can’t carry out research to compare our sales projections with any other business. On the positive side, my target for new members in March has nearly been reached, and that was supposed to be for a full month when we didn’t start trading until 13th of the month.
The other negative is that we don’t have any security to offer a funder, therefore we’ll have to either use the DTI Small firms loan guarantee scheme (SFLGS), or we’ll have to sell equity shares to a business angel or venture capitalist.
So guess what? I’m writing yet another version of the business plan! It has to be completely updated now that we’ve launched, and that’s on my task list for Tuesday when Luke is in nursery. Talking of which, he has been a bit unwell for the last few days, and so it a bit more clingy than normal, which is making it more difficult for me to spend as long at the computer. It’s amazing where you can pull the hours from if you need to though, and it’s certainly one advantage of working from home. This is what they really mean by ‘flexible working’!
Kirsty
At the end of our first week we exhibited at Bambinos, a baby & toddler exhibition in Harrogate. It was an ideal opportunity to meet the public, promote the brand and see whether, after all our market research, we were right about people being willing to pay a membership fee to use the site.
Were we right? YES! Fantastic, problem 1 sorted! We received such a favourable response, and even pregnant mums were buying an annual membership (£12). So we’ve overcome that issue. Now we have many more issues to deal with:
- promote, promote, promote the brand
- overcome apathy and actually get people to logon and have a look
- review our stats to understand our ‘numbers’ – response rates, conversion rates & later on, renewal percentages, so we can plan a bit better
- keep the content up to date and expand it
- and promote a bit more – efficiently though!
Although the visitor numbers at Bambinos weren’t as high as expected, and therefore it wasn’t as cost efficient as it should’ve been, we realised that this form of marketing was very effective for us. We have a very visual stand, with the website being projected onto a big screen. I was very proud of our stand. It looked good, and we had plenty to draw people in – a kiddies colouring table and some cool water for all those pregnant mums! We also started off with some helium and lots of branded balloons, but unbelievably, half way through the first day, we ran out of helium!
So I’ve now done some research into the other baby shows around the UK. There’s the big one, The Baby Show, sponsored by Practical Parenting, which is now in 4 locations during the year. The advantage to exhibiting at this is that it’s very well established and gets massive visitor numbers, 20,000+. The disadvantage is cost, although on a cost per visitor basis, it’s probably the best value. However, cashflow is extremely tight, but more about that later!
There are several other smaller shows, usually much shorter in length, but some also running for the first time (like Bambino) so you take a risk on visitor numbers. However, sometimes the cost is so low that it’s worth taking the risk. So I’m in contact with the organizers of these now, and over the next couple of weeks we’ll decide which other shows we are exhibiting at.
I’ve also been investigating advertising costs. There are some ideal places for us to advertise offline, and I’m looking at the relative costs of all of these at the moment. The online advertising is still up for discussion and review. Of course we’re doing all the ‘search engine optimisation’ (seo) work with Lee and it’s on the agenda to be discussed at tomorrow morning’s management meeting. But I think we need some more information about online advertising before we take it any further.
We have been interviewed by some local newspapers, and I’ve been distributing the advertising/business cards around various groups. So the public relations (PR) is still gradually building up, and hopefully that will show results soon.
We’re now looking at the next phase of our funding requirements. The funding we had to date was mainly to get us to the current stage, and now we have 2 options. We can either have minimal expenditure, and wait for the business to grow by word of mouth and PR, before we spend any more on advertising etc. Or we can go for another phase of fundraising, this time for a much larger sum, and get the budget to really go for marketing & advertising in a big way.
To a funder, we are at the stage where we have a product, it has been proven, and we have met all our deadlines, so to some extent the management team is also proven. Therefore any risk will be reduced.
However, we still don’t have adequate proof of our membership assumptions. We have quite a unique offering and so we can’t carry out research to compare our sales projections with any other business. On the positive side, my target for new members in March has nearly been reached, and that was supposed to be for a full month when we didn’t start trading until 13th of the month.
The other negative is that we don’t have any security to offer a funder, therefore we’ll have to either use the DTI Small firms loan guarantee scheme (SFLGS), or we’ll have to sell equity shares to a business angel or venture capitalist.
So guess what? I’m writing yet another version of the business plan! It has to be completely updated now that we’ve launched, and that’s on my task list for Tuesday when Luke is in nursery. Talking of which, he has been a bit unwell for the last few days, and so it a bit more clingy than normal, which is making it more difficult for me to spend as long at the computer. It’s amazing where you can pull the hours from if you need to though, and it’s certainly one advantage of working from home. This is what they really mean by ‘flexible working’!
Kirsty
13 March 2006
We're LIVE!
Good grief, I really wish I hadn't decided to give up alcohol for Lent. I could really really do with a strong drink now!
Because I am very proud to announce that about 2 hours ago, we went live as www.entertainthekids.com!
Finally, after all this planning - and then of course, as always seems to happen, there was a heart stopping moment when I thought we had a big problem.....but then I looked again, and it isn't as big a problem as I thought, and certainly won't stop us trading. We've just missed something that could look a tiny bit better - but I'm not telling you what it is, you'll have to go and find it!!
So I've spent the last 2 hours (in between going stone cold with fright about what I thought I'd found!) sorting out the complimentary media logins that have been requested by the press. And there's some quite distinguished names on there, so I hope they like it!
I've checked, and checked again that their logins work, that there's no broken links, and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed now that I haven't missed anything.
This weekend has been exhausting. It's just been constant work and working against the clock. You know that feeling when sometimes you wish you could turn back time to get a few more hours, and yet at the same time you wish it was just all over? I'm pleased with the quality of the content now, and I think it is fabulous value for money for anyone joining it.
I just wanted to make sure of that before we launched, because you only have one chance to impress someone. And although they'd have already joined up, it could still be disastrous if they're not impressed because of the impact of negative word of mouth. So I was desperate to make sure that whoever joined the site was delighted with it, from day 1. Only time will tell, eh?
Then today has been much of a waiting game, just waiting for the final amends to be made, and checking them and then towards the end it got a bit frantic until we gave the go ahead to go live.
And then 15 minutes of peace, whilst they uploaded the site onto the server. During which time by the way I went to pick up my son from a friend who'd had him for a couple of hours for me!
My mobile phone text has been red hot too. It's the quickest way to get a message out to lots of people at once (including our team members), and we've had some lovely replies. I must keep them for posterity!
So here we are, waiting for our first 'real' member to join!
The launch email to those who had registered their email address on our holding page is being sent out in the morning. It's amazing how many people are on that list now. It's really started to grow to quite a number over the last few weeks.
I think I'll be in bed by 9pm. I've sent Gregg out with Luke to the takeaway - there was no way I was cooking tonight! And I'm sure that as soon as the adrenaline wears off, I'll just collapse!
I'll be back later in the week with an update about our first week of trading - and no doubt there'll be more ups and downs before we're done!
Kirsty
Because I am very proud to announce that about 2 hours ago, we went live as www.entertainthekids.com!
Finally, after all this planning - and then of course, as always seems to happen, there was a heart stopping moment when I thought we had a big problem.....but then I looked again, and it isn't as big a problem as I thought, and certainly won't stop us trading. We've just missed something that could look a tiny bit better - but I'm not telling you what it is, you'll have to go and find it!!
So I've spent the last 2 hours (in between going stone cold with fright about what I thought I'd found!) sorting out the complimentary media logins that have been requested by the press. And there's some quite distinguished names on there, so I hope they like it!
I've checked, and checked again that their logins work, that there's no broken links, and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed now that I haven't missed anything.
This weekend has been exhausting. It's just been constant work and working against the clock. You know that feeling when sometimes you wish you could turn back time to get a few more hours, and yet at the same time you wish it was just all over? I'm pleased with the quality of the content now, and I think it is fabulous value for money for anyone joining it.
I just wanted to make sure of that before we launched, because you only have one chance to impress someone. And although they'd have already joined up, it could still be disastrous if they're not impressed because of the impact of negative word of mouth. So I was desperate to make sure that whoever joined the site was delighted with it, from day 1. Only time will tell, eh?
Then today has been much of a waiting game, just waiting for the final amends to be made, and checking them and then towards the end it got a bit frantic until we gave the go ahead to go live.
And then 15 minutes of peace, whilst they uploaded the site onto the server. During which time by the way I went to pick up my son from a friend who'd had him for a couple of hours for me!
My mobile phone text has been red hot too. It's the quickest way to get a message out to lots of people at once (including our team members), and we've had some lovely replies. I must keep them for posterity!
So here we are, waiting for our first 'real' member to join!
The launch email to those who had registered their email address on our holding page is being sent out in the morning. It's amazing how many people are on that list now. It's really started to grow to quite a number over the last few weeks.
I think I'll be in bed by 9pm. I've sent Gregg out with Luke to the takeaway - there was no way I was cooking tonight! And I'm sure that as soon as the adrenaline wears off, I'll just collapse!
I'll be back later in the week with an update about our first week of trading - and no doubt there'll be more ups and downs before we're done!
Kirsty
10 March 2006
New website to ease the stress of being a parent!
EMBARGOED INFORMATION
PRESS RELEASE NOT FOR PUBLICATION BEFORE 13 MARCH 2006 00:01
entertainthekids.com has launched today, finally allowing parents to relax a bit more! Developed by a mum, former scout leader and kids’ club leader, Kirsty McGregor has hit the nail on the head and answered every busy parent’s wishes. You can now find hundreds of ideas to entertain, amuse and delight your children - all in one place.
The site provides ideas for kids’ parties, days out, arts and crafts, music, games, gardening, outdoor activities and lots more. It has seasonal themed inspiration for every holiday you can think of, including Mother's Day and Easter, plus has fantastic ideas to keep the kids happy during every half-term break, over the long, hot summer months, and even when it rains. There are lists of sports and children’s membership organisations, colouring pages to keep them busy when you're busy, and hands-on reviews of family holidays, edited by Woman’s Own former deputy editor, Wendy Sloane.
Can’t think of what to do on another rainy Sunday? Have a look for indoor games or get them settled with our colouring pages and some crayons. Nice day outside? Go to the 'days out' pages to find inspiration, or look in the outdoors section. There are loads of ways to occupy the kids in the garden or at the park.
The days out pages are amazing, allowing you to search by age group, location, distance you are prepared to travel from home, and also by date, for those special events that you always just seem to miss! There’s even a link to a map for each venue, so that you can get exact directions. In fact, more than 2,500 days out across the whole of the UK are already listed on the site.
Lee Turner, the site’s Chief Technology Officer and Managing Director of Fluid Creativity has designed the site. "I thought this website was a fantastic idea, and the potential is there for this brand to become really strong. We designed the site so it is quick, very simple to use, stylish and has some strong functional elements to it, such as the ‘all-singing, all-dancing’ search engine. Fluid has won many awards in the past, and I’ll certainly be entering this site for a few more!"
The 10-strong editorial team is spread right across the UK, and has never all met up in one place. So they have found a novel place for their launch party. "We decided to exhibit at Bambino 2006 at the Yorkshire Event Centre on 18 & 19 March, where we’ll be showing our site to the thousands of parents attending the show. All members of the team are coming along at some point over the weekend, so we decided it would be an ideal place to have a party. But I’m not sure we’ll be doing it ‘kids style’ with pass the parcel and face painting! Maybe we’ll stretch to ‘Pin the Tail on the Tech-y’ though, using Lee as our donkey!" laughed Kirsty.
ends
13 March 2006
Notes for editors
entertainthekids.com is a new concept in parenting websites, helping parents and carers find inspiration from the hundreds of ideas on the site, covering arts and crafts, days out (major attractions and very local), games, kids’ parties, gardening, outdoor activities, music and lots more. The site will also provide regular reviews of family holidays and suggested activities when travelling with children.
Parents are able to search for exciting activities based upon their child’s age (birth to 11 years old) and their location. The site will also provide lots of ideas for seasonal activities relevant to the time of year, eg mother’s day crafts, things to do on a windy day, Easter events etc. It also includes details of sports, children’s pre-school and after-school membership organisations and clubs.
For further details, or for a complimentary media membership to review the site, please contact Kirsty McGregor at kirsty@entertainthekids.com or telephone 07867 982561.
entertainthekids.com is offering regional publications a reader offer of 15 months for the price of 12, if they are willing to feature a regular column provided by entertainthekids.com, covering activities for kids in their local area.
PRESS RELEASE NOT FOR PUBLICATION BEFORE 13 MARCH 2006 00:01
entertainthekids.com has launched today, finally allowing parents to relax a bit more! Developed by a mum, former scout leader and kids’ club leader, Kirsty McGregor has hit the nail on the head and answered every busy parent’s wishes. You can now find hundreds of ideas to entertain, amuse and delight your children - all in one place.
The site provides ideas for kids’ parties, days out, arts and crafts, music, games, gardening, outdoor activities and lots more. It has seasonal themed inspiration for every holiday you can think of, including Mother's Day and Easter, plus has fantastic ideas to keep the kids happy during every half-term break, over the long, hot summer months, and even when it rains. There are lists of sports and children’s membership organisations, colouring pages to keep them busy when you're busy, and hands-on reviews of family holidays, edited by Woman’s Own former deputy editor, Wendy Sloane.
Can’t think of what to do on another rainy Sunday? Have a look for indoor games or get them settled with our colouring pages and some crayons. Nice day outside? Go to the 'days out' pages to find inspiration, or look in the outdoors section. There are loads of ways to occupy the kids in the garden or at the park.
The days out pages are amazing, allowing you to search by age group, location, distance you are prepared to travel from home, and also by date, for those special events that you always just seem to miss! There’s even a link to a map for each venue, so that you can get exact directions. In fact, more than 2,500 days out across the whole of the UK are already listed on the site.
Lee Turner, the site’s Chief Technology Officer and Managing Director of Fluid Creativity has designed the site. "I thought this website was a fantastic idea, and the potential is there for this brand to become really strong. We designed the site so it is quick, very simple to use, stylish and has some strong functional elements to it, such as the ‘all-singing, all-dancing’ search engine. Fluid has won many awards in the past, and I’ll certainly be entering this site for a few more!"
The 10-strong editorial team is spread right across the UK, and has never all met up in one place. So they have found a novel place for their launch party. "We decided to exhibit at Bambino 2006 at the Yorkshire Event Centre on 18 & 19 March, where we’ll be showing our site to the thousands of parents attending the show. All members of the team are coming along at some point over the weekend, so we decided it would be an ideal place to have a party. But I’m not sure we’ll be doing it ‘kids style’ with pass the parcel and face painting! Maybe we’ll stretch to ‘Pin the Tail on the Tech-y’ though, using Lee as our donkey!" laughed Kirsty.
ends
13 March 2006
Notes for editors
entertainthekids.com is a new concept in parenting websites, helping parents and carers find inspiration from the hundreds of ideas on the site, covering arts and crafts, days out (major attractions and very local), games, kids’ parties, gardening, outdoor activities, music and lots more. The site will also provide regular reviews of family holidays and suggested activities when travelling with children.
Parents are able to search for exciting activities based upon their child’s age (birth to 11 years old) and their location. The site will also provide lots of ideas for seasonal activities relevant to the time of year, eg mother’s day crafts, things to do on a windy day, Easter events etc. It also includes details of sports, children’s pre-school and after-school membership organisations and clubs.
For further details, or for a complimentary media membership to review the site, please contact Kirsty McGregor at kirsty@entertainthekids.com or telephone 07867 982561.
entertainthekids.com is offering regional publications a reader offer of 15 months for the price of 12, if they are willing to feature a regular column provided by entertainthekids.com, covering activities for kids in their local area.
The clock’s ticking!
It’s currently Friday morning and there’s no time to panic now. Just focus focus focus. The only thing I’m panicking about is that I have been writing lists everywhere, just to get things down on paper whilst I remember them, and I really should’ve been keeping them altogether – in my big red book! So hope I don’t slip up and miss something.
I really wanted to write this last night because so much was going round in my head that it would have been useful to spill it out onto here, but by 10pm my head was ‘mashed’ and I just didn’t have the energy. One good thing is that I’m sleeping well! And so’s Luke, which is a good job because I need to be full of beans every morning at the moment to plough on (you know, in between bathing Luke, washing up pots and sorting his breakfast, boring daily things that are just getting in the way at the moment. I’ve got to say though, he has been a treasure. And I couldn’t have managed without grandparents and friends (& Gregg when he’s not working – deadline’s for him too at the moment, marvelous timing!) who have been looking after him for a few hours to give me complete concentration. But at the moment he’s eating his breakfast and watching Noddy so I’ve got an hour or so I think before he’ll need some attention. And the library books are due back today, so I’ll take an hour out to go there.
It’s really like that at the moment, counting every hour and using the time as efficiently as I can. Today is going to be really key, because we need the admin suite (the ‘back-end’ where we enter content for the site) back as soon as possible so we can check it all works as we need it to. One of the web design team can’t work tomorrow (Saturday) and I’m not sure if he’s contactable on Sunday. So it could be a very late night tonight, going back and forth with them, giving feedback. I’m taking my laptop and mobile connection with me everywhere today, in case they need me to check something. An hour wasted at this point is going to be crucial.
On the plus side it looks fantastic! So much better than the last version, with a more stylish design, expanded features (like the RSS feed and news items) and it is still very easy and quick to use.
We had a slight hiccup yesterday with the charity we wanted to support. They couldn’t get all their various committees to act quickly enough, and our contact there said realistically it was going to be at least 3 months before they’d be ready. The bureaucracy surrounding the charity rules can be ridiculous sometimes, they’ve already had about 3 months. They are missing out on possible donations, but I understand their viewpoint, and our contacts are extremely disappointed.
So potentially I was going to have to go ‘cap in hand’ to Steve at Fluid to change the site again. The design had been set to account for potential charity donations from members on the joining page, and at that stage it was highly unlikely that we’d have a charity to donate to. But then the PR contact we had for the charity, told us she is also a committee member for a much smaller charity, Holidays with Help. They are a fantastic group of ex British Red Cross volunteers, who take around 300 disabled children to Pontins twice a year. They rely totally on donations, and it fits in really well with our site, so the decision was made pretty quickly! They don’t have the committee structures that most charities do, and so they granted us their permission within about 2 hours! Phew, that was a close call. But actually it’s turned out so well. By supporting something as small as this, hopefully we can really make a difference.
I wrote the press release for the launch yesterday and sent it out (initially by email) to various publications, websites and press agencies, a much more thorough mailing list than we’ve had for any press releases we’ve sent in the past. I'll post it on here on the next post. It’s already had some attention and I’ve had journalists contacting me asking for complimentary media membership (which we offer so they can review the site). I’ve also suggested to publications that we can give them a reader offer of 15 months for the price of 12, if they agree to give us a regular featured column. We’re trying to uild these up a bit more now, we already have quite a few publications taking monthly contributions from us, but we’d like lots more.
I think I need to keep a control of this a bit more though, as the numbers grow I need to schedule the articles in a bit better so that we always hit our deadlines. Something else for the list! I have been doing a couple more things to try and get more organised, mainly categorising my ‘in box’ a bit more. We are receiving emails for lots of different things now. Journalists who want media memberships, publications who want to feature us, attractions who want us to feature them on the site, etc, so I’ve split my folders up into ‘To Deal with’, ‘Press release responses’, ‘New events’, ‘Old events and other’ (!) ‘Bambino’ and ‘Beta testers’. This is making it a lot easier to focus on the ‘To Deal with’ items, although worryingly they seem to be getting longer too.
Talking of Bambino, things have picked up apace on that too. I’ve sorted the event insurance out, bought the PPL licence (for broadcasting music – we’re going to have a CD playing background music, nursery rhymes probably!), bought extra fleeces and jackets for the rest of the team. Can you believe there are actually 10 of us now! And they all needed some branding clothing for the Bambino show as they will all be there at some point over the weekend. I now need to take them to the man who embroiders our logo (on Bury market!) and go to the card and party warehouse I joined so I can buy the helium cylinder to blow up the balloons on the day. Still to do – health & safety policy and training document for the team, buy party hats (we decided to have our launch party on the stand!) , buy tablecloths, waste bins, spare lamp for the projector, clipboards, print off joining forms, design the posters etc etc. The list goes on. Ross has quite a few jobs for this too. He’s designing the stand layout, incl planning cables, power sockets etc, and buying the mounting card and Velcro to put the posters up.
Our promotional posters and cards arrived, along with a bill for £1,000! Apparently they look great, but I haven’t seen them yet because Ross picked them up yesterday. We also asked the printer to print a couple of images from the site on A3 card, so we can hang them from the ceiling grids at the show. And Ross says they look great.
It’s hard trying to visualize how everything will look, but I’m just trying to make sure we appeal to all the senses (hence the background music) and use all the space well, without it being too cramped. We have a 4m x 2m stand, so we have plenty of space – I think!
I’ve been trying to find a water dispenser, those that dispense cool water into plastic beakers, but I can’t find a supplier who will hire it for just a few days. They’re all on contract for months at a time, and whilst it would be lovely to have one of those in my kitchen, it’s a bit of a luxury I can’t afford unfortunately! So please get in touch if you know anyone. Even the exhibition furniture specialists don’t seem to stock them. I’ll keep looking. Stop press! Found someone! Aquapoint, they’ve fantastic customer service too. That’s why I was getting to frustrated, I’d left messages and filled in online enquiry forms and just hadn’t heard back from anyone.
But I’ve just done another quick google search specifying ‘water coolers Yorkshire’, and came up with Aquapoint. Job sorted, the order’s being faxed over to me. And I wasn’t cracking up, the sales manager did say that most companies don’t offer this service. So if visitors (& their children) can have a drink of water whilst they look at the site, they may stay a bit longer, well that’s the thinking anyway. We came up with this idea because I remembered back to when I attended a similar show when Luke was a baby, and you always get so overladen with things, you’re hot and quite thirsty. But you don’t always want to sit down at the café. Pregnant mums will probably be grateful for a (free) cup of cool water too.
I’ve drafted the email to everyone who’s registered on the holding page, and Lee’s going to design that, and then send it out on Monday. These people qualify for 15 months for the price of 12 aswell, if they’ve registered their email address on entertainthekids.com before we launch.
I met Rebecca Baron last Tuesday (sorry, seem to be jumping all over the place!), our new ‘editorial assistant’, and she’s been given her first task. We’ve made her responsible for liaising with the regional publications in Greater Manchester, to try and increase our profile in our local area.
I’ve also rewritten the copy for all the website pages – again! Made it much punchier, less wordy and focused. When you’ve been looking at something for so long, it’s really hard to stand back and try and see it as a user would for the first time. But the feedback from the preview evenings really helped here, plus some comments we’ve had from our beta testers. It’ll need refreshing every so often anyway, so I’m sure it won’t stay the same for long.
Tons more to do. Content to prepare for when we get the admin suite back, then content to actually enter over the weekend. Media packs to complete and issue, mailing to prepare for potential referral sources, and so it goes on. Good job I’ve got childcare sorted for the full weekend. But first, the library!
Kirsty
I really wanted to write this last night because so much was going round in my head that it would have been useful to spill it out onto here, but by 10pm my head was ‘mashed’ and I just didn’t have the energy. One good thing is that I’m sleeping well! And so’s Luke, which is a good job because I need to be full of beans every morning at the moment to plough on (you know, in between bathing Luke, washing up pots and sorting his breakfast, boring daily things that are just getting in the way at the moment. I’ve got to say though, he has been a treasure. And I couldn’t have managed without grandparents and friends (& Gregg when he’s not working – deadline’s for him too at the moment, marvelous timing!) who have been looking after him for a few hours to give me complete concentration. But at the moment he’s eating his breakfast and watching Noddy so I’ve got an hour or so I think before he’ll need some attention. And the library books are due back today, so I’ll take an hour out to go there.
It’s really like that at the moment, counting every hour and using the time as efficiently as I can. Today is going to be really key, because we need the admin suite (the ‘back-end’ where we enter content for the site) back as soon as possible so we can check it all works as we need it to. One of the web design team can’t work tomorrow (Saturday) and I’m not sure if he’s contactable on Sunday. So it could be a very late night tonight, going back and forth with them, giving feedback. I’m taking my laptop and mobile connection with me everywhere today, in case they need me to check something. An hour wasted at this point is going to be crucial.
On the plus side it looks fantastic! So much better than the last version, with a more stylish design, expanded features (like the RSS feed and news items) and it is still very easy and quick to use.
We had a slight hiccup yesterday with the charity we wanted to support. They couldn’t get all their various committees to act quickly enough, and our contact there said realistically it was going to be at least 3 months before they’d be ready. The bureaucracy surrounding the charity rules can be ridiculous sometimes, they’ve already had about 3 months. They are missing out on possible donations, but I understand their viewpoint, and our contacts are extremely disappointed.
So potentially I was going to have to go ‘cap in hand’ to Steve at Fluid to change the site again. The design had been set to account for potential charity donations from members on the joining page, and at that stage it was highly unlikely that we’d have a charity to donate to. But then the PR contact we had for the charity, told us she is also a committee member for a much smaller charity, Holidays with Help. They are a fantastic group of ex British Red Cross volunteers, who take around 300 disabled children to Pontins twice a year. They rely totally on donations, and it fits in really well with our site, so the decision was made pretty quickly! They don’t have the committee structures that most charities do, and so they granted us their permission within about 2 hours! Phew, that was a close call. But actually it’s turned out so well. By supporting something as small as this, hopefully we can really make a difference.
I wrote the press release for the launch yesterday and sent it out (initially by email) to various publications, websites and press agencies, a much more thorough mailing list than we’ve had for any press releases we’ve sent in the past. I'll post it on here on the next post. It’s already had some attention and I’ve had journalists contacting me asking for complimentary media membership (which we offer so they can review the site). I’ve also suggested to publications that we can give them a reader offer of 15 months for the price of 12, if they agree to give us a regular featured column. We’re trying to uild these up a bit more now, we already have quite a few publications taking monthly contributions from us, but we’d like lots more.
I think I need to keep a control of this a bit more though, as the numbers grow I need to schedule the articles in a bit better so that we always hit our deadlines. Something else for the list! I have been doing a couple more things to try and get more organised, mainly categorising my ‘in box’ a bit more. We are receiving emails for lots of different things now. Journalists who want media memberships, publications who want to feature us, attractions who want us to feature them on the site, etc, so I’ve split my folders up into ‘To Deal with’, ‘Press release responses’, ‘New events’, ‘Old events and other’ (!) ‘Bambino’ and ‘Beta testers’. This is making it a lot easier to focus on the ‘To Deal with’ items, although worryingly they seem to be getting longer too.
Talking of Bambino, things have picked up apace on that too. I’ve sorted the event insurance out, bought the PPL licence (for broadcasting music – we’re going to have a CD playing background music, nursery rhymes probably!), bought extra fleeces and jackets for the rest of the team. Can you believe there are actually 10 of us now! And they all needed some branding clothing for the Bambino show as they will all be there at some point over the weekend. I now need to take them to the man who embroiders our logo (on Bury market!) and go to the card and party warehouse I joined so I can buy the helium cylinder to blow up the balloons on the day. Still to do – health & safety policy and training document for the team, buy party hats (we decided to have our launch party on the stand!) , buy tablecloths, waste bins, spare lamp for the projector, clipboards, print off joining forms, design the posters etc etc. The list goes on. Ross has quite a few jobs for this too. He’s designing the stand layout, incl planning cables, power sockets etc, and buying the mounting card and Velcro to put the posters up.
Our promotional posters and cards arrived, along with a bill for £1,000! Apparently they look great, but I haven’t seen them yet because Ross picked them up yesterday. We also asked the printer to print a couple of images from the site on A3 card, so we can hang them from the ceiling grids at the show. And Ross says they look great.
It’s hard trying to visualize how everything will look, but I’m just trying to make sure we appeal to all the senses (hence the background music) and use all the space well, without it being too cramped. We have a 4m x 2m stand, so we have plenty of space – I think!
I’ve been trying to find a water dispenser, those that dispense cool water into plastic beakers, but I can’t find a supplier who will hire it for just a few days. They’re all on contract for months at a time, and whilst it would be lovely to have one of those in my kitchen, it’s a bit of a luxury I can’t afford unfortunately! So please get in touch if you know anyone. Even the exhibition furniture specialists don’t seem to stock them. I’ll keep looking. Stop press! Found someone! Aquapoint, they’ve fantastic customer service too. That’s why I was getting to frustrated, I’d left messages and filled in online enquiry forms and just hadn’t heard back from anyone.
But I’ve just done another quick google search specifying ‘water coolers Yorkshire’, and came up with Aquapoint. Job sorted, the order’s being faxed over to me. And I wasn’t cracking up, the sales manager did say that most companies don’t offer this service. So if visitors (& their children) can have a drink of water whilst they look at the site, they may stay a bit longer, well that’s the thinking anyway. We came up with this idea because I remembered back to when I attended a similar show when Luke was a baby, and you always get so overladen with things, you’re hot and quite thirsty. But you don’t always want to sit down at the café. Pregnant mums will probably be grateful for a (free) cup of cool water too.
I’ve drafted the email to everyone who’s registered on the holding page, and Lee’s going to design that, and then send it out on Monday. These people qualify for 15 months for the price of 12 aswell, if they’ve registered their email address on entertainthekids.com before we launch.
I met Rebecca Baron last Tuesday (sorry, seem to be jumping all over the place!), our new ‘editorial assistant’, and she’s been given her first task. We’ve made her responsible for liaising with the regional publications in Greater Manchester, to try and increase our profile in our local area.
I’ve also rewritten the copy for all the website pages – again! Made it much punchier, less wordy and focused. When you’ve been looking at something for so long, it’s really hard to stand back and try and see it as a user would for the first time. But the feedback from the preview evenings really helped here, plus some comments we’ve had from our beta testers. It’ll need refreshing every so often anyway, so I’m sure it won’t stay the same for long.
Tons more to do. Content to prepare for when we get the admin suite back, then content to actually enter over the weekend. Media packs to complete and issue, mailing to prepare for potential referral sources, and so it goes on. Good job I’ve got childcare sorted for the full weekend. But first, the library!
Kirsty
03 March 2006
Plodding along
We went away last weekend, and it was just what I needed. By the end of Sunday I was so chilled out. I had hardly looked my mobile all weekend, let alone took any calls. But I’ve needed a rocket up me this week to get me going again!
It’s been a steady kind of week. The boring stuff is taking precedence now. We’re just concentrating on getting as much into the database as we can, before we have to freeze the database to upload the new site. Then it will be chaotic trying to enter information that we can’t do until some new functionality is added.
Oh my Lord – we launch a week on Monday!! Where has the time gone? At the moment I’m swinging from sheer panic to complete denial! I think it’s just the nerves that after all the hype and build-up, will people actually like it enough to buy into it? Everything we’ve done in our planning and research suggests it’s going to be huge success, but I still can’t help being apprehensive, and in one way I wish the launch wasn’t actually here yet! If we don’t press the button we can live in blissful ignorance for a bit longer. Although maybe not, ignorance whilst living in poverty is not such a good idea!
If I’m objective, on the whole, things are progressing quite well. And as usual I’ve got lists by the armful.
A list for each team member so I know what they’re currently concentrating on, and a list of work still to be done which I need to share out when they’ve finished. I’m balancing the work for our journalist students, so that they are each getting a bit of ‘glory’ by doing something to increase their profile, but in return they each have to do a bit of legwork and the boring stuff like data entry. I think that’s a fair exchange of time and opportunity.
Then there’s the list for the Bambinos exhibition. The planning’s going okay, but we need to step it up a notch now. We’re discussing this again on Saturday (which has turned into our usual management meeting day) when Ross will have designed the stand layout.
Then we need to go shopping next week. We need something to mount the posters on, Velcro to attach the posters to, and we’ve a hundred other sundry things to collect, including waste bins, paper cups, membership forms to design and print, fleeces to buy and print for the team, H&S policy to write, and so it goes on and on!
Hopefully we’ll be able to deal with most of this whilst we can’t enter information into the database.
There’s been a slight technical glitch with the programming on the site, which can be resolved easily enough, but which means the team have lost some time. So they’re going to be on the last minute finishing the site – but let’s face it, is it ever any other way?
We met up at fluid’s offices this week and spent a while with Steve discussing the functionality. After an email from someone reading this diary (hello out there!), we’ve decided to add an RSS feed onto our site for the news items. A great idea, which means that other websites can hold some content from our site and it’s automatically updated for them every time we update it.
My next big job is to rewrite the copy, bearing in mind the keywords we want the search engines to recognize. This will be about the fourth time I’ve attempted the copy, and although I think I improve it each time I’m confident that now I’ve got some extra hints from Steve and Lee, it’ll be on the mark. They have a really good track record with this type of thing. The first time I attempted it, it was awful – not written for web at all, more like a novel!
We’ve also approved the print work for the launch. We’ve decided on A5 single sided posters which can double up as leaflets if required, and some business card sized handouts. The print costs seemed much higher than last time we did a print run for our earlier promotional work. Apparently, the cost of paper has gone up! Does that mean we need to start speculating on commodity prices too? I ask you. It has made quite a big difference to the price overall, but it’s the best price available so we’ve had to go with it. Whippee dee!
But on the plus side, Andy at Fluid has done a fantastic design for us. They’ll certainly get attention! So we’ll have these for the end of next week, and then we can send them out to various organisations that may be able to refer members to us, plus we can use them at Bambinos.
We’re looking at our advertising again at the moment. I think we’re going to go down the route of doing some very targeted, and fairly low cost, adverts initially. Once we’ve launched and start to generate some income, we also need to look at our online advertising. So any tips welcomed!
Without doubt, next week is going to be extremely hectic, and I think I’ll have to sort some extra childcare out so I can really focus. Me and Gregg (& Ross aswell) have given up alcohol for Lent, maybe not the best timing eh? How many days left until Easter, oh only 36…..ha! Do you think Shloer would have the same effect?...
Luke’s currently emptying my briefcase so he can use it as a car - think I’d better go and rescue it!
Kirsty
It’s been a steady kind of week. The boring stuff is taking precedence now. We’re just concentrating on getting as much into the database as we can, before we have to freeze the database to upload the new site. Then it will be chaotic trying to enter information that we can’t do until some new functionality is added.
Oh my Lord – we launch a week on Monday!! Where has the time gone? At the moment I’m swinging from sheer panic to complete denial! I think it’s just the nerves that after all the hype and build-up, will people actually like it enough to buy into it? Everything we’ve done in our planning and research suggests it’s going to be huge success, but I still can’t help being apprehensive, and in one way I wish the launch wasn’t actually here yet! If we don’t press the button we can live in blissful ignorance for a bit longer. Although maybe not, ignorance whilst living in poverty is not such a good idea!
If I’m objective, on the whole, things are progressing quite well. And as usual I’ve got lists by the armful.
A list for each team member so I know what they’re currently concentrating on, and a list of work still to be done which I need to share out when they’ve finished. I’m balancing the work for our journalist students, so that they are each getting a bit of ‘glory’ by doing something to increase their profile, but in return they each have to do a bit of legwork and the boring stuff like data entry. I think that’s a fair exchange of time and opportunity.
Then there’s the list for the Bambinos exhibition. The planning’s going okay, but we need to step it up a notch now. We’re discussing this again on Saturday (which has turned into our usual management meeting day) when Ross will have designed the stand layout.
Then we need to go shopping next week. We need something to mount the posters on, Velcro to attach the posters to, and we’ve a hundred other sundry things to collect, including waste bins, paper cups, membership forms to design and print, fleeces to buy and print for the team, H&S policy to write, and so it goes on and on!
Hopefully we’ll be able to deal with most of this whilst we can’t enter information into the database.
There’s been a slight technical glitch with the programming on the site, which can be resolved easily enough, but which means the team have lost some time. So they’re going to be on the last minute finishing the site – but let’s face it, is it ever any other way?
We met up at fluid’s offices this week and spent a while with Steve discussing the functionality. After an email from someone reading this diary (hello out there!), we’ve decided to add an RSS feed onto our site for the news items. A great idea, which means that other websites can hold some content from our site and it’s automatically updated for them every time we update it.
My next big job is to rewrite the copy, bearing in mind the keywords we want the search engines to recognize. This will be about the fourth time I’ve attempted the copy, and although I think I improve it each time I’m confident that now I’ve got some extra hints from Steve and Lee, it’ll be on the mark. They have a really good track record with this type of thing. The first time I attempted it, it was awful – not written for web at all, more like a novel!
We’ve also approved the print work for the launch. We’ve decided on A5 single sided posters which can double up as leaflets if required, and some business card sized handouts. The print costs seemed much higher than last time we did a print run for our earlier promotional work. Apparently, the cost of paper has gone up! Does that mean we need to start speculating on commodity prices too? I ask you. It has made quite a big difference to the price overall, but it’s the best price available so we’ve had to go with it. Whippee dee!
But on the plus side, Andy at Fluid has done a fantastic design for us. They’ll certainly get attention! So we’ll have these for the end of next week, and then we can send them out to various organisations that may be able to refer members to us, plus we can use them at Bambinos.
We’re looking at our advertising again at the moment. I think we’re going to go down the route of doing some very targeted, and fairly low cost, adverts initially. Once we’ve launched and start to generate some income, we also need to look at our online advertising. So any tips welcomed!
Without doubt, next week is going to be extremely hectic, and I think I’ll have to sort some extra childcare out so I can really focus. Me and Gregg (& Ross aswell) have given up alcohol for Lent, maybe not the best timing eh? How many days left until Easter, oh only 36…..ha! Do you think Shloer would have the same effect?...
Luke’s currently emptying my briefcase so he can use it as a car - think I’d better go and rescue it!
Kirsty
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