Hello...I'm back!
Last time I kept this blog, I was in the process of setting up www.entertainthekids.com & the blogs were published by www.startups.co.uk. I got tons of comments from readers who wanted to know where we were up to. Someone said it was so frustrating - he read all the posts in one go (6 months of them!) & then felt like the last page of the book had been ripped out & he didn't know what the ending was. Well I'm delighted to say, that we haven't reached the end yet - not by a long shot!
So 2 years later, here we still are. And to celebrate our 2 year birthday we've had a bit of a makeover, & we're looking mighty fine I think (thanks to the team at Creative Spark - Jake, Carl, Andy etc). But here's a question for you...to italicise (the logo) or not? There was much discussion about this. In the end it was left italicised as before, but what do you think?
Anyhow, I'm back with the blogging now. But perhaps it will now be more about what I'm doing as a mum with my little 'un, than about the business itself.
We're in this game to give "tons of inspiration" to parents, and whilst we can post resources, days out, arts & crafts, colouring pages etc to our hearts' content, nothing beats hearing about someone's personal experiences.
So that's why I've started this malarky up again. We've kept it on the same profile as before, so if you want to read about how we got started, you'll find all the posts still there in the archive.
Quick update about the family...still married, still have one child (Luke, now aged 4 & starting school in September - eeek!) and still making sure that we spend as much time as possible out having a laugh together...but like everyone else it's a balancing act between seeing extended family, Luke's social life - birthday parties nearly every weekend! - and other things we have responsibilities for - including (my husband would say it was a responsibility anyhow) 'his' commitment to his football-watching which is his priority most Saturdays.
Does that mean my house looks like a bomb has hit it? Yes! Does that mean that the ironing/washing/washing-up & cleaning the skirting boards go to the bottom of that never-ending list every time? Yes! Do I care? No....well sometimes I do, but it doesn't take me that long to forget. I haven't been blessed with the houseproud gene that my mum has in spades, but in some ways it means that I'm spending my time on the things that matter (well that's my opinion anyway!)
So I'm off for a jam packed weekend (working around the football commitments!), and I'll update you next week what we got up to. There are 52 weekends in a year, why try to make the memories in just your 2 week holiday each year? Make the most of it & get out there!
entertainthekids.com
03 April 2008
17 July 2006
Crashing around!
Yes, I’m still here! The weeks are flying by, and things are getting more hectic now as we build up to hopefully the busiest time of year for us, the run-in to the school summer holidays.
I’d planned to write this diary earlier on in the week, but an altercation between my car and a Saab (my car came off worse!) meant that I wasted virtually all of Wednesday trying to sort out insurance, arrange for a (decent!) hire car, and re-book all of my appointments.
One of the ‘joys’ of working on your own means that if anything like that happens, you don’t have a PA or admin team to do all the legwork for you.
So apart from that, what have I been up to?
Well in terms of PR we’ve been quite busy. We’ve secured quite a few articles in consumer magazines, regional press (I was on my way on Wednesday morning to a photo-call for one of them) and even the national press.
I’m pleased to say that, when I look at the figures, I can see it’s all working. And gradually we are building our profile through word-of-mouth. It’s just so time consuming!
But when I look at the unique visitor numbers, the signed-up paying members, and our rankings on the search engines, they are all showing a very positive picture. That makes it a lot easier to keep going through the hard slog, because we’re now starting to see some results from all our efforts.
A couple of months ago, when we were still only a couple of months’ old, it was hard to keep that adrenaline going. You had to maintain your self-belief, even though you couldn’t prove anything, and you didn’t know whether the decisions you were making were the right ones.
The results take a while to come, and that’s been hard for me because I’m not the most patient of people!
We’ve been planning to do this for ages, and we’ve finally just added an email sign-up field to our home page. This means we can capture data, even if someone doesn’t join up when they first visit us. Then they will automatically receive our monthly email newsletter, and hopefully we will convert them at a later date.
I’ve generally been networking quite a lot, both at formal networking events, and also by contacting some well respected industry names. We’re actually looking for a non-exec chairman, who in particular is going to be able to provide contacts for us in a certain aspect of our planned future strategy.
It’s quite difficult, because we want to do something that I don’t think has been done before, and so there’s no single person who will have all the knowledge we need. But hopefully if we can find someone who’s high profile, has a good understanding of e-commerce and B2C marketing, and has plenty of contacts, then we’ll be delighted.
Unfortunately headhunters don’t generally charge on a results basis, they work on a retainer. And so that avenue has been closed to us, simply due to lack of available cash to finance that huge cost. Recruitment consultants, who do generally charge on results, don’t appear to have the right calibre of candidate for us.
And so it just comes down to lots of networking, ‘putting the word out’ and asking people if they know of anyone. We’re in contact with a couple of people – but if you know anyone, please pass their details onto us! In the true entrepreneurial spirit of start-ups, we’re offering a share incentive to anyone who comes on board.
Until next time, when the summer holidays will be upon us..!
Kirsty
I’d planned to write this diary earlier on in the week, but an altercation between my car and a Saab (my car came off worse!) meant that I wasted virtually all of Wednesday trying to sort out insurance, arrange for a (decent!) hire car, and re-book all of my appointments.
One of the ‘joys’ of working on your own means that if anything like that happens, you don’t have a PA or admin team to do all the legwork for you.
So apart from that, what have I been up to?
Well in terms of PR we’ve been quite busy. We’ve secured quite a few articles in consumer magazines, regional press (I was on my way on Wednesday morning to a photo-call for one of them) and even the national press.
I’m pleased to say that, when I look at the figures, I can see it’s all working. And gradually we are building our profile through word-of-mouth. It’s just so time consuming!
But when I look at the unique visitor numbers, the signed-up paying members, and our rankings on the search engines, they are all showing a very positive picture. That makes it a lot easier to keep going through the hard slog, because we’re now starting to see some results from all our efforts.
A couple of months ago, when we were still only a couple of months’ old, it was hard to keep that adrenaline going. You had to maintain your self-belief, even though you couldn’t prove anything, and you didn’t know whether the decisions you were making were the right ones.
The results take a while to come, and that’s been hard for me because I’m not the most patient of people!
We’ve been planning to do this for ages, and we’ve finally just added an email sign-up field to our home page. This means we can capture data, even if someone doesn’t join up when they first visit us. Then they will automatically receive our monthly email newsletter, and hopefully we will convert them at a later date.
I’ve generally been networking quite a lot, both at formal networking events, and also by contacting some well respected industry names. We’re actually looking for a non-exec chairman, who in particular is going to be able to provide contacts for us in a certain aspect of our planned future strategy.
It’s quite difficult, because we want to do something that I don’t think has been done before, and so there’s no single person who will have all the knowledge we need. But hopefully if we can find someone who’s high profile, has a good understanding of e-commerce and B2C marketing, and has plenty of contacts, then we’ll be delighted.
Unfortunately headhunters don’t generally charge on a results basis, they work on a retainer. And so that avenue has been closed to us, simply due to lack of available cash to finance that huge cost. Recruitment consultants, who do generally charge on results, don’t appear to have the right calibre of candidate for us.
And so it just comes down to lots of networking, ‘putting the word out’ and asking people if they know of anyone. We’re in contact with a couple of people – but if you know anyone, please pass their details onto us! In the true entrepreneurial spirit of start-ups, we’re offering a share incentive to anyone who comes on board.
Until next time, when the summer holidays will be upon us..!
Kirsty
11 June 2006
Quick update
Luke’s been ill this week, and we had a couple of days in hospital – which were very scary but thankfully now all over and he’s made a full recovery. So needless to say work was dropped completely for a few days and I’m now trying to catch up.
So in terms of the website, we’ve made some great progress with a new feature we’re planning. I’ve employed an editor for the pages (Michelle), who’s got some great experience and I’m sure she’ll make a fantastic job of it. It will be one of the ‘freebie’ items on the site, and will add to the editorial content, whilst remaining focused on our key objective of helping parents/carers entertain their kids.
There’s quite a lot of research to be done before we launch the pages – hopefully by Autumn we should have something to run with. Michelle’s got all the information she needs from me after I started investigating this idea a couple of months ago (until I realised what it could grow into & I decided we’d be much better designating someone to take care of this as a separate project in its own right).
She’s pretty much got creative control of her pages, much like Wendy does on the Holidays pages. Michelle needs to consider now how she wants them to look, and practically how they’re going to work. In a week or so, when she’s had chance to formulate some ideas, I’m going to arrange for her to meet Lee, Andy & Ste at Fluid, who now form the core team responsible for the design of our website. So they can discuss her ideas, translate them into something workable, and get the pages ready for launch. In the meantime, Michelle’s going to be doing the research, writing the editorial and getting sufficient content for a steady growth of the pages after launch.
Talking about growth, our Holidays pages are looking a bit full now, and I think it’s time to bring in a contents list to breakdown the different reviews into sections. Otherwise it’s going to become too difficult to find what you’re looking for. So that’s something for Wendy to think about over the next couple of weeks too.
Holidays are kicking in now, so we’re all away at some point over the next couple of months, and inevitably things take longer to porgress at this time of year. So you’ve got to plan that into your timetables when you’re trying to sort something.
In case you’ve not noticed, the World Cup has started! As I’m writing this England have won their first match 1-0 so I hope they keep up with that form for the rest of the championships! And we’ve provided a bit of themed content too on our site. We’ve added colouring printables of the flags of not only England, but also Scotland, Ireland & Wales too (didn’t want to upset our non-English members!) and I’ve also uploaded a colouring printable of the world cup.
So if you fancy making your own World Cup (on the extreme off-chance that England don’t win, or of course if you’re not English!) then you’ll find it on our ‘Games & Colouring’ section! Bit of tin foil and back it onto cardboard and you’d never know the difference!
Good luck Oliver by the way – Oliver Milman, the Web Editor of startups.co.uk, has just left on a charity trek (& so he’s missing the World Cup!) to Thailand & Burma to raise money for Cancer Research UK - & you can sponsor him on www.justgiving.com/jungleexpedition - go on, you can spare £5 can’t you for such a great cause and such a sacrifice?!!
Come on England!!
Kirsty
So in terms of the website, we’ve made some great progress with a new feature we’re planning. I’ve employed an editor for the pages (Michelle), who’s got some great experience and I’m sure she’ll make a fantastic job of it. It will be one of the ‘freebie’ items on the site, and will add to the editorial content, whilst remaining focused on our key objective of helping parents/carers entertain their kids.
There’s quite a lot of research to be done before we launch the pages – hopefully by Autumn we should have something to run with. Michelle’s got all the information she needs from me after I started investigating this idea a couple of months ago (until I realised what it could grow into & I decided we’d be much better designating someone to take care of this as a separate project in its own right).
She’s pretty much got creative control of her pages, much like Wendy does on the Holidays pages. Michelle needs to consider now how she wants them to look, and practically how they’re going to work. In a week or so, when she’s had chance to formulate some ideas, I’m going to arrange for her to meet Lee, Andy & Ste at Fluid, who now form the core team responsible for the design of our website. So they can discuss her ideas, translate them into something workable, and get the pages ready for launch. In the meantime, Michelle’s going to be doing the research, writing the editorial and getting sufficient content for a steady growth of the pages after launch.
Talking about growth, our Holidays pages are looking a bit full now, and I think it’s time to bring in a contents list to breakdown the different reviews into sections. Otherwise it’s going to become too difficult to find what you’re looking for. So that’s something for Wendy to think about over the next couple of weeks too.
Holidays are kicking in now, so we’re all away at some point over the next couple of months, and inevitably things take longer to porgress at this time of year. So you’ve got to plan that into your timetables when you’re trying to sort something.
In case you’ve not noticed, the World Cup has started! As I’m writing this England have won their first match 1-0 so I hope they keep up with that form for the rest of the championships! And we’ve provided a bit of themed content too on our site. We’ve added colouring printables of the flags of not only England, but also Scotland, Ireland & Wales too (didn’t want to upset our non-English members!) and I’ve also uploaded a colouring printable of the world cup.
So if you fancy making your own World Cup (on the extreme off-chance that England don’t win, or of course if you’re not English!) then you’ll find it on our ‘Games & Colouring’ section! Bit of tin foil and back it onto cardboard and you’d never know the difference!
Good luck Oliver by the way – Oliver Milman, the Web Editor of startups.co.uk, has just left on a charity trek (& so he’s missing the World Cup!) to Thailand & Burma to raise money for Cancer Research UK - & you can sponsor him on www.justgiving.com/jungleexpedition - go on, you can spare £5 can’t you for such a great cause and such a sacrifice?!!
Come on England!!
Kirsty
30 May 2006
Making the most of Exhibitions
We’ve just got back from the largest show we’ve ever done – The Baby Show at NEC in Birmingham, and I’m still buzzing! Which also explains why this diary is late – you can write off at least 2 weeks if you’re doing a large exhibition. The week before is just so concentrated on getting ready for it, and the week after is following up and then recovering!
I know I’ve mentioned exhibitions before, and we aren’t experts by any stretch of the imagination, but I think we’re getting a lot right when it comes to making the most of them. And looking around, it’s obvious that some others don’t really maximize the show’s potential. Maybe they have a different reason for being there, but for us the key aim is to get our brand out to as many people as possible, and convert them (either at the show or afterwards) into paying members.
I thought it was worth talking about shows again, just to share our experiences, in case you’re thinking of doing one yourself and haven’t a clue what to expect.
We’ve ‘exhibited’ (I use the term loosely in some cases!) at several different types and sizes of shows. In our market (parenting/consumer) we have:
- the local church hall type of show
- the slightly larger leisure centre/town hall venue which may last from a couple of hours to a whole day
- then you have the major shows which are usually held at exhibition centres and last at least 2 days.
At the smaller shows you generally buy a table space – you’re given a table to exhibit from and sometimes chairs are provided as well! Anything else you need, you have to provide yourself. We’ve always managed to request a table close to a power socket, because we need to plug in the projector and laptop. But of course we’re not going to get a broadband connection, or even use of a telephone line at these venues, so we’ve had to connect to the internet using our mobiles!
Sometimes you can stick posters on the wall, but not often. So if you want to display anything above your table, think about buying the concertina-type boards or use cabinets, rails, moveable shelving etc. But you also have to think about how you’re going to transport all this to the venue! We have the large screen as our main backdrop, showing the website, and we’ve constructed a nifty (& very cheap) way of hanging posters either side of the screen by using a bamboo cane frame.
For these small/medium sized shows, the cost of exhibiting can range from £25 to £250. If it’s the first time the event has run, you take a bit of a chance with their estimates of visitor numbers. Our fingers were burnt a bit last time we did a fairly large show in March, because it was a first time event and just didn’t achieve the numbers of visitors that they were expecting.
When you’re doing deciding whether to exhibit & doing the research for your budget, you need to know whether it’s going to be worthwhile for you, and so visitor numbers are key to that assessment. But you can only take a view at the planning stage about the ability and dedication of the organiser, the amount of promotion work they’ve done, and who the other exhibitors are, in order to attract the visitor numbers they have suggested. Once a show has already been run by that organiser before, and in the same venue, then you’ve a little more certainty that they are going achieve their predictions. But things can always affect that, such as the weather, a large football game, or some other local event that’s competing for the same audience.
I’ve done an enormous amount of research about shows in our market, expected visitor numbers, price of exhibiting etc and I’ve got all sorts of ratios that I now work to. The cost of exhibiting per expected visitor, the likely sales we’ll get on the day (as a % of the visitor numbers), the cost per member etc. As a result of this I’ve turned some shows down flat, because the cost per expected visitor is just ludicrously high.
You’ll see with the larger shows that the cost per visitor is much lower than for the larger shows, even though the actual £s are usually substantially more. But remember, for the very large shows, not all the visitors will pass your stand. At The Baby Show, they had about 25,000 visitors. Over the weekend, we collected over 1,000 email addresses (data collection, I’ll mention more later), and I think that was probably one in 10 people who passed our stand, so we actually only benefited from 10,000 of those visitors.
Most large shows will provide you with an Exhibitors Manual, which contains all the key information you need to know, including ‘Build-up times’, ‘Show Open times’ and ‘Breakdown times’, also contact details of any contractors you need to contact for any furniture, electrical work and telephony/communications etc. In some cases you have to use the contractor they specify (eg for electrical connections, telephony/internet & construction of the stands) but in other cases you can choose who you use (eg furniture suppliers)
You can usually choose a ‘shell stand’ or ‘space’ and you generally pay by square metre. Sometimes they’ll negotiate rates with you, especially if they are trying to sell their last few stands, but sometimes they won’t. The organisers of The Baby Show don’t negotiate for shell stands at all, because they have taken the decision that they don’t want exhibitors finding out they’ve paid different rates when they get to the show, which may also cause problems when they’re trying to persuade you to rebook for the show the following year.
You’ve got to use all the space you’ve got, and ensure your stand show’s what you do very quickly. You can use special show offers to entice the bargain hunters, and samples/giveaways if they’re not going to cost you too much. You also want to consider whether you can also use the show for data collection, by running a competition where you collect customer details. We did this at The Baby Show, having a range of prizes on offer, and approached people passing our stand to enter, just by writing down their name & email address on our pre-printed sheets (on clipboards). We found this much quicker than asking for full address details etc, & visitors appreciated it too because they were generally sick of filling in these details over and over at the show.
The sheet made it obvious that they were signing up for our newsletter, but we were clear that we weren’t going to ‘share’ their email address with 3rd parties, weren’t going to ‘spam’ them and were only going to email them once a month with our newsletter – which they can choose to opt of receiving after they’ve received the first one anyway. It’s interesting how times have changed, because I think only about 10% either didn’t have an email address, or couldn’t remember it. Three years ago that would’ve been much much higher.
I was delighted that we collected 1,100 email addresses. But we certainly worked hard for it! We had a system – a standard thing for all of us to say (short & catchy) and made sure we asked almost everyone who passed our stand. If they said ‘no’, we followed up with a card (we have business card sized handouts), because we reckon very few people will say ‘no’ twice! We raised our voices so people could hear us (over the public address system/music) and walked over to people on the other side of the aisle. There were a minimum of 2 of us most of the time, and sometimes 3.
When someone showed a lot of interest in the website when they were signing up to the competition, then we offered to show them how it worked. And we converted 3 in every 4 of those we showed the site to. However we were never going to make a ‘profit’ at the show just by selling memberships whilst we were there. Many of the visitors were pregnant, and so not actually ready to use our site yet, and most didn’t want to spend the time sitting down with us. So we used our time much better by collecting the email addresses, as we can now use those over the coming months and hopefully convert a lot more of them.
If you have a chance to pick your own stand (usually only at the larger shows) try to aim for a position where there’s going to be lots of traffic:
· On a wide aisle
· Facing ‘inwards’ to the show (rather than with the back of your stand nearer the centre of the room)
· On an aisle where there will be lots of visitors walking eg – near the restaurant, stage, main/popular exhibitor, toilets etc
· On a corner stand if you can afford the extra cost so you get 2 aisles
Personally I don’t think those stands immediately next to the entrance are any better, because most visitors start off by browsing once they first arrive and won’t be in ‘buying mode’ until they’ve settled down a bit. And when they’re leaving, they’re usually so tired they can’t be bothered to spend any more!
But once you are at the show, don’t complain about your position, the lack of visitors passing or admin problems with the organisers. There’s nothing you can do about it once you’re there, but work hard to make the most of the visitors who do pass your stand. I thought that some exhibitors around us just didn’t appear to use their space well. If you have paid for a corner stand (which at the larger shows are usually more expensive), then use your space well – make sure you work both aisles! Don’t just expect people to come up to you to show an interest. They are usually so overwhelmed by the number of stands that you have to make them notice you somehow before they will stop. Besides approaching people for the competition, we had brightly coloured buckets & spades as our ‘giveaways’ for members who joined at the stand stacked up on the table and hung from the ceiling grid (along with a ‘15 months for the price of 12’ offer) – so these often caught people’s eye because many thought they were for sale! We also had a small activity table with colouring sheets & crayons to occupy any children – who’s parents then felt obliged to have a look at our website!
Be happy, laugh and smile all day (very tiring!). Imagine every person you see is the first visitor you’ve seen that day. Because it’s the first time they’ve seen you, and first impressions count for so much. Don’t allow your team to chat amongst themselves, it looks liked they’re bored, not interested in customer service, and very few potential customers will be bothered to interrupt them to enquire – they’re not usually so desperate to buy.
I could go on for ages and I’m sure I’ve not covered everything here. I’ve not even touched on the look/feel of the stand and trying to make it multi-sensory, or the Health & Safety & insurance requirements. But if you were wondering about exhibiting, hopefully you’ve picked up a few ideas here. If you have any comments or questions, drop me a line! kirsty@entertainthekids.com
Kirsty
I know I’ve mentioned exhibitions before, and we aren’t experts by any stretch of the imagination, but I think we’re getting a lot right when it comes to making the most of them. And looking around, it’s obvious that some others don’t really maximize the show’s potential. Maybe they have a different reason for being there, but for us the key aim is to get our brand out to as many people as possible, and convert them (either at the show or afterwards) into paying members.
I thought it was worth talking about shows again, just to share our experiences, in case you’re thinking of doing one yourself and haven’t a clue what to expect.
We’ve ‘exhibited’ (I use the term loosely in some cases!) at several different types and sizes of shows. In our market (parenting/consumer) we have:
- the local church hall type of show
- the slightly larger leisure centre/town hall venue which may last from a couple of hours to a whole day
- then you have the major shows which are usually held at exhibition centres and last at least 2 days.
At the smaller shows you generally buy a table space – you’re given a table to exhibit from and sometimes chairs are provided as well! Anything else you need, you have to provide yourself. We’ve always managed to request a table close to a power socket, because we need to plug in the projector and laptop. But of course we’re not going to get a broadband connection, or even use of a telephone line at these venues, so we’ve had to connect to the internet using our mobiles!
Sometimes you can stick posters on the wall, but not often. So if you want to display anything above your table, think about buying the concertina-type boards or use cabinets, rails, moveable shelving etc. But you also have to think about how you’re going to transport all this to the venue! We have the large screen as our main backdrop, showing the website, and we’ve constructed a nifty (& very cheap) way of hanging posters either side of the screen by using a bamboo cane frame.
For these small/medium sized shows, the cost of exhibiting can range from £25 to £250. If it’s the first time the event has run, you take a bit of a chance with their estimates of visitor numbers. Our fingers were burnt a bit last time we did a fairly large show in March, because it was a first time event and just didn’t achieve the numbers of visitors that they were expecting.
When you’re doing deciding whether to exhibit & doing the research for your budget, you need to know whether it’s going to be worthwhile for you, and so visitor numbers are key to that assessment. But you can only take a view at the planning stage about the ability and dedication of the organiser, the amount of promotion work they’ve done, and who the other exhibitors are, in order to attract the visitor numbers they have suggested. Once a show has already been run by that organiser before, and in the same venue, then you’ve a little more certainty that they are going achieve their predictions. But things can always affect that, such as the weather, a large football game, or some other local event that’s competing for the same audience.
I’ve done an enormous amount of research about shows in our market, expected visitor numbers, price of exhibiting etc and I’ve got all sorts of ratios that I now work to. The cost of exhibiting per expected visitor, the likely sales we’ll get on the day (as a % of the visitor numbers), the cost per member etc. As a result of this I’ve turned some shows down flat, because the cost per expected visitor is just ludicrously high.
You’ll see with the larger shows that the cost per visitor is much lower than for the larger shows, even though the actual £s are usually substantially more. But remember, for the very large shows, not all the visitors will pass your stand. At The Baby Show, they had about 25,000 visitors. Over the weekend, we collected over 1,000 email addresses (data collection, I’ll mention more later), and I think that was probably one in 10 people who passed our stand, so we actually only benefited from 10,000 of those visitors.
Most large shows will provide you with an Exhibitors Manual, which contains all the key information you need to know, including ‘Build-up times’, ‘Show Open times’ and ‘Breakdown times’, also contact details of any contractors you need to contact for any furniture, electrical work and telephony/communications etc. In some cases you have to use the contractor they specify (eg for electrical connections, telephony/internet & construction of the stands) but in other cases you can choose who you use (eg furniture suppliers)
You can usually choose a ‘shell stand’ or ‘space’ and you generally pay by square metre. Sometimes they’ll negotiate rates with you, especially if they are trying to sell their last few stands, but sometimes they won’t. The organisers of The Baby Show don’t negotiate for shell stands at all, because they have taken the decision that they don’t want exhibitors finding out they’ve paid different rates when they get to the show, which may also cause problems when they’re trying to persuade you to rebook for the show the following year.
You’ve got to use all the space you’ve got, and ensure your stand show’s what you do very quickly. You can use special show offers to entice the bargain hunters, and samples/giveaways if they’re not going to cost you too much. You also want to consider whether you can also use the show for data collection, by running a competition where you collect customer details. We did this at The Baby Show, having a range of prizes on offer, and approached people passing our stand to enter, just by writing down their name & email address on our pre-printed sheets (on clipboards). We found this much quicker than asking for full address details etc, & visitors appreciated it too because they were generally sick of filling in these details over and over at the show.
The sheet made it obvious that they were signing up for our newsletter, but we were clear that we weren’t going to ‘share’ their email address with 3rd parties, weren’t going to ‘spam’ them and were only going to email them once a month with our newsletter – which they can choose to opt of receiving after they’ve received the first one anyway. It’s interesting how times have changed, because I think only about 10% either didn’t have an email address, or couldn’t remember it. Three years ago that would’ve been much much higher.
I was delighted that we collected 1,100 email addresses. But we certainly worked hard for it! We had a system – a standard thing for all of us to say (short & catchy) and made sure we asked almost everyone who passed our stand. If they said ‘no’, we followed up with a card (we have business card sized handouts), because we reckon very few people will say ‘no’ twice! We raised our voices so people could hear us (over the public address system/music) and walked over to people on the other side of the aisle. There were a minimum of 2 of us most of the time, and sometimes 3.
When someone showed a lot of interest in the website when they were signing up to the competition, then we offered to show them how it worked. And we converted 3 in every 4 of those we showed the site to. However we were never going to make a ‘profit’ at the show just by selling memberships whilst we were there. Many of the visitors were pregnant, and so not actually ready to use our site yet, and most didn’t want to spend the time sitting down with us. So we used our time much better by collecting the email addresses, as we can now use those over the coming months and hopefully convert a lot more of them.
If you have a chance to pick your own stand (usually only at the larger shows) try to aim for a position where there’s going to be lots of traffic:
· On a wide aisle
· Facing ‘inwards’ to the show (rather than with the back of your stand nearer the centre of the room)
· On an aisle where there will be lots of visitors walking eg – near the restaurant, stage, main/popular exhibitor, toilets etc
· On a corner stand if you can afford the extra cost so you get 2 aisles
Personally I don’t think those stands immediately next to the entrance are any better, because most visitors start off by browsing once they first arrive and won’t be in ‘buying mode’ until they’ve settled down a bit. And when they’re leaving, they’re usually so tired they can’t be bothered to spend any more!
But once you are at the show, don’t complain about your position, the lack of visitors passing or admin problems with the organisers. There’s nothing you can do about it once you’re there, but work hard to make the most of the visitors who do pass your stand. I thought that some exhibitors around us just didn’t appear to use their space well. If you have paid for a corner stand (which at the larger shows are usually more expensive), then use your space well – make sure you work both aisles! Don’t just expect people to come up to you to show an interest. They are usually so overwhelmed by the number of stands that you have to make them notice you somehow before they will stop. Besides approaching people for the competition, we had brightly coloured buckets & spades as our ‘giveaways’ for members who joined at the stand stacked up on the table and hung from the ceiling grid (along with a ‘15 months for the price of 12’ offer) – so these often caught people’s eye because many thought they were for sale! We also had a small activity table with colouring sheets & crayons to occupy any children – who’s parents then felt obliged to have a look at our website!
Be happy, laugh and smile all day (very tiring!). Imagine every person you see is the first visitor you’ve seen that day. Because it’s the first time they’ve seen you, and first impressions count for so much. Don’t allow your team to chat amongst themselves, it looks liked they’re bored, not interested in customer service, and very few potential customers will be bothered to interrupt them to enquire – they’re not usually so desperate to buy.
I could go on for ages and I’m sure I’ve not covered everything here. I’ve not even touched on the look/feel of the stand and trying to make it multi-sensory, or the Health & Safety & insurance requirements. But if you were wondering about exhibiting, hopefully you’ve picked up a few ideas here. If you have any comments or questions, drop me a line! kirsty@entertainthekids.com
Kirsty
15 May 2006
Making marketing pay
Thanks to Ross for ably standing in for me last week. I was actually back from Butlins when Ross wrote it, but as you’ll see, we’ve been mad busy this week, so it was just easier for Ross to write last week’s diary entry. But a pleasant change for you I suppose! So maybe we’ll have other guest writers as the weeks go on. Get ready, Lee! I’m calling on you next!!
So what have we been up to? I’m beginning to find that marketing a website has many more facets to it than just marketing an offline product.
We’re on a quest to improve our conversion rates, that is, the number of new members who actually sign up after coming to the site for the first time. This is a tricky number to establish in itself, because of the structure of our site, with it’s members pages and non-members pages. But we think it’s about 1 in 10 at the moment, which I’m led to believe is pretty good! But when we set our 1st year targets, I wanted a 1 in 4 conversion rate by the end of the year. So after some discussion, we’ve made some key changes.
Firstly, we’ve changed the look of the home page. A great design by Lee & his team now means that on the front page there are 3 activity ‘tasters’. There were always free ‘tasters’ on the site (and still are) for each activity category, but you have to click on each category icon to see them, and then they’re not displayed in quite the same way as the rest of our resources. So now there are also some on the home page itself, along with the graphics we use for each category, and now they will be seen by a new visitor straight away and should be quite eye-catching.
We’ve also opened up all the content in the ‘gold bar’ menu items. So the sports, organisations, holiday reviews etc can now all be viewed by non-members as well. We’re quite proud of these pages, and we realise that members aren’t joining up just for these pages. Instead our members are joining to use the thousands of activities we have on our database. So we’ve opened these other pages up as public pages to show off what we do!
Hopefully the combination of these 2 changes will prove our quality sufficiently to persuade more potential new members to join up.
Our email newsletter has also been redesigned, so it’s now more in keeping with the look of the website, and that’s due to go out today. So perhaps that will also return a better conversion than the previous newsletters we’ve sent, which I think have been too dry.
I guess this is just a continual thing, reviewing your product, tweaking what you do and trying to find lots of little things to improve your business. I watched a business training video last week, that I’ve seen many times in the past (I used to present it myself to our business owner clients), called ‘Making Your Business Really Fly’ – also known as the ‘Wally’ video! But it’s the first time I’ve seen it as a business owner myself, and I got quite a lot from it by watching it from a new angle.
One of the key messages in it, is that you probably won’t find one major thing that’s going to make your business take off. But it’s the culmination of lots of small things that make the biggest difference, and so instead you should spend your time improving 100 little things by 1% each. The biggest downfall for most businesses is that they have lots of ideas, but ‘fail to implement’ them (‘FTI’ the video calls it). I’m not sure that’s so true for us, as I think most new businesses are continually looking for new ideas and trying out new things. But I think as many businesses become more established, it’s easy for them to become more complacent, and they don’t spend time as often looking at new marketing methods etc.
Talking of marketing, we’re still doing lots of things. We’re trying a combination of editorial and advertising in some very focused, local, publications at the moment. This works out quite cheap, but it’s frustrating that most of them won’t be in print for a couple of months yet, and just because it’s cheap, doesn’t mean it’s effective. The combination of 10 small adverts still mounts up, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
Plus we’re now looking at more online advertising as well. The difficulty is knowing where to advertise, how much to spend (when you don’t have a lot at all!), the percentage return you should expect (so you can establish whether it will be worth it) etc. There’s an awful lot of choice out there, from advertising on emails, banner adverts, listing on databases, and so on. We’ve narrowed it down to a couple of alternatives, but we’re holding back from making a decision until cashflow improves a bit more.
We’re exhibiting at The Practical Parenting Baby Show at NEC in Birmingham this weekend. So early this week I’m putting together the final checks for the stand design, the admin tasks and the lists (again!) of things we need to take.
Other developments this week, is that we’re about to launch our ESCAPE! Programme for our members. This is something we thought we’d have to wait ages to do, but I’ve found a way of doing it slightly differently than how I originally planned, so we can launch it much earlier than expected. Whippee!!
So we’re now offering ESCAPE! days out to major attractions, at exclusive rates. We’ve agreed 4 dates so far. Three in the summer holidays to Chester Zoo, Eureka! And Camelot Theme Park. Plus one just before the summer holiday, when we’re running a Teddy Bears’ Picnic for babies, toddlers & pre-schoolers. I’ve centred them on Northern England for now, because the majority of our members are based there. But I’m about to arrange 2 more for the Midlands (hopefully this will be apt after the NEC show) and 1 or 2 for Southern England. Our members in the South are scattered far and wide, so it’s more difficult to find somewhere that suits a lot of them. We’re hoping this scheme will encourage recommendations to friends a bit more, so clusters will develop making it easier to plan future ESCAPE! days.
This should be up on the site by the end of the week, including a new ESCAPE! logo and downloadable booking forms for our members. We’re not attempting to deal with the booking & payments through Worldpay at the moment, because (as usual!) I’ve not left Lee’s team with enough time. So downloadable booking forms and cheques in the post will have to do for now!
So back the grind. My ‘to do’ list is so full I’ve split it into tasks for each half day this week! Kate from Sticky Bobs told me about a great time management tool last week. You calculate a ‘priority quotient’ by grading each of your tasks from 1-3 (one is the lowest!) for their urgency and importance – 2 separate figures. Then you multiply the 2 figures together and then rank your tasks according to their priority. What a great idea - when I have time I’ll do it.
Oh dear, that’s not quite the right attitude is it!
Kirsty
So what have we been up to? I’m beginning to find that marketing a website has many more facets to it than just marketing an offline product.
We’re on a quest to improve our conversion rates, that is, the number of new members who actually sign up after coming to the site for the first time. This is a tricky number to establish in itself, because of the structure of our site, with it’s members pages and non-members pages. But we think it’s about 1 in 10 at the moment, which I’m led to believe is pretty good! But when we set our 1st year targets, I wanted a 1 in 4 conversion rate by the end of the year. So after some discussion, we’ve made some key changes.
Firstly, we’ve changed the look of the home page. A great design by Lee & his team now means that on the front page there are 3 activity ‘tasters’. There were always free ‘tasters’ on the site (and still are) for each activity category, but you have to click on each category icon to see them, and then they’re not displayed in quite the same way as the rest of our resources. So now there are also some on the home page itself, along with the graphics we use for each category, and now they will be seen by a new visitor straight away and should be quite eye-catching.
We’ve also opened up all the content in the ‘gold bar’ menu items. So the sports, organisations, holiday reviews etc can now all be viewed by non-members as well. We’re quite proud of these pages, and we realise that members aren’t joining up just for these pages. Instead our members are joining to use the thousands of activities we have on our database. So we’ve opened these other pages up as public pages to show off what we do!
Hopefully the combination of these 2 changes will prove our quality sufficiently to persuade more potential new members to join up.
Our email newsletter has also been redesigned, so it’s now more in keeping with the look of the website, and that’s due to go out today. So perhaps that will also return a better conversion than the previous newsletters we’ve sent, which I think have been too dry.
I guess this is just a continual thing, reviewing your product, tweaking what you do and trying to find lots of little things to improve your business. I watched a business training video last week, that I’ve seen many times in the past (I used to present it myself to our business owner clients), called ‘Making Your Business Really Fly’ – also known as the ‘Wally’ video! But it’s the first time I’ve seen it as a business owner myself, and I got quite a lot from it by watching it from a new angle.
One of the key messages in it, is that you probably won’t find one major thing that’s going to make your business take off. But it’s the culmination of lots of small things that make the biggest difference, and so instead you should spend your time improving 100 little things by 1% each. The biggest downfall for most businesses is that they have lots of ideas, but ‘fail to implement’ them (‘FTI’ the video calls it). I’m not sure that’s so true for us, as I think most new businesses are continually looking for new ideas and trying out new things. But I think as many businesses become more established, it’s easy for them to become more complacent, and they don’t spend time as often looking at new marketing methods etc.
Talking of marketing, we’re still doing lots of things. We’re trying a combination of editorial and advertising in some very focused, local, publications at the moment. This works out quite cheap, but it’s frustrating that most of them won’t be in print for a couple of months yet, and just because it’s cheap, doesn’t mean it’s effective. The combination of 10 small adverts still mounts up, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
Plus we’re now looking at more online advertising as well. The difficulty is knowing where to advertise, how much to spend (when you don’t have a lot at all!), the percentage return you should expect (so you can establish whether it will be worth it) etc. There’s an awful lot of choice out there, from advertising on emails, banner adverts, listing on databases, and so on. We’ve narrowed it down to a couple of alternatives, but we’re holding back from making a decision until cashflow improves a bit more.
We’re exhibiting at The Practical Parenting Baby Show at NEC in Birmingham this weekend. So early this week I’m putting together the final checks for the stand design, the admin tasks and the lists (again!) of things we need to take.
Other developments this week, is that we’re about to launch our ESCAPE! Programme for our members. This is something we thought we’d have to wait ages to do, but I’ve found a way of doing it slightly differently than how I originally planned, so we can launch it much earlier than expected. Whippee!!
So we’re now offering ESCAPE! days out to major attractions, at exclusive rates. We’ve agreed 4 dates so far. Three in the summer holidays to Chester Zoo, Eureka! And Camelot Theme Park. Plus one just before the summer holiday, when we’re running a Teddy Bears’ Picnic for babies, toddlers & pre-schoolers. I’ve centred them on Northern England for now, because the majority of our members are based there. But I’m about to arrange 2 more for the Midlands (hopefully this will be apt after the NEC show) and 1 or 2 for Southern England. Our members in the South are scattered far and wide, so it’s more difficult to find somewhere that suits a lot of them. We’re hoping this scheme will encourage recommendations to friends a bit more, so clusters will develop making it easier to plan future ESCAPE! days.
This should be up on the site by the end of the week, including a new ESCAPE! logo and downloadable booking forms for our members. We’re not attempting to deal with the booking & payments through Worldpay at the moment, because (as usual!) I’ve not left Lee’s team with enough time. So downloadable booking forms and cheques in the post will have to do for now!
So back the grind. My ‘to do’ list is so full I’ve split it into tasks for each half day this week! Kate from Sticky Bobs told me about a great time management tool last week. You calculate a ‘priority quotient’ by grading each of your tasks from 1-3 (one is the lowest!) for their urgency and importance – 2 separate figures. Then you multiply the 2 figures together and then rank your tasks according to their priority. What a great idea - when I have time I’ll do it.
Oh dear, that’s not quite the right attitude is it!
Kirsty
11 May 2006
Bob the Builder
Kirsty was away on a press trip last week, with Luke my nephew, her friend Pauline and Ben, Pauline’s son, also 2. They all went to Butlins at Skegness to meet Bob the Builder and Wendy, Bob’s friend! And a very enjoyable time was had by all, from the comments I heard when they all arrived home safely.
So I am stepping into the breach and writing this week, Ross McGregor, Chief Information Officer for entertainthekids.com and Kirsty’s brother, as you’ve probably already guessed if you have been reading previous postings.
Kirsty kept her mobile switched on for the week and we needed it, as between us we must have spent quite a bit of time talking about forthcoming PR activities and dealing with various queries and minor problems that cropped up. And Kirsty thought she was going to get some downtime with her son!
Meanwhile, I was entering Days Out content into the administration back end of the site including some newly released circus dates.
At the same time I was also thinking I must go running or go to the gym, as I am taking part in the BUPA Great Manchester 10K run on the 21st May and the date is rapidly approaching when I will be running past Old Trafford and through the streets of Manchester. So in between entering content and dealing with phonecalls I managed to pound the tarmac for an hour or so three times during the week.
I was also confirming some prizes for our NEC Baby show stand where we have a superb competition running. This always helps to attract visitors to your stand, and hopefully it will encourage them to sign up to our monthly enewsletter or even join there and then.
There was a bit of a disappointment this week. We hoped we were going to be featured in the Sunday Times magazine as a case study, but unfortunately, right at the last minute, they backed out as they’d found another case study, who lived much closer to London and therefore they were easier and cheaper to interview. Such are the joys of living in the North! Don’t let anyone tell you the North-South divide doesn’t exist! The media are keeping it that way just by themselves.
As far as the company’s progress is going, I think we are in a really good position right now, and I am pleased with the growth we have achieved. Slow but steady is the way I would describe it so far. I think that has been a blessing as it has meant we can grow with the business, and learn along the way, without any unnecessary added pressure.
When we launched in March we had realistic predictions that the company would grow organically and not be an overnight success. The longer term ideal of steady growth allows us to readjust to the gradual changes required. This is necessary in terms of management controls, (such as board meetings, responsibilities/job specs, recruitment methods, team management), advertising (knowing where to advertise, how much to spend and what really works) and getting the best deals from suppliers. If you grew too fast, you’d probably be rushed into making the wrong decisions, wasting money and time and getting too stressed out about it. Who am I kidding? I’m sure I could cope if I had my yacht in the Med waiting for me at weekends!!
But when we look back at what we have achieved so far, I am very proud and it’s something we were only dreaming about this time last year.
I’ll hand back over to Kirsty next week, but this probably won’t be the last you’ve heard from me!
ross@entertainthekids.com
So I am stepping into the breach and writing this week, Ross McGregor, Chief Information Officer for entertainthekids.com and Kirsty’s brother, as you’ve probably already guessed if you have been reading previous postings.
Kirsty kept her mobile switched on for the week and we needed it, as between us we must have spent quite a bit of time talking about forthcoming PR activities and dealing with various queries and minor problems that cropped up. And Kirsty thought she was going to get some downtime with her son!
Meanwhile, I was entering Days Out content into the administration back end of the site including some newly released circus dates.
At the same time I was also thinking I must go running or go to the gym, as I am taking part in the BUPA Great Manchester 10K run on the 21st May and the date is rapidly approaching when I will be running past Old Trafford and through the streets of Manchester. So in between entering content and dealing with phonecalls I managed to pound the tarmac for an hour or so three times during the week.
I was also confirming some prizes for our NEC Baby show stand where we have a superb competition running. This always helps to attract visitors to your stand, and hopefully it will encourage them to sign up to our monthly enewsletter or even join there and then.
There was a bit of a disappointment this week. We hoped we were going to be featured in the Sunday Times magazine as a case study, but unfortunately, right at the last minute, they backed out as they’d found another case study, who lived much closer to London and therefore they were easier and cheaper to interview. Such are the joys of living in the North! Don’t let anyone tell you the North-South divide doesn’t exist! The media are keeping it that way just by themselves.
As far as the company’s progress is going, I think we are in a really good position right now, and I am pleased with the growth we have achieved. Slow but steady is the way I would describe it so far. I think that has been a blessing as it has meant we can grow with the business, and learn along the way, without any unnecessary added pressure.
When we launched in March we had realistic predictions that the company would grow organically and not be an overnight success. The longer term ideal of steady growth allows us to readjust to the gradual changes required. This is necessary in terms of management controls, (such as board meetings, responsibilities/job specs, recruitment methods, team management), advertising (knowing where to advertise, how much to spend and what really works) and getting the best deals from suppliers. If you grew too fast, you’d probably be rushed into making the wrong decisions, wasting money and time and getting too stressed out about it. Who am I kidding? I’m sure I could cope if I had my yacht in the Med waiting for me at weekends!!
But when we look back at what we have achieved so far, I am very proud and it’s something we were only dreaming about this time last year.
I’ll hand back over to Kirsty next week, but this probably won’t be the last you’ve heard from me!
ross@entertainthekids.com
01 May 2006
Determined persistence!
Back on top again this week. Last week was a bit of a downer, but now I’m firing on all cylinders again.
I guess this happens to everyone now and again, but you’ve just got to dig your heels in through the times when everything seems to be going wrong, and keep going until you turn that corner, and the world seems to be with you again!
How do you do that? How do you keep going and not give up or get yourself deep into the doldrums? There’s a few ways I’ve realised that work for me. I’m generally quite a positive, optimistic, happy person. So my dark days never last for long. But I’m also pretty good at giving myself a kick and making myself get back to that ‘half full glass’ type of person.
Reading autobiographies, business books or just ‘good reads’ usually works well for me. I get so many ideas when I read business or marketing books, and make lists (again!) of things to do in our business, or I summarise the key points in my notebook.
So reading either makes me a bit more positive generally, or else I feel so inadequate and humbled when I read something like Ellen MacArthur’s autobiographies, that I just wake up to the reality that my issues are so inconsequential.
‘Pressing the flesh’ is I think what the politicians and celebrities call it, when you go out and meet the public. As an internet business, we don’t usually see our customers, but by going out and doing baby shows, we get to speak to ‘real people’, introduce our product, and we get a real buzz from hearing again all the positive comments about the site. You forget these feel-good comments when you’re sat alone in your home office or you’re not working in large offices with lots of team members, who usually tend to keep each other ‘up’.
Taking time out, spending time with your family, especially children, getting some fresh air, and just not being so hard on yourself is something that a lot of business owners find difficult. But I’m getting better! My big thing is driving to the coast (at least 2.5 hours away for me!) so I can see the sea, hear it and smell it. I think it’s another good way of getting things in perspective. Plus you get constant reminders afterwards, because the sand always stays in your shoes for days afterwards doesn’t it?!!
Remembering where you’ve been and what you’ve already achieved is another thing we should force ourselves to do a bit more often. Ross bought me the most fantastic birthday present last month. He made up an A1 frame with images showing the website’s development. The first home page we had, then the current one (which is about to be re-jigged again by the way!), the early promotional materials we used, and the more recent cards for the launch. Plus a picture of both the earlier logo and our present one.
It all looks fantastic and just shows me in a snapshot how far we’ve come. You could turn all ‘Blue Peter’ and make a ‘memory board’ yourself, which is just as simple and quicker, using a cork noticeboard, and print offs or cuttings. Going back further, I’ve still got the rough notes we made when we brainstormed the site concept in January 2005, so I must dig that out too and mount it up on the wall so I can see it regularly.
It also reminds you why you got into this business in the first place. What was it that made you so passionate about what you were doing? Do you still think it? If you’re product or business is good, you still will believe it. If you’re floundering, look at what you’re offering, and see if you can tweak it a bit. It’s usually just lots of small changes that make the biggest impact.
Besides looking back over what you’ve achieved, I know lots of people use images to show where they want to be, as a motivational tool. Pictures of their dream car, house or holiday. Ross tends to use these ideas, but I still regularly think back to my ‘Vivid Description’ which is a summary of a day in the future. You have to imagine then write down where you will be, what you will be doing, what you’re wearing, what the room is like or what or who is surrounding you.
Smells, sights, sounds – all the senses have to be used to do this. And it’s really powerful. Ross and I wrote our own back in October, depicting a day in March 2009. We used it at the time for goal setting, but I still regularly remember mine, and it’s a great motivational tool.
So what’s been going on this week then? Well thanks to a lorry fire on the M62, I spent about 3 hours stuck in traffic as they shut the motorway. So I didn’t even make it to the baby show near Hull! Really naffed off, but nothing you can do about it, so we had to just forget it. We did a baby show in Salisbury at the weekend, which was great and gave us those ‘press the flesh’ opportunities. Once again some good contacts made, and it was a good day out – albeit a long 18 hour one!
And here’s some baby show news for you – we’ve decided to exhibit at The Baby Show at NEC on 19/21 May (stand M15 if you’re going – come and see us!). They’re expecting over 25,000 visitors, so it’s going to be a hard few days, but hopefully worthwhile.
This is also a longer term marketing strategy for us, because, although we do get new members joining up at the show and immediately afterwards, a lot of the visitors are pregnant. So we’re introducing the brand and site to them before they may actually need it. Over the next 12 months we hope they’ll remember us, probably when they see the brand again somewhere, and then join up. I guess that’s the strategy of most of the larger brands at these baby shows, because most aren’t products for pregnant women themselves, they’re investing their marketing costs for the future.
Meeting with fluid provided some excellent news. Lee’s looked at the website, especially the home page and has suggested some changes which will make it snappier and more appealing to the first time visitor. Can’t wait for those changes to be put on the site.
Plus a different format & layout for our monthly newsletter which I was really unhappy with before.
Spoke to Kay about the ‘search engine optimisation’ (SEO) work she’s been doing too, and that sounds fantastic. Whilst we don’t think the majority of our members will find us by just browsing on the web, using google, yahoo, msn search engines etc., it all helps!
I’m on a press trip to Butlins this next week. So Luke can meet Bob the Builder!
We have to make the draw for our April competition of a luxury spa break weekend and we have announced our new competition for May – a family holiday at the amazing Sparkles Hotel in Blackpool. A themed children’s hotel like you’ve never seen before! Have a look at my review of it ‘Blackpool Bliss’ if you haven’t seen it yet.
So let’s hope for sun in Skegness this week, and a good mobile network so I can still pick up emails and take phone calls whilst I’m away from my desk!
Kirsty
I guess this happens to everyone now and again, but you’ve just got to dig your heels in through the times when everything seems to be going wrong, and keep going until you turn that corner, and the world seems to be with you again!
How do you do that? How do you keep going and not give up or get yourself deep into the doldrums? There’s a few ways I’ve realised that work for me. I’m generally quite a positive, optimistic, happy person. So my dark days never last for long. But I’m also pretty good at giving myself a kick and making myself get back to that ‘half full glass’ type of person.
Reading autobiographies, business books or just ‘good reads’ usually works well for me. I get so many ideas when I read business or marketing books, and make lists (again!) of things to do in our business, or I summarise the key points in my notebook.
So reading either makes me a bit more positive generally, or else I feel so inadequate and humbled when I read something like Ellen MacArthur’s autobiographies, that I just wake up to the reality that my issues are so inconsequential.
‘Pressing the flesh’ is I think what the politicians and celebrities call it, when you go out and meet the public. As an internet business, we don’t usually see our customers, but by going out and doing baby shows, we get to speak to ‘real people’, introduce our product, and we get a real buzz from hearing again all the positive comments about the site. You forget these feel-good comments when you’re sat alone in your home office or you’re not working in large offices with lots of team members, who usually tend to keep each other ‘up’.
Taking time out, spending time with your family, especially children, getting some fresh air, and just not being so hard on yourself is something that a lot of business owners find difficult. But I’m getting better! My big thing is driving to the coast (at least 2.5 hours away for me!) so I can see the sea, hear it and smell it. I think it’s another good way of getting things in perspective. Plus you get constant reminders afterwards, because the sand always stays in your shoes for days afterwards doesn’t it?!!
Remembering where you’ve been and what you’ve already achieved is another thing we should force ourselves to do a bit more often. Ross bought me the most fantastic birthday present last month. He made up an A1 frame with images showing the website’s development. The first home page we had, then the current one (which is about to be re-jigged again by the way!), the early promotional materials we used, and the more recent cards for the launch. Plus a picture of both the earlier logo and our present one.
It all looks fantastic and just shows me in a snapshot how far we’ve come. You could turn all ‘Blue Peter’ and make a ‘memory board’ yourself, which is just as simple and quicker, using a cork noticeboard, and print offs or cuttings. Going back further, I’ve still got the rough notes we made when we brainstormed the site concept in January 2005, so I must dig that out too and mount it up on the wall so I can see it regularly.
It also reminds you why you got into this business in the first place. What was it that made you so passionate about what you were doing? Do you still think it? If you’re product or business is good, you still will believe it. If you’re floundering, look at what you’re offering, and see if you can tweak it a bit. It’s usually just lots of small changes that make the biggest impact.
Besides looking back over what you’ve achieved, I know lots of people use images to show where they want to be, as a motivational tool. Pictures of their dream car, house or holiday. Ross tends to use these ideas, but I still regularly think back to my ‘Vivid Description’ which is a summary of a day in the future. You have to imagine then write down where you will be, what you will be doing, what you’re wearing, what the room is like or what or who is surrounding you.
Smells, sights, sounds – all the senses have to be used to do this. And it’s really powerful. Ross and I wrote our own back in October, depicting a day in March 2009. We used it at the time for goal setting, but I still regularly remember mine, and it’s a great motivational tool.
So what’s been going on this week then? Well thanks to a lorry fire on the M62, I spent about 3 hours stuck in traffic as they shut the motorway. So I didn’t even make it to the baby show near Hull! Really naffed off, but nothing you can do about it, so we had to just forget it. We did a baby show in Salisbury at the weekend, which was great and gave us those ‘press the flesh’ opportunities. Once again some good contacts made, and it was a good day out – albeit a long 18 hour one!
And here’s some baby show news for you – we’ve decided to exhibit at The Baby Show at NEC on 19/21 May (stand M15 if you’re going – come and see us!). They’re expecting over 25,000 visitors, so it’s going to be a hard few days, but hopefully worthwhile.
This is also a longer term marketing strategy for us, because, although we do get new members joining up at the show and immediately afterwards, a lot of the visitors are pregnant. So we’re introducing the brand and site to them before they may actually need it. Over the next 12 months we hope they’ll remember us, probably when they see the brand again somewhere, and then join up. I guess that’s the strategy of most of the larger brands at these baby shows, because most aren’t products for pregnant women themselves, they’re investing their marketing costs for the future.
Meeting with fluid provided some excellent news. Lee’s looked at the website, especially the home page and has suggested some changes which will make it snappier and more appealing to the first time visitor. Can’t wait for those changes to be put on the site.
Plus a different format & layout for our monthly newsletter which I was really unhappy with before.
Spoke to Kay about the ‘search engine optimisation’ (SEO) work she’s been doing too, and that sounds fantastic. Whilst we don’t think the majority of our members will find us by just browsing on the web, using google, yahoo, msn search engines etc., it all helps!
I’m on a press trip to Butlins this next week. So Luke can meet Bob the Builder!
We have to make the draw for our April competition of a luxury spa break weekend and we have announced our new competition for May – a family holiday at the amazing Sparkles Hotel in Blackpool. A themed children’s hotel like you’ve never seen before! Have a look at my review of it ‘Blackpool Bliss’ if you haven’t seen it yet.
So let’s hope for sun in Skegness this week, and a good mobile network so I can still pick up emails and take phone calls whilst I’m away from my desk!
Kirsty
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)