Archive for September, 2009
Hobby to Business - upgrade your look
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s been a few weeks since I’ve done a Hobby to Business post and I apologise.
This week, my tip is on upgrading your look. Home made brochures and so on may have been OK when you were running your business as a hobby, but now that you you are upgrading your hobby to a business, upgrade your marketing material, packaging, and anything else that needs a more professional look.
If one of your selling points is home made, a good graphic designer can still give you a home made look without it looking cheap and nasty, and I’m not talking about your products. Many people associate home made with cheap - prove them wrong!
A few years ago, we did a recording of a seminar called “Blogging for Beginners“. This was a fantastic seminar, however I did the CD duplication on my home computer and printed stickers on my little inkjet printer. The result was a CD that looked home made and cheap. I have done some research and found a great CD duplication place that will do my CDs at a reasonable price with low minimums. This means I am now planning to re-release the CD with a better look. It is still the same content, however the CD will look much more professional.
With a bit of research, upgrading the look of your business may not cost as much as you were expecting.
What are some of the ways you have upgraded the look of your business without it costing a huge amount, but giving you great results?
Handmade is never out of fashion
Posted by: | CommentsOver at Cherry Mag, I came across a great post about handmade gifts. Seriously, you’ve got to love a post that gives you the recipe for home made Irish Cream you can make and give as a gift.
I love hand made gifts, and making things to decorate my home is always satisfying. Most recently I’ve been doing a lot of cross stitch bought from The Needlework Boutique. I have also started making my own jewellery and greeting cards. I have also been encouraging my kids to make their own cards and gifts.
Handmade gifts always seem to go down well, and if you don’t have the skills or time to make things yourself, then there are plenty of business mums who make gifts.
Some business mums members you may want to check out are:
There are many more, but the boys are calling (it’s the middle of the school holidays in Victoria). For more business mums with handmade products, check out our directory at www.businessmums.com/directory
Marketing Monday - Pamper inserts
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You’ve probably heard about our Pamper Your Business day we are having in a couple of weeks (if you’re in Melbourne, there are still some tickets available). Part of this day is goodie bags - each participant will get one and we want all the inserts to have a pamper theme.
When I mentioned this on the Business Mums Network forums, most people said they couldn’t take part because they didn’t sell pamper products, so I opened up the challenge to think how they can promote themselves with a pampering theme.
Some ideas I have come up with so far are:
- For a virtual assistants, use the angle that having a VA will give you more time for pampering
- For people with promotional products, their clients can pamper their clients with special gifts
- For people who sell baby and kids products, pampering the kids can also pamper the Mum
There are other ideas on the forums, and I’m sure you can think of some ideas of your own. If you’re planning to attend the Pamper Your Business day, you can include some promotional items in our bags free. If you can’t make it, it doesn’t cost much 
If you have some ideas for how different businesses can promote themselves with a pampering theme, please share them here. We will send the best answer one of our pampering goodie bags after the event.
Pamper Your Business - And Yourself
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Pamper Your Business
Too often, Mums spend all their time an energy running around after their kids, partner, business and everyone else, and don’t take the time to pamper themselves.
With this in mind, we have decided to run a Pamper Your Business day on Saturday October 10 in Melbourne.
Not only will you hear 4 great speakers with tips on growing and pampering your business, but you will also have the opportunity to be pampered yourself! We have invited along some great companies who will pamper you during the breaks.
Come along to this amazing event. It’s only $99 for Business Mums Network members or $199 for non members. This includes 4 workshops, lunch, morning and afternoon tea, door prizes, pampering, and great networking with other Mums & women in business.
For full details and timetable, click here.
To book, click here.
I look forward to seeing you there.
A brilliant idea
Posted by: | CommentsI just came across Super Set Thursday from Your Cheeky Monkey on their blog. What a fanstic idea.
This is great for a number of reasons:
- It gives people an excuse to check out her shop each week
- It can help Monique get rid of discontinued lines or products that aren’t selling so well because she can add them to the set with more popular products
- It gives customers a great sample of her range
- It encourages customers to shop early so they don’t miss out on the set
Judging from the comments, the set on the post I saw was popular. I must remember to check out Your Cheeky Monkey on Thursday to see what is on offer - especially if this does turn out to be a weekly promotion 
Marketing Monday - Facebook Fanpages
Posted by: | CommentsFacebook - it’s part of the social networking revolution and can be a powerful tool for your business. One of the best ways to promote your business is with a Facebook Fanpage. If you have multiple businesses, you can have a fanpage for all of them.
To set up a fanpage, after you log in, find a fanpage and scroll down until you find the “Create a Page for My Business” option. Click on this and follow the prompts. Don’t forget to press “Publish” at the end. Once your page has been created, you can then promote it to your friends and start getting fans for your business.
You can view the Business Mums Network fanpage here.
Once you get 100 fans, you can get a username for your page so the URL is http://www.facebook.com/BusinessMumsNetwork rather than the long one Facebook gives it.
Now that you have your fanpage, you then need to work out what to do with it. Different businesses do different things with their pages. One of the biggest challenges is turning fans into customers. I have seen people do any or all of the following:
- Facebook Fan special deals
- Competitions & draws when facebook fans buy from them or join their database
- Prize draws for fans to reward them for signing up as a fan
- Promoting events with event invitation
- Spot the fan by posting photos from events
Other uses for your fanpage can be to promote new and upcoming products, posting reviews, encouraging feedback from fans with surveys, and much more.
One more tip before I go - remember to include your business URL and any other contact details so your Facebook Fans can contact you.
What are some of your best tips for your Facebook Fanpage?
Tell people where you are
Posted by: | CommentsIf you’ve ever had any media or had an article published, tell people about it. One of the things I’ve found is that once you’ve started to get publicity, it brings in more publicity.
On my site, I have a page with all the press coverage I’ve received. I’m in the process of scanning some of the articles so people can read what the media have said about us. You can see this page here.
Anne over at the Tall Poppy Blog recently had an article published on another site and blogged about it. You can read her post here. She is raising her profile as a writer by showing off her work, as well as providing the site she had her article published with another link and some more traffic.
So, wherever you get some media coverage or articles published, tell everyone about it and it will raise your profile even more.
Marketing Monday - Save customers postage
Posted by: | CommentsIf you sell products and regularly attend markets, expos or other events where you can sell your products, set up a way for your clients to pre order your products and save on their postage.
One of my clients recently placed an order through the Business Mums Guides site, knowing I would be seeing her today at our group coaching session. She paid for her order, less postage, and sent me an email asking if I could bring her books to the coaching session with me. I was happy to do this for her.
Similarly, in the lead up to the 2009 Business Mums Conference, I set up a special code conference participants could enter in the shop to save postage. The aim was their order would be packaged up and ready for them when they arrived at registration for them to collect.
This is something most online shops can easily do. If you are attending any sort of event, encourage your customers to pre order your products and have them ready for them to pick up at the event. This way, your customers save money on postage and you already know that people are going to visit your stand. You never know, they may end up spending more on the things that are on display on the day.
If you do a number of different events, set up different codes so you can easily identify which event people will be at. In order to identify your customer, ask they bring their order or receipt with them when they pick up their order. You may also want to add that if they don’t pick it up, they will be charged extra for postage after the event.
By saving your customers postage, you can look like a hero to them by providing opportunities they can pick up their products, and you can generate sales before an event and guarantee people coming to see you. If you package their orders, you can also brand your business while you’re at it - but that’s another Marketing Monday post.
Blog Awards
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Business Mums Network is looking for Australia’s favourite blog by a business mum. Nominations are now open fo you to tell us about your favourite blog - and yes, you can nominate your own.
There are many great prizes to be won simply by nominating, and then by voting. Nominations close on 25 September and voting opens on 5 October.
For full details, and to nominate, click here. The more nominations a blog receives, the more chance they will be in the finals. To see if your blog has already been nominated, click here.
Marketing Monday - Look for opportunities
Posted by: | CommentsOpportunities for promoting your business can be found in many different places if you look for the opportunities. You never know when an idea will come to you, often in the strangest places.
Over the weekend, I went to a friends 30th birthday party. We all had to dress up as something starting with the letter E. We ran through so many different costume ideas, including the boys going through their Pokemon cards to find the Pokemon that started with E for me to dress as. Finally I decided to go as an envelope. A couple of large sheets of cardboard later and I had my costume.
While designing it, I put the Business Mums Network address as the return address, complete with URL! Many people at the party looked closely at my envelope and a few asked me about my business. One guy even took down my details as he’s looking for a graphic designer and plans to visit our directory.
Here’s my costume:
So, you never know when an opportunity will present itself to you. You just need to grab the opportunity and run with it.
