Posts filed under 'Glow: The Making Of'
It occurred to me that mainstream events should now be catering more to families as their clientele ages and starts a family. Recently I attended the Calgary Folk Festival, and it was surprising to see so many little ones at the festival this year. From my observation, there were double the amount of babies and kids and way more strollers about.
The festival has always had a Family play area (sponsored by Tim Hortons), but this year the crowd was sporting way more babies yet the festival had not changed it’s amenities. Another festival coming soon to our area is Drench Fest, a music and water sport festival that has strategically tried to market to families with older children to generate additional festival go-ers. Drench Fest is even selling family passes and running adds directed at parents and teens that pokes fun at “family time” and how the festival is an excellent excuse to spend “quality ” time together. Well done.
On the other hand, the Calgary Stampede had an excellent indoor family area sponsored by Southland Transportation that was exceptional. There were tons of free activities, crafts and entertainment, yet the area was not marketed, leaving many families unaware of it.The Capital Ex in Edmonton on the other hand ran ads directed specifically at families and likely succeeded in attracting families.
Providing small children with places to play and do fun activities is imperative if you want the whole family to come and stay for a while. The more there is to keep them happy, the longer they will stay and more money they will likely spend.
What I would recommend to any large mainstream event are to:
a) design family-friendly amenities (i.e. diaper changing areas, access to water and hand-washing, priority parking, stroller parking and/or wagon rentals, access to shade, places to rest, kids’ sunscreen, activity areas), entertainment (live entertainment, activities, roaming entertainers, visually rich environment) as part of the larger event.
b) market specifically to families, if you don’t, they won’t know about the event or will assume it wasn’t the right event for the whole family.
Hosting a family-friendly event is not just about increasing your attendance. As your attendees get older and have children, it is mandatory that you accomdate their new requirements in order to keep them coming back for more.
July 30th, 2009
This Mothers Day we decided to do something a little different. We know that Moms like a good laugh and thought these insightful cards from Speckles & Weeds would make an appropriate Mother’s Day greeting. Only a Mom could create these cards. We hope you enjoy it. Feel free to share with the Moms in your life!
Video link: Click image above
May 7th, 2009
MomsRising creating a microsite and customizable video to send friends a Mothers Day video.With days to go, the microsite was well planned in terms of it’s release date and the video itself is hilarious. Obviously Moms where involved in the making of the video and it’s message.
The site was created to raise awareness for Moms Rising and the customizable video is a perfect viral marketing tactic to leverage Mothers Day as means to market their organization. “Moms Rising is working to bring together millions of people who share a common concern about the need to build a more family-friendly America”. Click here to view the site and video. want to learn more about viral marketing? Read Glow Marketing’s article on Viral Marketing in the MOMpreneur Magazine.
May 6th, 2009
Have you ever noticed that when money is tighter we find ourselves making different choices and throwing our brand preferences out the window? During a recent grocery trip I noticed a new brand on the shelf called “Big Red”. It wasn’t the most expensive brand, nor was it the cheapest. The packaging was appealing, it looked like a quality product and I found myself saying “good enough!”. I had heard about this theory from Seth Godin, marketing guru, and I am a firm believer that sometimes good enough, is well, good enough.
It made me think about my clients and whether they are offering a “good enough” product in their product mix (in addition to their higher end offerings). Middle of the road may sound boring to you, but there is plenty of demand for “good enough” products that won’t blow the budget. Think of the example of razor blades with their ever increasing number of blades, moisturizing strips and ergonomic handles. Between the $20 razor and the $1 disposable razor that leaves your legs looking worse than when you started, there is room in the middle for that razor that is “good enough”.
The same thinking can apply to the size of your product. Offering a smaller size is an excellent way to lower the cost and provide customers with what they are looking for. Have a look at your products or services and see where you can add-in affordable options.
April 16th, 2009
Let’s face it, custom logos can be expensive. I know, because I have been involved in numerous branding projects and logos can be extremely challenging, hence the big price tag. Having worked with Calgary and Vancouver graphic designers, I can safely say that most small start-up businesses would be shocked to know what a great logo costs. Freelance designers are a great option and will charge less, however you are working with one person vs. a team of people that can come at the project from different points of view. This is fine if their style is what you are looking for and sets the stage for an ongoing relationship with someone that you can trust and knows your brand.
Starting a new business can also be expensive and I understand the need to tighten budgets, so when I discovered this site Crowd Spring, I was thrilled. The site offers “name your price” designs services and uses a new trend called crowd sourcing. Crowd sourcing is when people from all over the globe come to together to solve a problem. In this case, designers from all over the world contribute logo concepts for you, based on your creative brief. You rank each logo and provide feedback so that ALL the designers can create more logos that are more inline with your tastes. At the end of the process, you select the winner, whom receives the project fee.
Before recommending this site to my clients, I decided to try it myself because I was in need of a new logo. I was pleased with the number of options (over 200) and the final logo choices and couldn’t argue with the price because I set it myself.
After a successful trial run, I recommended this site to 2 other organizations, Family Fun Calgary and Entrepreneurial Moms. Both were pleased with the outcome.
“I would definitely recommend them and I have many times. The cost was definitely reasonable compared to what graphic artists normally charge for logo design work.” Melissa Vroon, Family Fun Calgary
Though the site offers low cost design, it is not without it’s drawbacks. Part of the fees you pay at an ad agency or design studio include writing a succinct creative brief and reviewing all of the logos, providing constructive feedback to the designers, directing them and pushing them and presenting only the best options for review. This process is very timing consuming, but if you have more time than money it is worth it.
Melissa offers the following advise “If you just pay the money and sit back and wait you may not get as many options or logo ideas but if you work with the designers and provide feedback as to what changes you would like to see you can get a better value and better logo.”
Before you start the process of a new logo, please read my article on branding. If you decide to use the Crowd Spring site but need a little help, Glow offers consultation on writing the creative brief and can also support you in providing feedback and choosing the final logo, or we can handle the entire process for you.
To find out more about Crowd Spring, click here.
If you’d prefer to work with a qualified freelance graphic designer, please contact us for more information on pre-screened candidates.
Sign-up for the Glow Marketing E-Report, free tips and trends on marketing to Moms.
March 23rd, 2009
Read more on the latest developments in the Canadian marketing to Moms media landscape.
yoyomama, the weekly email for Vancouver-area Moms has recently launched yoyobelly for “Moms on the grow in the know”. The site and e-blasts offer more targeted advertising to reach the highly coveted and hard to reach pregnant crowd. Fit Parent is a Canada/US magazine that will be hitting stands later this year. Watch for more exciting details on this opportunity to reach active parents through their site, magazine and local events. Yummy Mummy continues to grow with the addition of high caliber writers and also their Yummy Mummy broadband channel. Wee Welcome seems to be on the right track with continuing with their printed guides and “Mama Mingles” local events. The Vitamin Kids Daily Dose dishes out high fashion finds for funky parents and kids and now covers Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. MommywearDaily.com recently underwent a redesign and continues to help Moms everywhere go beyond their Momiform.
For more tips on marketing to Moms, sign-up for our free Glow Marketing E-Report.
March 7th, 2009
This past week has been incredible. There seems to be a lot buzz in the marketing to Moms arena. I’ll try to recount the past week’s events…
Thursday evening I attended my first Calgary Entrepreneurial Moms meeting. About 8 women and one token male gathered at the “Luscious Home”, a beautiful showroom set-up in a home for Luscious Bags (business must be good!). It was a great evening and I highly reccomend joining this group if you are based in or around Calgary and want to connect with other aspiring Mom entrepreneurs.
Mom Cafe held their inaugural event in Calgary on Friday and treated over 50 women to 2 guest speakers. Kathryn Bechthold from Mompreneur Magazine and Christi Cruz, Senior Manager of Community Investment for TELUS both shared their experiences as business women and Moms. What a fantastic group, I look forward to attending their next session and seeing them expand to other cities.
I had to duck out early to participate in a grassroots marketing seminar organized by one of my clients on behalf of their franchisees. Wow, wow, WOW is all I can say without tipping off my client’s competition. I plan to implement many of the techniques I learned on behalf of my clients immediately and have already starting writing these into marketing plans for 2009. All I can share at this point is “out smart the competition, not over spend”. Love it!
I also found last week that I will be part of the judging panel for the upcoming Southcentre Mompreneur contest. I am so excited to see everyone’s ideas and I wish everyone luck with the application to win 6 months of kiosk space at Southcentre.
On Sunday, Glow Marketing exhibited at the Mompreneur tradeshow in Calgary. The show had over 90 exhibitors and I had the privledged to meet tons of wonderful companies and women thinking of starting up their own business.
Last night I attended the special event in celebration of the launch of the Moms Dads and Kids “Little Black Book” for Busy Families. The website and new printed book is out and provides Alberta families with tips and resources. Kudos to them organizing the event to thank their advertisers and also for including the kids. My kids enjoyed it and didn’t want to leave.
To top things off, I just completed a marketing plan for Milkface Nursingwear from Ottawa and I think it’s a great one. They just won the Pimp My Business contest from Live 98.5 in Ottawa and will receive $50,000 in marketing and advertising prizes, well done, you deserve it!
November 11th, 2008
Glow Marketing recently got a new logo! Using a new website service, we were able to get over 200 submissions from around the world. In less than 24 hours we already had 6 submissions for review. It was a lot of work to review all of the options, but in the end it was worth it. If you need a new logo please contact us about this inexpensive way to create a new logo for your company. It’s not for everyone, you need to know how to write a good brief and provide good feedback (daily!) to the designers in order to get the best responses.
A small picture of the submissions:
My designer friends will kill me but to be honest, we needed something quickly!
Need something designed? Name your price and watch 13,000+ designers compete for your biz.
October 15th, 2008
The kids have been sick and I have had to drop a few things to make sure they are cared for. This is what it’s all about for me, being able to ‘take the morning off’ to be there for my kids when they really need me. I love it! No more feeling guilty having to call in to the office to say that the kids are sick, yet again.
October 9th, 2008
My Kids Dress Better Than Me Facebook Group
I recently started a new group on Facebook called “My Kids Dress Better Than Me“. It’s an experiment in social network marketing to create a group of like-minded funky parents looking for cool things for their kids. In just over 1 week, the group already has 60+ members (mostly from Canada), plus over 160 members have been invited to join that I didn’t invite (the members did!!). Join the group now! It’s work related…promote your product and invite your hip parent friends to join and share their finds online.
It’s been growing daily, with new members inviting friends, and then they invite friends….I also posted a social ad targeting only married Canadian females within a certain age range that had the key words “Mom” or “kids” in their profile. This narrowed the audience significantly but allowed me to focus on Facebook users that MIGHT be Moms across Canada. At this point you cannot reach Moms on Facebook with ads but you can make educated guesses to narrow your parameters.
After several projects using Facebook social ads, I can tell you that it is a bit tricky to create the right ad and sustain results over a period of time, but it’s highly cost effective. Industry experts may complain that the click rates are low, but given how small the ads are, it’s to be expected. You wouldn’t expect to place a tiny ad in a newspaper and expect the same response as a full page ad, so why expect the same click-throughs from Facebook social ads?
I started this group for many reasons, some top secret at this point but I can tell you this:
#1. So many smaller start-ups and artists are trying to market their products but have no money. This is one way I hope to help them showcase their work. Anyone can join this group and promote their product or company to funky parents, for free. I may not always be able to donate marketing expertise, so this is my little way of providing a venue.
#2. In my line of work, I come across so many exciting new products and talented artists/designers. I want to share these finds and this is one way to do it.
#3. There are limited places to target the “cool kids parents”, creating a social network brings them together in one place, and I can now access them with messages and postings. Some of my clients may have products to test, or contests they want to promote, and this will eventually be big enough to support that.
#4. It’s authentic and broad in scope. Real people recommending great products and services. It’s believable because it’s user generated content and not a group dedicated to only one company. A broad group like this is easier for people to join without being suspicious that someone is just trying to sell them something. Since only the admin can send group messages, the members will not get bombarded with weekly messages asking them to come to an event or take part in some multilevel marketing scheme. There are no strings!
Stayed tuned on this exciting social network marketing experiment. If you have a product or service that is perfect for hip parents, please contact me to discuss how to leverage this group, or your own.
August 6th, 2008
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