Teacup Tuesday, with a little help from the press

Press, Marketing & Advertising. 
Bleurgh!!! Always a dreaded subject for most makers. 
Nobody likes to tell the world they are great and what they make is even better!
Ok, there are the odd few, but generally it is rare.

As a company we don't tend to advertise. We have in the past and it hasn't been fruitful so we stopped. 

Instead we wrote to the journalists, papers and magazine directly to tell them of our special things. At this time of year if you are a maker it's a good idea to do the same. A small editorial or a little mention can make a flurry of sales and is great to let people know who you are and where to find your things.

So, Do a little homework. Find the magazines and newspapers that you feel your clients read. Make a list of those who write the articles and do the photo shoots you think your items would sit perfectly with. Write a press release explaining why your product is special and send it directly to the people who write the articles. We have been successful with this many times. Our products have been included in ST kids (The Telegraph) and Selvedge magazine, The Telegraph Christmas gift guide to name a few.

Remember magazine (long leads) plan and prepare their issues well in advance. In fact Christmas planning is in July! So if you plan to send a press release keep it to the short leads (short lead Magazines and Newspapers).

Have a try.

You never know when it may be a success. Look what luck we've had with our Christmas Press releases. 

Good Luck!

unikgifts

Guildford Insider- A lovely mention in the article
for the Godalming Independent Market
that we participate in.

The Telegraph- Christmas Gift Guide
Our stocking filler paper animals

Selvedge- issue 43
Christmas Gifts you'll Love
Our kantha stitched baby blankets

Familesse online magazine
Our wooden pull along toy.

Mother and Baby Magazine
Our paper Christmas creatures

Marketing - a necessary evil?

I'd like to point out that the views in this post are entirely my own and do not represent that of u-ni-k gifts or Anna Matthews. So all grief to sarah@unikgifts.co.uk, OK?!

Marketing, it's just adding a strap line and colouring in big words making sure to stay in the lines right?! I have a hate-hate relationship with Marketing. A hang up from my project management days, as we'd keep the Marketing team cc'd in on all our project updates, invite them to join in our new system training sessions, and organise regular meet ups to walk them through the new functionality so that they would be informed and knowledgeable come the roll out and accompanying marketing campaign. So invariably they would ignore the updates, send 'underlings' to the training and meet up sessions (these 'underlings' would sit there bored drawing doodles on a pad thinking IT were sad boring geeks who weren't very important) and then go off and make up their marketing campaign based upon what their friends in 'sales' told them.

Not surprisingly this would end with me, the responsible 'buck stops here' project manager seeing something in the national press that proudly proclaimed my new project had warped into something I didn't recognise and with additional bells and whistles. So when the big boss or 'project sponsor' asked to see and play with the bells and whistles, I was in the enviable position of letting aforementioned boss know that there were not any bells and whistles. I can't count the times I've had the following conversation:

Big Boss: "Why aren't there any bells and whistles, it says here there are some bells and whistles? What release are the bells and whistles in?"

Overworked Project Manager: "We've not planned to have any bells and whistles, they weren't in the spec (you signed off mumble mumble). No one told us they wanted bells and whistles, so there isn't any. Look at all this other great stuff it does, look it will clean your house and cook you a 3 course meal..."

Big Boss:"I don't care about that stuff, I want bells and whistles."

Overworked Project Manager:"OK, we can deliver bells and whistles, just let me go away and do some due diligence to let you know how long it's going to take and how much is going to cost"

Big Boss:"I don't want to hear about that, use your current budget and deliver it next week".

And you wonder why nothing ever works when a big company rolls something out and the call centre staff say to you the customer. "Our computers are down again. It's our IT department, they're rubbish". No they're not, it's all Marketing's fault.

So imagine my horror when Anna and I started a conversation about advertising. Should we? What publication would we choose? How much are we willing to spend? Do we hire a professional to help us?
My initial thoughts of - What with colouring in and staying in within the lines and making up stuff as you go along?! Pay money for that? come from the old me, and I'm trying very hard to be a mumpreneur - a new me.

Anna is being very patient with me, she knows that I'll eventually come round and we'll have a lovely tasteful advert letting our 'target audience' know that we are there as the best source of children's gifts. I may even link to it from the website to let you all see how I've grown into a mumpreneur!

In the meantime, we can be found on UK Handmade's directory, Business Mum's Directory, Surrey Business Mum's Directory etc.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!