Handbags – just one more..

How many bags do you have in your wardrobe?  No, don’t tell me…no doubt a lot!  Enough for every social, work or holidaying occasion.  And chances are you’re probably still adding to the collection.

Handbags and women go together like beef and Yorkshire puddings – one simply cannot be without the other.  Why is this?  Traditionally we are the caregiver, the family organiser.  How many times have we heard ‘mum where’s my red dinosaur’ or ‘have you seen my car keys love’ or ‘Have you got a wet wipe…’  and the myriad of other requests that flood in from our families every day.

So, when we leave the house, we take with us in our handbag everything that enables us to leave the house, safe in the knowledge, that we have our very own Mary Poppins bag with us.

My handbag meets the needs of a family of five all my basics – phone, keys and purse; the kids stuff – toys, wipes, nappies, clothes, food, drinks and for my OH his wallet, his keys and anything else he hands across to ‘just put in my bag.’ I’d rather not think about what’s languishing in the nether regions – completely forgotten about.

Recently I met the lovely Charlotte Jamme from Mia Tui handbags, who herself had struggled to find the perfect bag when out and about and travelling with children.  So she went ahead and designed her own.  She has a great range of bags…check her out at www.miatui.com and go on…treat yourself…one more won’t hurt.

Electric Storm

OSET bikes have taken the trials world by storm this year, thanks to the help of Peekaboo Communications.  The six rounds of the inaugural OSET Cup, along with a showcase at the World Championship round at Brimham Rocks, North Yorkshire, grew into an animal beyond any of our imaginations.

The demand has been sensational!  The OSET Cup has attracted riders from all over the UK, including Wales, Brighton, Hampshire and Kent.  And, as we look back over our first year, we’re delighted to have developed the blueprint for an event series we hope to take global!

For the uninitiated, a rider negotiates a series of obstacles without putting their foot on their floor.  Six, taped out sections are attempted three times by each rider with marks ‘dropped’ for each foot down. The aim is to get to the end of the trial with as few marks as possible.

Without a single mechanical breakdown over the course of the championship and an abundance of enthusiasm from the supporters, parents and riders, the youngsters skill levels have gone from strength to strength.

By the time we reached our showcase event, world-champion rider James Dabill was on hand to award trophies and sign autographs for the fledgling riders.

To see exactly what we mean – take a look at our latest video…

 

Working with bloggers – a reminder of how to do it…or not

As mummy bloggers ourselves, we quite regularly receive emails, press releases and invitations from other PR people telling us about their clients’ products. What is fascinating is how some people get it so right, while others get it so wrong.

For companies in the parenting sector, getting parent bloggers on your side is a key component of a marketing plan. Much has been written about how to work with bloggers. So we won’t re-hash it all again. But take a read of the two pitches below (which have been abridged to keep identities hidden) and let us know which one you think you’d respond to if you were a blogger being approached by a PR person:

Pitch 1

Addressed personally to me,

My name is xxx and I do the PR for xxxx.

We’re holding our first Mums’ Club champagne afternoon tea meet-up at the xxx hotel on xx September from x – ypm and I wanted to see if you’d be interested in coming along?

 I know you’re probably very busy with the boys, your business and your blogs (!) but I thought it may be a good opportunity to get some content. At the event we’re going to be talking about (a nice short summary of what they’ll be covering, why it’s relevant to me as a parent plus details of a little something extra which will help me as a blogger and a business person.) 

Ending with a nice friendly sign off.

  Pitch 2

Dear blogger,

You are probably wondering why you are reading it and who is this person?

My name is xxx, nice to meet you! 

I absolutely love you blog. Parenting is a tricky exercise so writing about your experience is a great way for fellow mums to learn.

 I am writing because 1. I am a fan of your blog and 2. I am on a verge of launching a new xxxx. 

(What follows was a looong description of what this new thing was).

As a start-up the critical mass is something we want to get to very quickly. We are starting social media development now and would be delighted if you joined our efforts.

Join us on xxx (just enter your email address in the sign up field)

-              tell about xxx to your friends or any parent who can really benefit from it

-              follow us on twitter

-              follow us on LinkedIn  

-              follow us on youtube

-              like us on facebook

I’ll be posting really fun and useful stuff every day, stuff that’s relevant to parents! You are welcome to contribute and link back to your blog!

~~~

So pitch 1 is inviting me to a really nice sounding afternoon with content relevant to me. They’ve taken the time to send me a personal email. They’ve looked into my blog, know that I have boys and run a business and multiple blogs. They’ve kept it short, to the point and haven’t made any real demands of me. They’re offering me something in exchange for my time.

Pitch 2 in contrast, besides being full of typos, has made no effort to know who I am. I understand that. There are lots of bloggers out there and it takes a long time to research them all. As a start up, this company probably doesn’t have the resources to do this. BUT they should NOT then patronise me and say that they love my blog and are a big fan. I know full well that they have no idea what my blog is and they certainly won’t have read it and are absolutely not a fan. This pitch offers me, as a blogger, very little but in exchange they’d like me to tell everyone I know about it and spend my time following them via a number of social media outlets. 

In short, the second pitch got an automatic delete. The first I replied to.

So if you’re planning some blogger outreach, make sure you take some lessons from the first pitch above. It is better to reach fewer bloggers well, than many bloggers badly. Trust us.

What a Week for Wendy!

We love it when Peekaboo clients have lots to celebrate – and that was certainly the case for Wendy Shand, family travel expert and founder of Tots to Travel.

The Wright Stuff Extra - Channel 5

This month Wendy flew back to the UK from France, to appear on The Wright Stuff Extra with Gaby Logan.  Amongst other things she introduced a suitcase that doubles as a skate board to help commuters whizz through terminals and suggested that taking car seat on board a plane might be creating too much work for one caller.

As she left the London studios to catch her flight back to France, to rejoin the family holiday she received the news that she’d been named the Fab Women of the Year by parenting site Loved by Parents.

The accolade celebrates women that have come up with an idea for a business, as a result of becoming a mother.

Wendy founded Tots to Travel, an online holiday lettings company specialising in family friendly properties, after her 2 year old son fell into an unenclosed swimming pool whilst on holiday.  She said: “I realised that there was a desperate need for parents to be able to travel with the peace of mind that there holiday rental would make for a relaxing family holiday. As a result, we visit and vet self-catering holiday properties in countries across Europe, ensuring that they are suitable for families with young children, specifically assessing safety and ensuring all the kit parents need is provided.”

Wendy, was naturally delighted to be named Fab Woman of the Year, added: “The competition was extraordinarily tough.  My fellow nominees are truly inspirational women who have set up and are managing successful businesses as well as enjoying full family lives so to actually win the award is an honour and really quite overwhelming.”

And she joked: “And in case my husband needed reminding I can actually confirm my fab status is now officially recognised!”

Judge Laura Tenison, founder and MD of JoJo Maman Bebe, said:  “I consider Tots To Travel the easy winner of this competition.  This is the perfect business model for a juggling mum. Proactive work can be scheduled around a family’s needs and reactive work can often be delegated. Whist there are similar types of businesses, this one has an exemplary record for quality and attention to detail. It is a fabulous idea and I hope to see Wendy achieve her goals over the next few years.”

Tina Summers from Loved by Parents, added: “We were delighted by the calibre of entrants for this year’s award. Wendy stood out as an inspiring, motivating role model and all round Fab woman and we are sure that she will inspire many other mothers to reach for their dreams.”

Go Wendy!

 

Awards bonanza for Peekaboo clients

Phew! We’ve made it through award season and the results are starting to come in. And they’re looking great.

We’re thrilled to say that three of our clients have been shortlisted in the Practical Parenting & Pregancy Awards 2011:

• Emma-Jane’s seamfree nursing bra (style 361) in the nursing top/bra category
• Morrck‘s All Season Baby Hoodie in the safety category
• Gander with the P’kolino Multi-puzzle in the Learning & development category for under £20

Best of luck to all of them.

In the Loved By Parents Awards, two of our clients have been shortlisted in the Fab Women Award:

• Wendy Shand, founder of  Tots to Travel
• Shazia Mustafa, founder of Third Door

Way to go ladies. Best of luck for the judging.

And finally, Morrck won a special commendation in the Just Go! Awards, which seek out the best family friendly travel products, for its Splasha – described by the judges as a product they simply wouldn’t want to leave at home without. You can see a video here explaining why this product was the judges favourite.

Big changes at Peekaboo

We’ve been a little quiet on the blog of late. For good reason. We’ve had a lot going on behind the scenes, which we are now very excited to share with you.

Five years ago I (Melissa Talago - that’s me in the pic) started up Peekaboo Communications. It happened quite by accident, but has grown steadily year on year. In five years we have worked with over 60 companies in the parenting sector, won two PR industry awards, secured countless awards for clients and generated reams and reams of press coverage.  It has been a huge amount of fun and immensely satisfying to see some of the start ups we helped, now becoming household names. When I started Peekaboo, my boys were just two years old and 6 months old respectively. I didn’t sleep much.

Five years on, I have two children in school, have no need for most of the fantastic baby products currently on the market and a great team of hard working mums in place continuing to deliver fantastic results for clients.

Peekaboo has been my third child. I’ve watched it grow and thrive. But now it’s time for me to move onto something new, to take on a new challenge, most likely something completely different. I’m open to suggestions!

However, Peekaboo will continue to grow and thrive under the new leadership of Michelle Horne. A mum of three, Michelle has over fifteen years of PR experience working with a huge range of brands and across multiple sectors. She has been working as part of the Peekaboo team for the past year and as joint MD in recent months. With fresh ideas, great strategic thinking, attention grabbing copy writing and a real passion for selling into press, Michelle is perfectly positioned to help you boost your PR.

So please join me in welcoming Michelle in her new role.

To everyone I have worked with in the last five years, many thanks for your support. It’s been an honour and a priviledge to work with so many amazing companies.

 

I’m Michelle Horne, mum to three boys under 5 and soon to be sole managing director of Peekaboo Communications – I’m also a sister to three brothers, a wife to one husband, owner of one dog Bruce the Jack Russell and can whip up Sunday lunch for double figures with my eyes closed – phew!

How can I possibly get down on paper just how excited I am at the prospect of running my own business, and just as importantly, helping other people achieve success in theirs!   In short the answer is very, very, very! 

Having worked in PR for 15 years with the likes of Royal Mail, Cap Gemini Ernst and Young, Bank of Scotland, Intel, MFI (as was), Yorkshire Bank, Ultralase, Brewers Fayre, Theakstons and a whole host of other organisations, I don’t think there’s a business sector I haven’t covered at some point.  I am passionate about achieving great coverage for clients.  The right story in the right publication can have an amazing impact on a company’s bottom line and gives me a great buzz to know I can deliver tangible results that make the difference!

To me Peekaboo will work best for clients when we’re part of a team.  My ethos is to work hard, deliver results and make a difference.  Most of our clients are start-ups like me and they don’t have money to waste on ineffective marketing and advertising which is why I’m committed to helping companies grow.  Success is a great feeling!

From a business perspective, the parenting sector is being squeezed from all directions.  While budgets are tighter than ever, countless new products are entering an already crowded space, all vying for the attention of the same parents.

The media landscape is also changing – stalwart magazines like I’m Pregnant have recently folded and trade magazine Nursery World is moving content online and shifting from weekly to fortnightly. The internet is groaning under the weight of portals, newsletters, magazines, videos, forums, e-tailers and blogs. On top of that, how parents research and buy products is changing.  Only this month Mothercare announced the closure of 110 UK stores. For Peekaboo clients, it’s about connecting with the customers in the right medium at the right time.

Rest assured, the aforementioned offspring mean I am submerged in mummydom and all things parenting.  I read the magazines, I use the products, subscribe to the newsletters and am part of the mummy bloggers community.  I really do know what it means to multi-task and three kids ensure I am fully conversant with the term 24-7!

A huge thank you to Melissa for literally filling my brain with all of the knowledge she has accumulated over the last five years.  Her support and advice has been invaluable and she’s a real inspiration for me.  I’d like to take this opportunity to wish her all the success in whatever the future holds, which given her determination, creativity and unfailing ability to simply take the plunge I am sure will be utterly fantastic!

If you’d like to have a chat about your PR needs or if you just want to say hello, please email me on michelle@peekaboocoms.co.uk. I really look forward to getting to know you.

When PR makes a real difference to business

Getting a great piece of press coverage for a client is fab - for many reasons. But often it’s hard to immediately see the business benefits. Sure the client may see a spike in web traffic or an increase in the number of orders, which is not to be sniffed at. But generally, PR has a cumulative effect which gathers momentum over time.  

However there are occasions when the PR work you’ve done makes a real difference to a client, something that changes the shape of their business. And for Peekaboo, we’ve had two examples of that recently which we’re a tiny bit proud of and would like to share:

Third Door

We entered Third Door into the Lloyds TSB/Heart FM local business competition last year. Entering awards is something we do a LOT of for clients and we have a pretty good hit rate for getting winning or finalist positions.  On this occasion, Third Door won the prize for best local business in the London area. Their prize was two weeks of free radio advertising on Heart FM. Brilliant result!

But that wasn’t the best bit. The business changing bit came about because of the relationship it forged between Third Door and Lloyds TSB. In the current economic climate, it is very difficult to get small business loans. Lots of ‘talk to the hand’ going on. But as a result of winning the competition, Lloyds took note of Third Door, started a relationship and resulted in Third Door getting granted the business loan they needed to cover cash flow and fund expansion. Now that’s what we call a result.

Gander

Gander is a new distributor who was granted the rights to distribute the P’kolino range in the UK. With a limited budget, we set out to get as much coverage as possible for the range to drive demand for it, which would help attract more retailers, and to support the brand. Did each individual piece of coverage bring on a new retailer? Did a particular article generate sales? We  can’t be sure. But what we do know, is that all the press coverage was sent back to the P’kolino team in the US. They were impressed and could see that Gander was committed to supporting their brand. As a result, Gander has just been granted exclusive distribution rights for the range in the UK.  Another business altering moment!

Congrats to our clients on their respective successes! We’re so pleased we could be a part of it.

Calling all family friendly travel products! Have you entered the Just Go! Awards?

 

Are you a company that makes products or apps that make travelling with children easier? If so, you really want to enter the Just Go! Awards, the UK’s first awards focused exclusively on family friendly travel products.

Our lovely client Tots to Travel is the company running the awards. Wendy and her team are all about making holidays for parents relaxing instead of hard work, which is why they are on the hunt for the products that genuinely make the life of parents easier when travelling with young children aged four and under.

Products can be entered into one of five categories and there is a category for the best travel apps:

 Feeding – whatever parents need to feed their child on holiday, whether it’s the actual food or kit needed to get it in them.

 Sleeping – whatever parents need to get their little ones to sleep, whether out and about or at the holiday accommodation.

 For the journey – any products that will make getting to the holiday easier, whether that’s for use in cars, planes, trains or ferries!

 Safety – anything that keeps your tots as safe on holiday as they would be at home.

 Fun & games – anything that will keep your tots happy and entertained, because happy kids = happy parents.

 Apps – any apps for use on smartphones or tablet pcs that make holidays easier.

The deadline for entries has been extended until 15 May 2011, due to so many people being away over April. So don’t waste any time – go to www.justgoawards.co.uk and enter. Winners will be announced via a virtual award on Twitter.

 

How to help Japan

Like everyone else, the Peekaboo team has been dumbfounded and horrified in equal measure at the terrible tragedy in Japan. We so desperately want to help those poor people – like being able to some how take them from their shattered lives, bring them to our homes, give them a comfy bed, some warm food and a quiet place to gather themselves and grieve before trying to rebuild their lives. But we can’t do that.

And it’s hard to know which charity to support when there are so many doing good things. But we decided that if we can’t bring them to our homes for a while, we’d like to help send a home to them via Shelterbox. If you’re not familiar with Shelterbox, it’s an organisation that sends boxes to people in devastated areas like those in Japan, containing a tent, blankets, cooking stoves and utensils, tools for self sufficiency, water cannisters and purification tablets and even a little activity pack for children who have lost everything. Each of these boxes costs £590 – that’s a lot of money when you think of how many families are without homes in Japan right now.

We’ve given some money but feel as though that’s not enough and would like to do more.

We know that people are being asked to put their hand in their pocket a lot these days – whether it’s to help all the various charities, raise funds for their school PTA, pay for petrol and food and generally try to make ends meet. So what if you got something in exchange for your charitable donation? We’ve decided to donate our time and knowledge in exchange for your money which will go to Shelterbox.

We are offering 10 x thirty minute sessions with one of our team. You pay £50 for the session, every last penny of which will be donated to Shelterbox on your behalf (we’ll send you the payment slip so you can see it for yourself). You can use the 30 minutes to pick our brains. Perhaps you want to know how to work with bloggers, or how to write a press release, or how to launch your new business, or need creative ideas to keep your business in the press.  You decide.  You will be supporting a very worthy cause and getting something back yourself.

We did a call just like this today on behalf of Motivating Mum’s Mummy Mentoring Month and this is the feedback we got after the call: “Thank you so much – that was invaluable! And I really appreciate you cramming so much in, its given me so much to go on with, which is brilliant.”

Alternatively, if you’d simply like to help the Japanese people create a little home that they can call their own for the next little while, please click the box below and donate directly.

Do you need some PR advice? We’re a Motivating Mum mentor

If you’re not familiar with Motivating Mum yet, let us introduce you. Motivating Mum gives support and advice to mums in business. They run some really fabulous events like speed mentoring and brainstorms in a teacup. It’s a great way to meet likeminded women and get really inexpensive business advice.

Throughout March, the Motivating Mum team is running Mummy Mentoring Month in which women can get some really great advice for a very low price, all while helping out charity Nema, an organisation that helps women in rural Mozambique to look after their families better. 

Peekaboo is one of the mentors. For just £20, you can get 30 minutes of PR advice for your business. Click here to get more info. Perhaps you want to know how to call journalists or perhaps you have a new product and you’re looking for some creative ideas on how to get your news out there. Or possibly you have no idea how to work with bloggers or twitter and need some thoughts on that. Whatever it is, if you want a chance to pick our brains for 30 minutes, get in there and book the slot before someone else does!

So why not celebrate International Women’s Day by helping out some women in Mozambique while at the same time, giving your business a boost.