ACPR Blog

Check in every week with ACPR to get new ideas to help you market your business. This week we’re looking at your marketing your business through events. Events are a great way to reach new audiences, build your company reptation and grow your list of interested potential customers as well as make sales. I’m aiming to speak at one event each month this year: what programme of events could help you grow your business? Think about the following sorts of events and start researching ones that you could attend:

1. Conferences
2. Exhibitions and trade fairs
3. Consumer exhibitions, fairs and fetes
4. Festivals
5. Speaking opportunities
6. Seminars
7. Workshops and small group events

Ask the organisers for details of the sort of person and numbers attending so you can weigh up if the event is right for you. Build the events into your marketing plan so you can plan in advance and make the most of them.For more ideas to help your business grow, buy A Guide to Promoting Your Business: The Ultimate Workbook for Business Owners by Antonia Chitty.

This month I have a selection of books for you to win to help you, whatever your plans for the year. Choose from a signed copy of ‘Happiness – it’s just a habit’ by Martine Brennan. It is a pocket sized 30 day plan to help you smile more and love your life. Or opt for ‘Ping – How to trap the power of traditional and social media to massively improve your profile and profits’ by Alan Stevens. Or try on of the fabulous ‘How to Books’ range, ‘Start and Run a Business from Home’ by Paul Power. Or go for ‘Work from Home’ by Judy Heminsley. Just put the title of the book you’d like in the subject line and send an email to antonia@acpr.co.uk by 15th February. To find out more about any of the books, browse through the book reviews on Family Friendly Working.

If you run a small business you are likely to have struggled with late payments from certain clients. And it looks like this problem is not restricted to the private sector. A new survey shows that  Government and its agencies are still paying small businesses late despite making commitments over a year ago to pay within 10 days, according to the FSB-ICM ‘Voice of Small Business’ Annual Survey.

The report found that local Government is likely to pay one in four invoices late, and central Government and Government agencies make one in three payments late. This is despite putting a Prompt Payment Code in place and central Government promising to pay within 10 days at the start of the recession in 2008. 

But what can you do about it? Check out the Better Payment  website which has some excellent templates for letters to chase up late payments and lots of advice to help you use legislation to get your money on time. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you need some ideas for press releases? Think about tying a release into a forthcoming event or awareness week. The list below comes courtesy of Expert Sources, a great site to subscribe to if you are trying to raise your profile as an expert.

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FEBRUARY 2010
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Saturday February 06 – Saturday March 20
Rugby Union: 6 Nations Tournament

Sunday February 07
Superbowl XLIV, Dolphin Stadium, Florida

Monday February 08 – Friday February 12
America’s Cup, Valencia Read the rest of this entry »

Check in every week with ACPR to get new ideas to help you market your business. This week we’re looking at your e-marketing. This is how you use email to sell your business to new and potential customers. Do you have a newsletter already? Have you got your latest offer in your signature? And how do you encourage people to sign up and subscribe? Have a look at the following list and mark the areas you need to work on. Build these into your marketing plan so you are making the most of email communication:

1. Sign up incentives to grow your contacts database
2. E-blasts: quick offers or snippets of information
3. Email signatures
4. E-newsletters: regular monthly or quarterly news and offers
5. E-vouchers: special discounts for subscribers

For more ideas to help your business grow, buy A Guide to Promoting Your Business: The Ultimate Workbook for Business Owners by Antonia Chitty

Twitter is the most popular of the leading social community networks (SCNs) and interactive sites for online PR, according to a new survey of 107 PR professionals. It narrowly beats YouTube, in second place, and Facebook, in third, as a preferred online PR tool. But the survey, conducted by New Venture Publishing for its new Perfect Online PR Masterclass, finds that no SCNs or interactive sites are yet rated as very important for PR use.

On a scale of one (not important) to five (very important) the PR pros rated top-ranking Twitter at an average of only 2.96. YouTube scored 2.88 and Facebook 2.73. LinkedIn was on 2.4, Flickr on 2.1, MySpace on 1.76, Bebo on 1.67 and MSN Messenger on 1.59. Ecademy on 1.53 and Xanga on 1.47 brought up the rear.

Overall, the PR pros rated “making use of social community networks” as only thirteenth out of fourteen possible online PR priorities for the future. It came behind front-ranking issues such as “integrating online with other PR activity” and “developing online PR expertise in-house”.

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I’m speaking at an event in Westminster next month about flexible work, and am currently doing some research for it.

Could you fill in  a survey about flexible work … and please pass this on to friends

Find the survey here

Many thanks
Antonia

If you want to reach over five thousand people each month who are looking for flexible work or work from home opportunities, Family Friendly Working is the ideal site on which to place an advert.

The majority of our readers are female with children, and visit the site at least twice a month, viewing around 5 different pages each visit. Readership is growing at 10-20 per cent per month. Family Friendly Working has news going out to the press every month and has recently been covered on:

Baby Surrey – Baby Hampshire – Families Sussex- Hire My Parents – The HR Director - HR Magazine  - Kidzine  - Mum and Working  - My Baby Radio  - Ni4Kids  – ParentDish -  Practical Parenting – Totz2teens - StartUpDonut - UKParentsLounge - What to Do With the Kids - Working Mums

Take advantage of our excellent links to parents by advertising on Family Friendly Working. A regular text link is just £2 per month on the Flexible Opportunities Page or Parent-Run Businesses Page. 

You can upgrade to make what you offer really stand out and include a banner on one of these pages for an affordable £9 per month

For the highest profile and to guarantee appearing alongside the latest content every day, you can opt for a front page advert.

Contact antonia@familyfriendlyworking.co.uk with any enquiries.

Please note that once you have submitted your payment details we will be in touch to request your text, banner or advert. Please note that you are making a recurring payment. If you want to cancel your advert at any time, you can simply cancel through Paypal.

Mumpreneur Profiles and Flexible Business Ideas Features

Once you have booked your ad, make sure that you maximise the chance to promote your business. If you would like to tell us about how you fit in work and family, look at the Q and A here. And if you want to tell others about your business opportunity, click here.

Press Releases

We are interested in news, views and events for mums and dads, working parents and people who run small businesses. If you run a small business, have a work from home opportunity, offer a franchise or publish information for businesses, please email your press releases to antonia@familyfriendlyworking.co.uk

Image by Sarah G

UK parents are leaving work due to the lack of flexible working opportunities available to them, according to a new survey for Family Friendly Working. The cost of childcare is also forcing parents to stay at home.

The survey reveals that just over a third (34.6%) of parents who had left work after having children had done so because of lack of flexible work opportunities. Three in 10 (30.7%) cite the cost of childcare as a key reason to quit.

The Employment Act 2002 introduced legislation designed to help working parents. Since April 2003 parents with young and disabled children have had the right to request flexible work. This right to request was extended in 2009 to anyone with parental responsibility for a child aged 16 or under or a disabled child under 18 who receives Disability Living Allowance. People can ask to:

• change the hours they work;
• change the times they work; or

• work from home (for all or part of the week).

Director of Family Friendly Working Antonia Chitty says, “This survey indicates that parents are not getting the flexible work that they need. More work is needed to see whether parents are unclear about their rights, whether bosses are saying no, or whether the flexible work available just isn’t flexible enough. The current provision of funding for 2.5-3hours pre school per day can be nigh on impossible to fit in with most employment: the Government needs to look at the way this is delivered and increase the flexibility of ways that parents can use the funding.”

Parents completing the survey commented:

“My boss was being very demanding, insisting I would get no special treatment and that I had to be in the office from at least 9am until 6pm. This was not an option with a three month old baby so I didn’t return.”

“My daughter was about to start infant school. There was no way I could shorten my hours enough to be there for her before & after school (especially as she was only doing 5 morning a week initially, and I was then working 3 days a week).”

“Working and so many school holidays makes it difficult, especially as a single parent.”

Further results

The survey also found that around one in 10 parents (11.5%) are forced to quit because of lack of childcare. A similar proportion (10.7%) left work because having children changed their priorities.

Check in every week with ACPR to get new ideas to help you market your business. This week we’re looking at your business’s identity. Think about the impression your business makes. Have you put careful thought and design into the impression it makes? Which areas do you still need to work on? Have a look at the following list and mark the ones you need to develop. Build this into your marketing plan so potential customers get a strong, clear idea of what your business represents:

1. Branding
2. Logo
3.  Strap line
4. Trademarks
5. The way your business communicates
6. The way people within the business behave
7. Corporate literature
8. Business cards
9. Compliments slips
10. Letter heads

For more ideas to help your business grow, buy A Guide to Promoting Your Business: The Ultimate Workbook for Business Owners by Antonia Chitty