ACPR Blog

Gina Duddridge is launching a new magazine, Bump2Baby for Devon and Cornwall. She says, “I also organize a baby exhibition held in Exeter. This year we had a lot of our customers saying that there is very little for pregnant mums or new parents in the Devon & Cornwall area, so I made the decision to launch the magazine. I am extremely lucky to have a really good magazine lady working for me on the show and her role has now been extended.”

10,000 copies of the magazine will be distributed throughout the counties via local baby & maternity retailers, NCT co-ordinators, Midwives and Doula’s and Newsagents. Newly pregnant mums will each recieve a free copy.

Daniella Delaney is the new editor at Practical Parenting. She replaces Susie Boone, who is now editor-in-chief of all Magicalia parenting titles. Jenny Stallard becomes deputy editor, and consumer editor Karen Heath has left the magazine.

If you want to promote your parenting or baby and child business with a press release, you need good contacts. I’ve recently come across PR businesses in the US and Australia which offer databases of parenting media contacts. I haven’t seen the contacts so can’t comment on the quality, but suggest you contact the relevant companies:

Australia: Handle Your Own PR

USA: PR in Your Pajamas (love the name, btw)

According to Features Exec, the print edition of Your Family is being suspended after the March/April edition.

The bimonthly magazine is produced by Redwood Publishing in association with the NSPCC. The suspension is due to the current economic climate.

The Your Family website will continue to run and be edited by Susannah Pearce.

Deputy editor Claire Sargent and editorial assistant Erin Smith will leave the title on 27 February once the March/April issue has been published.

Your Family aims to promote positive parenting and improve family communication.

Would you love to own a well established maternity wear business? Budget Bumps is FOR SALE.

Budget Bumps has been running since November 2000 and has seen significant growth in the last 2 years with turnover during the current 08/09 tax year showing an increase of approximately 50% on 07/08. During 2008, the business sold to over 2,500 satisfied customers. If you’re interested, Budget Bumps comes at a reasonable price for the serious business start-up.

Sale comes complete with all wholesale supplier information that we have, any trade accounts that we hold (as long as the business name is kept in use. This will not apply if you ‘buy us out’ to expand a current business) and anything we have that is relevant to the business.

It includes ALL of our stock in hand (currently an estimated £12,000 cost price) and, perhaps most importantly for a new buyer, it includes our name, rights to any maternity-related domain names we hold (there are many!) and our all important customer records.

Our site is currently run using Actinic Catalog software. If this is of use to you, as the new owner, it will be included in the price. It comes complete with full V9 license and the option to continue the Actinic Cover Support we pay for in monthly instalments. Budget Bumps also has merchant account facilities with Streamline and 2 online payment service providers, Actinic Payments and Protx (our backup). We also have a business account with Paypal.

All of the above may be available to the buyer, subject to the terms of the provider with regards to transfer of ownership/responsibility. We believe this business would be an excellent investment either for a new business start-up or for a current maternity retail business planning to expand.

The stock is well suited to either a solely online business or a bricks and mortar shop, with 75-80% of our current stock being new and the remaining being good quality second-hand items.

Due to other business commitments, I have decided it is time to let Budget Bumps go to someone with more time to put into it than I shall have in the future. If you think this opportunity could be for you, email Tracey on tracey@budget-bumps.co.uk  for further details.

I was just reading this story about a Brighton mum who made it to the finals of ITV This Morning’s Mumpreneur Competition. It reminded me of a good reason to enter awards. Helen Twigge Molecey and her Wondercube are still getting publicity, a couple of months after the award, and that is without even being the main winner. The Argus sums it up in their first sentance, “A mother has enjoyed lucrative television exposure for the innovative children’s toy she put on the market just a few weeks ago.”

Check out that word, lucrative. Promotion on ITV’s This Morning is worth thousands of pounds and can get your business exposure to millions of potential purchasers. Find some awards to enter in the new year – make it part of your PR plan for 2009.

Have you seen Arabella Miller’s lovely range of organic kids wear? If you like it as much as I do, you’ll be pleased to hear that Alison, the mumpreneur behind Arabella Miller, has got through to the Northern Final of ITV’s Mumpreneur Competition. Alison says, ” My semi-final will be 20 October (that’s a Monday).
I’ve set up a Facebook group here - it would be great if you could join it. If you missed my heats, you can see an editied version here: (scroll down). The next stage on 20 October will be a viewer phone vote.”

I’ll be watching and voting for Alison – don’t miss it.

Publication has been suspended on Pregnancy, Baby and You magazine. In some ways this is unsurprising. Magicalia has acquired a number of parenting magazines in the last year and inevitably would pick out the weaker ones. However Pregnancy, Baby and You had developed enormously under the editorships of Claire Roberts and then Emma Hartfield. Let’s hope suspended does only mean suspended and it will be back soon.

The Bump and Beyond Bag Company Ltd is attending The Baby Show, Earls Court, 17-19 October 2008.  Alongside launching our all-new website and unique maternity bag range to a fanfare of PR, we will be promoting a small selection of complementary organisations, like your own, and would like to gauge your interest in our service offering, which includes literature distribution, brand affiliation, web promotion and bespoke data collection.

The Baby Show attracts the following people:
26,559 attendees – 84% A, B and C1 socio-demographic groups
45% of visitors are pregnant- 40% already have children (58% aged 0-1 & 37% aged 1-5)
74% female with an average age of 30
Average income: £43,550.47 – Average spend at show: £214.82 – Average spend after show: £289.62
(The Baby Show, ABC Audited)

As you can see, a fantastic and receptive target audience for all baby and child related products and services. Our packages are as follows;

Your A5 postcard / flyer in our promotional show bag – Distributed to 5000 individuals.
Fantastic exposure for £199

Your A5 postcard / flyer included in 5000 of our promotional bags.
A 5cm logo on our promotional bag – Distributed to 5000 individuals.
A feature in our e-Newsletter in the run-up to the show.
Data from our Baby Show lifestyle data collection – Very clean data collected from all visitors to our stand and entrants into our competitions to win maternity bags and free weaning and training courses.
Management of competitions to win your free gifts – for extra exposure!
A link to your site from www.bumpandbeyondbagcompany.co.uk
All of this for just £399

Feature in our exclusive “Best of the Industry” A4 Directory leaflet.
Link on www.bumpandbeyondbagcompany.co.uk homepage –  A 155×100 pixel button linking to your site.
10cm logo and contacts on promotional show bags.
Promotional material in our retail maternity bags for one whole year.
Features in The Bump & Beyond Bag Company Newsletter and brand affiliation for 1 year.
Data from our Baby Show lifestyle data collection – The same clean data as with Silver, but also includes bespoke data requirements from yourselves.
Management of competitions to win your free gifts – for extra exposure!
Distribution of your literature.
All for only £599

Should you require any further information, or would like to discuss our services, including your promotional material requirements in greater detail, please call Clive Astin at Middle 8 Marketing Communications on 0115 714 9878, or 07903 222 302.  Alternatively, e-mail clive@m8mc.co.uk.