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

1. Classified adverts
2. Directory advertising
3. Display adverts – national and local, magazines and newspapers
4. Vehicle advertising
5. Radio advertising
6. TV advertising
7. Internet banner advertising
8. Internet text link advertising
9. Adwords – pay per click
10. Advertising hoardings and posters
11. Cinema advertising
12. Direct mail

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

• Find out the sort of media that your potential customer reads by asking for media packs.
• Work out how much you can spend on advertising across the whole year and plan where you’d like to be seen.
• Contact ad departments for their rates and find the deadlines for submitting artwork.
• Negotiate  a discount for booking a series of ads or have your artwork ready to see if you can get a last minute discount.
• Don’t take up ads just because the sales person calls you: make sure you advertise in places that you know which reach your potential customers.
• Always back up advertising by aiming PR at the same publications and consider offering a competition too for a further reminder about your offering to the readers.

In the first six months of 2009, 23.5% of all ad spend in the UK was taken by online forms compared with just 21.9% for TV. In this the UK is ahead of the curve. To date, the world’s other major markets have not matched the UK’s milestone. In the US, online ads make up 15.4% of the total market and still trail TV. Asia-Pacific has even more ground to make up with a percentage only just in double digits while TV commands over 30%. Globally, the web advertising figure stands at 13.2% .

Redrawing the balance

In difficult economic times, online advertising forms are the only growth sectors. All offline forms of advertising are decreasing while Internet and Internet Search (PPC) are the two areas witnessing an increase. Marketing departments have come to appreciate that online advertising is more engaging and versatile, which translates to a better return on investment.

It is more attractive than traditional advertising channels because it is more accessible. TV remains the domain of firms with large budgets and the small players simply cannot afford to compete in this advertising arena.

Online is a different proposition, however. Basic costs are lower and with sophisticated targeting, budgets can be focused. Furthermore, pay per click, an ‘Internet only’ advertising form, offers advertisers the benefit of only incurring cost when people click on their ads.

“Crucially, this allows small and medium size businesses to compete with their bigger rivals,” states Lawrence Jones, MD of successful hosting business UKFast.

Jones continues, “This is exactly the experience of UKFast. We have enjoyed tremendous growth at the expense of larger competitors, despite having a much more modest advertising budget.”

Getting the balance right

So the statistics show that advertisers are increasingly looking to the Internet, but that means competition is growing when overall budgets are actually shrinking.

Research from the Advertising Association reveals that online ad spend increased by a huge 19.1 per cent in 2008, maintaining a dramatic increase since 2003.

However data from Zenith Optimedia shows that even online spend is predicted to dip over the next couple of years as the effects of the recession continue to play a part.

All businesses wish they could spend less on PPC and still maintain their rankings. UKFast believes that speed is the key to reducing PPC costs.

To retain user numbers, search engines want to deliver an excellent service. Users say they want speed, so the search engines give fast loading websites preferential rankings.

This therefore means that high rankings can be achieved through a modest investment in speed instead of a heavy investment in PPC.

Online travel business Let’s Stay UK is a good example of the effect speed has. The business does not engage in ‘pay per click’ campaigns and yet it regularly features in the top three of search returns on its key terms. This includes consistently beating much bigger rivals such as Haven and Butlins.

However, according to Google research into user habits, traditional organic results only capture 40% of users. 20% are taken by organic forms that use other Google media, such as shopping and news links, while the remaining 40% are focused on the Pay Per Click (PPC) results. So to get a rounded search engine campaign involves ranking highly in multiple organic and PPC sections.

Consider the diagram below. The red section is the traditional organic returns and it commands 40% of users’ attention. The yellow section contains, in this example, Google shopping links and draws 20%. The orange section is the top paid results and it gains 26% of users, while the green section is the remainder of the paid links and that only draws 14% .

The importance of the yellow section is worth noting. While it is made up of free organic links like the red section, it is a separate section in terms of the algorithm that generates it. What this means for companies trying to achieve high organic rankings is that they must meet the requirements of both algorithms.

Meanwhile, to rank highly in the paid areas it is clearly vital to get into the orange section. Here three links share 26% of the clicks, as opposed to the right column sponsored links, which share 14% between 7 results.

Speed also helps to deliver higher PPC rankings because of Google’s desire to provide an excellent user experience across the board. The time it takes for the user to load your webpage is assessed and added to the ‘Quality Score’ that determines the cost of the PPC. This allows Google to reward websites that look to deliver a better service.

This means that speed can reduce your PPC costs in relation to your competitors. You can rank more highly than they do and pay less for the privilege!

“The most effective advertising today is online,” adds Jones. “But with budgets limited and competition tough online businesses need other cost-effective ways to achieve prominence in the search rankings.”

Jones concludes, “Speed is one answer. Fast hosting delivers higher rankings in both organic and paid search. It can be the factor that makes an online business take-off.”

Last few mumpreneur directory listings – £45

1 quarter page banner to run along the bottom of an article – £90 Inside Back cover £365 Outside Back cover £395

Please see our website for more information or email jane@mumsclub.co.uk www.businessmumsmagazine.co.uk

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.

User Representatives Forum- Sponsorship and Exhibition Opportunities

This one-day forum is expected to bring together 120 user representatives on committees

and structures influencing maternity, family and child health and support services throughout the UK.

As well as informing user reps the forum will be a great opportunity for reps to come together to discuss topical issues and share new ideas and experiences of projects and activities in which they are involved. Reps are well informed and highly motivated to meet exhibitors both to exchange ideas and recommendations and to discuss and buy products and services.

The cost for an exhibition stand at this event is £150 plus VAT and includes:

• A six foot table and two chairs

• Two delegate passes, including refreshments and lunch

• The inclusion of 50 word company profile in the delegate pack

Inserts may be placed in the delegate pack at a cost of £75 plus VAT.

Headline and other sponsorship opportunities are available to suit, please email commercial@nct.org.uk for more information.

NCT Members magazine, New Gen, 2008 – 2009 media pack released

NewGen is read by a predominantly ABC1 unique, professional, well-educated, highly influential and informed readership of parents. The magazine acts as a direct link with the NCT whilst also providing advertisers with the opportunity to promote their products in a highly trusted and effective environment.

For more information please see  http://www.nct.org.uk/support-us/corporate support/advertising or email nct@mongoosemedia.com

For further opportunities see http://www.nct.org.uk/support-us/corporate-support:

I spend much of my time coaching small business owners to help them promote their own business. Here are some tips from my talks:

• Start by being clear about what is unique and different about your business: it is hard to stand out from all the other businesses, especially if you want to use press releases to get free editorial coverage.
• Make a plan: write down all the ideas you can think of for promoting your business – using sticky notes can make this easy to sort out. You might want to do it with a friend to help stimulate ideas.
• Draw up a month by month activity plan: have a look at the promotional plan and action plans at PRBasics in the Free Download section to get more of an idea of how I’d lay out a plan and some promotional ideas.  Have a column for advertising, public relations, online marketing, events, and perhaps include leafleting and direct mailing and any other marketing strategies you will use. Note down when new lines will be coming on board, especially ones exclusive to you, when you will have sales, and seasonal events like Mothers Day with which you could tie in promotional activities. If ideas and planning don’t come easily to you, I can help with a telephone consultation which will really get your brain going, or even write your plan for you after chatting through all the issues.
• Spread your promotional ideas out throughout the year, so you have something going on every month and week. Some people do PR every Monday, or the first week of every month, say.
• Once you have your ideas, look at the fixed costs for e.g. attending events, getting flyers printed. Set aside a small amount for ads each month.
• Think about your strengths and where you would need to get help in. If you like writing, you might want to write your own press releases: again there is a template at PRBasics.
• If you can’t imagine how to start writing a press release, I can write one for you to get you started, and you could then adapt it to cover ‘new news’ the following month. Press releases cost £40 per hundred words and are usually around 350 words long.
• If you have written your own press release and want a professional edit, I offer a press release ‘health check’ service.
• To make it easier to get in touch with the people who can give you coverage I offer an extensive and up-to-date database of media contacts at parenting magazines (national and local), websites, and journos with an interest in parenting at womens mags and newspapers (£125). You can then email and phone with your news as often as suits you.
• Finally, I have a limited number of slots to do PR for people: a single press release costs in the region of £600 with a reduction if you book regular work.