Is your success hiding in a niche? Cally Robson of She’s Ingenious!
Interview with Bronwyn Durand of JupiterJasper for the Marketing Ideaology Blog December 2009. If you would like to use our content, please quote and tell us. The guidelines are here.
The Basics
Please give full business name and contact details that will be published with the entry.
She’s Ingenious! – An online library of resources and support network for women developing new products and inventions.
What is your name and role?
Cally Robson, Founder, She’s Ingenious! and Coach
How long has your business been in existence?
Since 2003 in different forms. Ideas into action>inventionintelligence.com 2006>She’s Ingenious! 2009
What is your industry and main product/ service?
Coaching and business advice, subscription website with added coaching services.
How many employees do you have?
Just me!
Where the business is going
What is your business vision? (What would you like your business to become?)
To be the best known independent support club for women developing innovative business ideas and products.
Sum up your brand.
Savvy. Independent. Creative. Practical. Supportive.
Customers
Describe your customers in a sentence. What do they want?
Enterprising women who are mid thirties upward, most likely have family commitments and are wanting to create an alternative income stream or business asset.
Why should they choose you rather than anyone else?
She’s Ingenious! has the most relevant information, especially about developing ideas with intellectual property, that they need. And its all accessible under one roof when they need it. It’s more current – using the internet and grown out of experience rather than theory.
Your Stand on marketing
Do you have a written down marketing plan?
No. It changes as I go. But I do have my business goals worked out. And my marketing efforts always work towards those. Writing down goals does help to clarify your position, but following a detailed plan to the last may mean that you are not paying enough attention to what is going on around you, particularly on the web.
What is your general opinion of marketing? (what would you say to businesses that don’t pay any mind to marketing?)
Marketing will make or break your business. It is the carrying out of the business. Even when delivering the service or getting paid, I‘m still marketing. Or getting someone else to do the marketing for you – partnering with influential players working in the same space can result in benefitting from their marketing channels – like providing events. Having links back to your website from high ranking sites is very effective, as is SEO. Old fashioned marketing is simply not as effective – leaflets are scattered and inefficient at getting in front of the right person and therefore raise the cost of acquiring a new lead or customer. So marketing is critical, but it doesn’t have to incur cost.
Live events that enable you to draw traffic from around the web are particularly successful. Events that have journalists or a PR opportunity attached can be very helpful.
What is your marketing philosophy? (What governs your marketing choices?)
Have a clear strategy, but not necessarily the full detail of the plan, allowing you to create opportunities all the time that will be in line with your business goals. Check these regularly.
What is the return for the marketing effort? Return= the right kind of traffic to Shesingenious.org. Relevant, targeted traffic, not the bounce variety. I’d rather have 500 people that are interested in what I have to say than 5000 who are not. Unless of course your site is based on an advertising model that requires number of eyeballs.
Measurement for She’s Ingenious is based on number of subscriptions. Customers who are paying members engage and sign in to content, how long they stay and engage and consume the resources is a good measure, as is their movements through the site. A conversion rate of new customers to the site of 1% is good, with about 10% overall taking up the newsletter.
Churn rate – unless you are monitoring some measurement, you won’t be able to identify your churn rate, and subsequently what is causing your churn rate.
Create a people facing personality for your brand – for your audience to identify with and attach values and credibility to.
Have a disciplined approach to monitoring the business against goals, using available tools like Google Analytics to control and see what is happening within your business.
Using tools like social media need to support a strategy – be clear on what this is supposed to deliver to you.
Guard your email list – use it wisely. Scorching people with irrelevant, too-frequent emails that have little interest value to engage them is going to cost you. Let your list know that you are that protective over them. It is a privilege to have an email address. Don’t be wasteful of their attention – put forward a very well considered marketing message. Make it easy to read and ask for feedback. I find writing under pressure produces something easier to read – more like you speak it rather than long rambling prose or too perfect a text.
Keep up with the changing marketing world around you or you will soon know nothing.
Website
As the website is like an online magazine, it takes a lot of time to update and add to the content – all seeking to support women inventors and new product developers in commercialising and being successful in their ideas. Since launch in June, 09, traffic has been consistently doubling each month.
If you could use no more than 15 words to (explain)market your business?
A support club for women with new products and inventions.
What has been biggest marketing challenge for your business to date?
Rebranding. Aaaaargh.
You are extraordinarily lucky if your brand and name jump out at you. Finding a name, and doing it for yourself is not easy. Try happening on a great brand! Go round and around and inside out with respect to your offering – be clear on what it is. It’s hard to find a name that is the essence of your values, that relates to you and what you are trying to achieve. Having a great brand can make the process of marketing your business so much easier. It can work on all levels – simply communicating what you do. I’ve been very fortunate in surviving a rebrand and coming through with a strong name – She’s Ingenious! Although Cally does not recommend the process, she is a solid example that it is possible to change the name, including URL, of your business and get on a more right track. The process is horrible – you lose all the wealth and credibility you have built into that name and domain. Evolving is part of the process, but a complete redo can be very painful.
People aren’t really aware that we are living a revolution – there are no longer any hard and fast rules, and don’t think that you are going to get on top of what is happening in marketing by reading books – it’s happening way to fast for that. We are living the change everyday.
What was your first big marketing break, and what did you to capitalise on it?
An invitation to do workshops at the British Library. I’ve worked hard to strengthen the relationship, working in partnership to develop workshops and events that help them to reach their objectives.
She’s Ingenious! members appearing on Dragon’s Den – the resultant traffic to site to watch their video interviews was phenomenal. Sharon Wright with Magnamole, Nathalie Ellis with the Pet Bowl, Sue Bell with the patented technology inside a tube. Jane Rafter with her Sandals. Cally has the knack of finding the commercial proposition in a new idea.
Motivate
Where do you get your marketing ideas? (do you have any regular sources of inspiration?)
I sit and think! The internet. Watching what others do.
What would you tell a business (entrepreneur) looking for guidance on their marketing efforts?
Beware of sticking to old-school marketing. The internet has changed everything. If you are strategic, you can do your marketing for next to nothing.
Find that unique thing to be memorable or stand out.
Having a personality to attach to your brand, especially when it lives on the web, helps to cross that distance and engage who you want to talk to.
Develop a solid business model to be your platform.
If you are a mum as well – prioritise your time, don’t spend it on something that isn’t going to give you benefit. You have to be focused, otherwise you won’t get out of the starting gate.
This interview by Bronwyn Durand with Cally Robson was for the Marketing Ideaology blog.
The blog piece for the She’s Ingenious! article can be found here.
