We’ve got a guest blog from one of our own clients today, Dean & Steph from Daddynatal and Bump, Birth & Beyond. They’ve had a brilliant week, going from teaching local classes, to national coverage via a TV appearance. I thought it would be really helpful for other people who have small businesses to hear that opportunities for national coverage are out there, if you’re prepared to work hard and make the most of the opportunities available….. 

While everyone else seems to be winding down for Easter things have never been busier at Bump Birth and Beyond Ltd. It has been a hectic week, but a very positive hectic week!

Our busy week kicked off on Saturday, listening to the first interview Dean had recorded for The Baby Show broadcast on Star Radio. The interview was focused on the role of the dad in pregnancy, and very exciting for us, as it was the first ‘official’ interview Dean had done, and it definitely was a great learning experience.

Then, Sunday saw us officially announce our partnership with Peterborough City Hospital at Peterborough Baby Show. Bump, Birth and Beyond are now running DaddyNatal and Active Birth Classes, on behalf of the hospital, free to parents. How fantastic to have a Head of Midwifery who is so forward thinking, she really is one of the first in the country to recognise that fathers/birth partners have huge antenatal education needs which have never (until now!) been met.

There was an excellent response to the news of the classes, with signups both on the day and since. Both courses are already 10% full, and we are still awaiting the formal press release and for the community midwifery team to start promotion yet!

Sunday also marked the completion of the first part of training for our new Daisy Birthing teacher, Alison. Courses have been so successful that Steph cannot keep up with demand on her own, so we are extremely excited about Alison’s arrival. She will commence teaching in June which will allow us to offer more courses in even more locations.

On Monday and Tuesday evenings, Steph was out teaching her regular Daisy Birthing classes in Peterborough and St Ives. Steph teaches classes to around 40 pregnant ladies a week, as well as managing all the bookings and day-to-day admin of the company. And she looks after our two toddlers full time as well!

Little did we realise what more the week still held in store… At 10pm Wednesday evening, Steph arrived home from yet another Daisy Birthing class to the news that Dean had been invited down the next day onto The Vanessa Show on Channel 5 to talk about fathers at birth. Turns out a producer had heard his interview on The Baby Show website and wanted him there for a discussion segment about birth! How could we refuse…?!

So scrapping all previous arrangements for Thursday, Dean travelled to London to record the show. To say he was nervous would be a major understatement! He was petrified to be doing his first TV appearance only a few days after his very first ever live media interview! But, of course, he was also really excited. The people were brilliant and he had the pleasure of meeting and talking to Pearl Lowe and Christina Hopkinson, as part of the segment on the discussion of fathers at birth. They were lovely and certainly put Dean at ease (although nerves kicked back in once the cameras started rolling!). You can see his appearance here and judge for yourselves how Dean got on at The Vanessa Show.

Feel free to comment as we would love to hear your feedback. It was a long day though – Dean left home at 11.30am, and didn’t get home again until 8.30pm (luckily Thursdays are Steph’s evening off!)

But there was still work to be done… Friday saw us at a meeting at Peterborough Hospital to discuss some of the logistics of our partnership, and then followed by an agreement that we would produce contact and reference packs for the community midwives, so that became our focus on Saturday!

However, the support and excitement of what we are doing, coming direct from the midwives is so refreshing. It really is a pleasure to be working with them all.

And finally, we finished the week on Sunday with one of our Couples Antenatal Workshops in Kettering. Our classes are jointly run between the both of us, to make sure that we cover all the essential points from both the mum and birth partner perspective. It was a really great class – we thoroughly enjoyed it, and then arrived home in time to spend the remainder of the afternoon in the garden with our two children.

So a busy week made busier by some unforeseen media appearances! A great experience though and we look forward to seeing what the next few weeks brings us.

So that was our hectic week how was yours?

I think that this is just for the USA, judging by the $ signs in the info, but apparently, now BabiesRUs and ToysRUs are doing a credit card. There’s just 10% off the first order, as the incentive. I am all for marketing and branding anything and everything but this just, well, it is too much. Even for me. I don’t see how it enhances their brands – it makes them things that you have when you can’t really afford them upfront, surely?

For those who are already parents, we learn all to quickly that our tiddlers don’t even use their toys for very long, so your best buys are usually found at NCT Nearly New Sales / Preschool sales / Car boots. It’s certainly not intended for people who are above Nearly New Sales, as they wouldn’t be seen dead with something that looks like this in their purse, would they?

Fancy this in your purse?*

What do you think of this? It is too much, to have a credit card to encourage you to spend on your baby when you don’t have the money for it? Is it just me, being anti credit cards? What do you think of this?

*Image of credit card courtesy of http://www.creditcardchaser.com/babies-r-us-credit-card/

DISCLAIMER: I have been working on this blog post for 90 minutes now, trying to get the fourth sample of a Guide to go below the other three. So I know this is not perfect and it’s driving me nuts, but I really want you to be able to have this sneak peek, so I’m going to post this anyway.

We thought you may like to see some of the new designs Tami Brown, our Cambridge designer has come up with. She does such a good job of making them visually appealing whilst still have  a professional look and feel to them, that retains something of the NHS about it, in a good way.

For those of you who don’t know what the New Baby Guides are, here’s the short version of what we usually tell people who are looking to advertise in them:

The New Baby Guides are published by Cambridge marketing and pr company, Weston Communications. One of our specialisms is in baby marketing, for both profit and not for profit organisations. We have a range of experience in the baby products market and marketing to families. We know our stuff. More than 104,000 New Baby Guides are printed annually, and go to pregnant women or new mothers at varying antenatal or postnatal stages, depending on each local NHS Maternity Unit. Marketing baby products is very sensitive area. Few businesses do it. Along with Bounty, we have the strictest guidelines we know of. All businesses have a local presence and are WHO and UNICEF baby friendly compliant. There are no major national brands. If editorial is accepted, it is generic rather than product/service led and has to be educational and for the benefit of the reader. Unlike other baby advertising, we have a strict policy on ratios for content to advert and every single advert is approved by each NHS Maternity Unit we work with.

Sample 1: This is one for Chelmsford, who like things to look classy and sleek

Sample 4: The Luton and Dunstable edition of the New Baby Guide is representative of the most popular cover image of 2010. Heads of Midwifery, staff, lay groups and the general public all love this image. The baby looks straight at you, and is on a neutral background which allow the text to work neatly with it, rather than in contrast to it.

We would be pleased to hear your thoughts on the covers. Do you like them? Would you open one of these Guides?

We appreciate your opinion on this as they are very much a work in progress.

The sales bit:

With their glossy covers and professional design, it’s no wonder that we’ve got a waiting list of NHS Units wanting to work with us. If you are within the NHS and would like information on how we can work together, email liz@westoncommunications.org.uk
If you would like to be considered as a potential advertiser in the New Baby Guides, contact liz@westoncommunications.org.uk for more information and we’ll pop a sample in the post.
Find out about the national award which we won for the New Baby Guides recently.