Leslie James of New Britain, Connecticut asks:
“I sell Les Mess, organizing cards for kids ages 5-12, to help them help get their rooms and their houses organized and clutter-free. They shuffle the cards, pick one and do what’s on the card. Each card has a time limit. If you finish in time you get a prize. These organizing cards teach children to put things away, what to keep and what to toss. How can I sell more of these cards other than buying pay-per-click advertising? I need to get on national TV shows, but I do I contact the publicity department or do I contact the booker? (You can visit her website.)
What a fun idea! I’d suggest you:
– get in touch with tv morning shows and pitch the story as a “great way to help kids get organized for back to school” – I’d courier a set DIRECTLY to any host who has kids of school age or just under (you can phone the shows directly and ask for the name of the assistant to each person)
– donate a few sets to local Boys and Girls clubs or other children’s charities and see if you can get a quote from them to use in press releases
– see if you can team up with local bookstores/authors/school supply stores to add your cards as a bonus with back to school purchases (set a specific time frame for the offer)
– send a set of cards to the writer’s of columns about kids in parenting magazines and websites
– get in touch with Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield and offer to bonus your cards with their next issue of “Chicken Soup for Parents”
– contact local parenting organizations (PTA’s etc) and sell them in bulk as a fund raiser for them to re-sell
Hope these ideas are helpful!
Wendy McClelland
“I motivate people to think without boundaries!”
wmcclelland@shaw.ca
I would contact stay-at-home-mom, home organization, and homeschooling websites & blogs, to see if you can send them some sample cards for them to try at home on their own kids, then write up their real-life results for their websites. This could also provide you with valuable testimonials, as well as exposure. Sites I would contact: http://organizedhome.com/, http://organizedhome.com/, clubmom.com, http://homeschooling.about.com/. Heck, I’d love a set to review for my site! 🙂
You could also write up a tip sheet for getting kids to pitch in on housework, and include info on your card sets in your bio.
Every year around christmas time, which is obviously fast approaching, at least for those of us that never find ourselves ready for that particular holiday season, the today show and most local newstations do reviews of hot children’s toys.
A perfect example of this is the Openheimer Review: http://www.toyportfolio.com/ and it is advertised that they will appear Sept. 28th on the Today show and review their list. There isn’t a fee for them to review your product and they even have a handy-dandy product submission page.
If you want live product review, national expert recognition and something you can take to your local media to encourage them to do a spot highlighting your product, possibly during the morning show hours, I would highly suggest you contact them.
How did I find them? Easy, I googled: toy review today and ta-da, they along with many other suggestions came up. Including: http://www.grandparentsmagazine.net, which should be a very healthy demographic for purchasing this product as a gift.
I would also suggest contacting expecting mothers and parenting magazines.
This IS the SEASON for your product, most publishers will be doing product reviews and suggestions in prep. for the coming holidays.
Good luck with your product.
Always,
Bonnie
Leslie,
I would highly recommend you calling the editors at different parent magazines such as “Child”, “Parents” and “Parenting” and pitch your product. These magazines LOVE to feature new products that Mom’s (and Dad’s!) can use to help their kids do what they’re told. Although this isn’t National TV, this will get to 100% of your target audience. P.S. As a side note as a mother, I tend to buy the products that these magazines endorse.
Cheers,
Jennifer
Remember that it’s the parents, not the kids, who will buy your products. You should contact one of the better authors or publishers on parenting issues (my favorite is Elizabeth Crary of Parenting Press in Seattle–who even has a book on this subject called “Pick Up Your Socks”–but there are a number of them out there) and piggyback on their own publicity efforts to create media pieces or schedule radio interviews, etc.
As The Publicity Hound mentioned recently, teleseminars can be very powerful. By partnering with a parenting expert (notice how similar those two words are?) on such an event would give you access to your new partner’s pre-qualified mailing list while giving the partner a good publicity hook.
I would contact the parent-teachers’ associations at schools. Also any school fairs and street
fairs. As far as television, I would go directly to the booker.
Hi, Leslie:
Try offering sets of the cards to parenting magazines as giveaways. That way, parents who read the magazine can not only enter the contest but will become aware of your cards. Plus you can use the publicity of being featured in a national magazine in press releases to other media. My company, Grace Abraham Publishing, is delighted that its Dark-N-Stormies imprint will be featured in a giveaway by WOMAN’S DAY in October. Grace Abraham was able to secure national advertising for the cost of sixteen sets of books (one to the editors and fifteen to contest winners) and postage. Not only will the books appear in the October issue of the magazine, but giveaways are advertised on WOMAN’S DAY’s Web site for several weeks. For us, that’s a lot of exposure for our money.
Good luck!
Gayle Trent
Grace Abraham Publishing
Hi,
Get in touch with the National Association of Professional Organizers (www.napo.net) and find the chapter nearest you. They are always, like most professional organizations, looking for speakers. You could find a whole host of potential distributors that way.
Consider doing a presentation for a local PTO (or whatever they call parent’s groups at schools these days). They are in the trenches with the kids every day and probably would appreciate your product.
Depending on the age range that your product is appropriate for, you could talk to multiple schools in a community, and once you have great results with one, you’ll find it easier to get good results from the others.
Hope this helps!
Leslie: Take a look at this website http://www.mominventors.com . She (the founder) was on The Today Show. She helps mothers who have invented a product for babies and young children to get their product marketed. I recognize that your product is for older children but this might help. I think your product is great!
Leslie –
1. Start with the National Association of Professional Organizers! Let organizers know about your product and how it has helped your clients. Offer a NAPO discount. http://www.napo.net
2. Offer affiliate programs to other organizers (I would be happy to talk to you about options with us.) Your product showing on other organizers sites.
3. List your product on onlineorganizing.com – they allow you to sell your products on their site.
4. Back to school is a great time to pitch stories about how to make organizing children easier.
Good luck!
Stephanie L. H. Calahan
President & CEO
Calahan Solutions, Inc.
Organization Consulting for Business, Home and Life
http://www.calahansolutions.com – visit us for FREE tips and resources
Leslie,
I think you have a neat product, but I would suggest getting a professional website and logo created or learn how to do it yourself. I don’t care how great the product is, your store front is the first thing people see. Image is everything.
I would also suggest joining MOMPack.com, for inexpensive advertising to moms – your target audience.
Put together a great press kit with photos, cute kids and happy moms. Send it everywhere in your local area as well as to parenting magazines and websites. Television, radio shows, newspapers, and ask preschools and daycares about putting your brochures on their front desk – make it worth their while. Also, hospitals will allow you to put your brochures or samples in their gift packs they give to new moms – potential customers!
Create a good brochure. Make your product look as dynamic and unique as you feel it is! Happy colors bring smiles and happy moms will bring their money.
What a terrific idea! I wish it were available when my kids were small.
Your cards seem perfect for a joint venture program. You could find a local (or national company like Staples- don’t you love their back to school ads) company that targets parents with ‘back to school’ needs.
The company would purchase your product at a discount and either offer it free with purchase or at a discount to their customers. If you had another product in your line, you could include a coupon for that product in the packaging; or include the coupon as part of a follow up mailing with the sponsor.
You could also team up with a local school or two and offer the cards as a fund raising item. You’d get sales, visibility and coverage for being charitable at a time when most schools need additional funding.
I’m on a roll. You could also team up with a school to write for educational grants that the school could use to purchase your product. Some of my colleagues have used this strategy when a non-profit wants training but can’t afford it. Google for grant-making.
Sometimes I wish I had a product instead of conflict coaching/Ombuds services. It’s so much easier to market!
Best Wishes,
Dina Beach Lynch
http://www.workwelltogether.com
As a way to see how much my own teens have learned about marketing a small business, I asked them how they would market this product. They suggested it be marketed in one of three ways:
1. through stores that feature bed and bath products, or clutter control ideas
2. through services that market to those who are moving, such as banks with moving packages and realtors working with young families (as a promotional item)
3. in ads in magazines and e-zines geared to working parents, such as Working Mother, and parents who have home businesses
It could also be used as a door prize at elementary school PTAs.
They stressed that this child-friendly product must appeal to both children and parents
Leslie: Just came across another idea. Many family/parent magazines present products that they consider motivational, educational, or developmental or that parents can’t live without. Why don’t you write a short article about your product and send it to them. A few examples: Child, Family Circle, Ladies’ Home Journal, Parenting Magazine, Redbook, and Working Mother.
If I were you;) I’d contact local children’s consignment stores, educational stores (teacher type stores), day cares–perhaps at a daycare if you gave them a small % of their sales (like a fundraiser) they would sell them for you.
I think your cards are a SUPER idea–market them to busy moms–where are they reading? Working mom magazine? Homeschooling catalogs?
I hope that is a few ideas to get your brain rolling!
Malissa
Ok–and one more thing–you could set up a store on Ebay and sell them there too.
I looked at your site–very nice–maybe if you had photos of kids with BIG smiles cleaning their rooms;)
Leslie–I’d contact NAPO, the National Association of Professional Organizers. Sounds like a great product for professional organizers to add to their resource list (and possibly product sales tables at events). Many of them write regular columns –might get some national mention that way.
Another idea is to submit your own “round up” type article to family mags. A short list of products that help children learn responsibility and skills, say. Your cards could be one of a short list of other products (there is a wonderful savings piggy bank for example with sep slots for savings, investments, donating & spending at http://www.msgen.com for example). If you want to send us a review sample and press release we’ll consider a mention in our workshops and columns for military spouses. (militaryspousehelp.com) Kathie
These cards look like a great way to help ADD/ADHD kids focus. These kids often have a real problem understanding how to organize and clean. Short, direct information like this can be very useful for some of these kids. There are parenting organizations and websites for parents with ADD/ADHD kids. ADD/ADHD is also hot in the media so it may be another hook for reporters who write about this topic.
Thank you so much for all of your ideas. I will use them all. Thanks again and look for Les Mess near you.