Motivating Mum UK

By Kate Miranda, Director, Mumpreneur Marketing.

The countdown to Christmas has begun. For many of us Christmas is a frenzied infusion of family, friends, presents, excessive food and alcohol, plenty of cheer and special memories. For mums, it’s multitasking taken to the max with the ever expanding ‘to do’ list. Have you found the perfect present for your husband’s visiting second cousin? What about his wife? Pass the wine, please!

The bizarre thing is, once the chaos of Christmas day has passed, it is often followed by a sudden and almost dull calm. The kids are occupied with new toys and gadgets. Dad seems content to potter and recuperate. These are the moments we have to seize for ourselves. Seize some time and space to think and create. Unleash your inner mumpreneur.

Mums by nature are creative beasts – I mean beauties.  We have occasional moments of inspired brilliance and the lucky mums have more frequent moments of brilliance. Many mums who act on these moments become successful mumpreneurs by transforming their ideas into businesses.

If you are thinking about starting your own business or contemplating how to grow your mumpreneur business in 2013, use the Christmas break to get creative. Use the mental break from the daily machinations of work to think laterally. Brainstorm business ideas with friends or random relatives. Most will relish being involved.

Nothing saps your creative spirit like churlish children, cleaning or the cold so take time out to visit a place that inspires you, like your favourite gallery or cafe. Somewhere you can get headspace. Use this time and space to come up with creative ideas that will help you connect with more customers. If you haven’t changed your tagline in a while, come up with a new one. It’s great to keep things fresh. Brainstorm taglines and slogans with friends. Think of an idea for a PR campaign or competition idea you could run with a local media partner.

Go viral. Challenge yourself to come up with a viral campaign or a new product. Here are some great examples to help you get started. The tone of a viral campaign can be either funny (Meet Doug Pitt. The Second Most Famous Pitt in His Family), or funny and terrifying (Extremely Scary Ghost Elevator Prank in Brazil), or funny with a serious message (check out Vinnie Jones for the British Heart Foundation). Originality is what will create an impact. It won’t cost you anything but your creativity and time to make a video on your phone and upload it onto YouTube, which is now the second biggest search engine next to Google with more than two billion views a day.

If you are looking for a place to start, why not use the number 2013. How can you hang a campaign off these numbers? 2013 is the year of the Snake and the United Nations has declared 2013 the International Year of Quinoa, a super food high in protein and gluten-free. If you are in the nutrition, diet or fitness industry, get creative with Quinoa recipes for your customers.

Bouncing off current affairs stories can also be an effective way to increase brand awareness. If you deal in fair trade products respond to the Starbucks greed on a grand scale story by launching an email or viral campaign around the word fair. We pay our fair share. We play fair etc.

If you are planning to throw a bit of creative marketing into the Christmas mix this year be sure to have fun. Be imaginative. Get carried away with possibilities.

If you are looking for creative marketing ideas, contact Kate Miranda or try one of her DIY marketing workshops designed for business mums who do their own marketing. kate@mumpreneurmarketing.com