I was recently invited to be one of 40 mums to stay overnight at Big 4 Bellarine. I wrote about the Mums Only Sleepover experience on my T-changers blog on a personal level, but I wanted to outline why it worked from a marketing perspective too.
Big 4’s owner Sophie Bone told the story of the struggle she and her husband endured for years as the holiday park got off the ground to the assembled mums, and it made her efforts even more impressive. The couple, who have four young boys, really know how to go after what they want. This story was also covered recently in Dynamic Business.
So what did Sophie do that made the sleepover so successful?
• Researched influential mums, many of whom are bloggers, who connect with others on Twitter and Facebook
• Followed and started building a relationship with those she wasn’t already talking to online
• Set up a Twitter hashtag (#Big4MNO) so everyone involved could stay connected
• Built on those relationships by posting information and clues for the event to each mum in gorgeous stationery
• Put together eight teams of five mums to take part in a challenge that had them reliving their childhood (think flying foxes, jumping balloons and swimming with rubber ducks)
• Primed everyone with alcohol (we weren’t driving everywhere), provided a delicious dinner and finished it with cupcakes and lollies, let us sleep in as long as we wanted and then breakfast went for hours so we could graze over newspapers, without any distractions
• Kept the conversation going after the event, extending the relationship.
This is a business owner who clearly knows who her ideal customer is – and how to get their attention.
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