It's nice to be wanted

I mentioned the other day that I wasn't expecting a lot of love back from our traditional Spring Summer PR effort. Sometimes I do feel like I'm pushing water uphill so it's been nice to have some interest from other people!

Firstly, there are a couple of women Betsy and Maggie from Mulberry Tree Consulting in the US who are writing a book called 'Defying Gravity' on female partnerships. They were interested in our story - the fact that we are from Australia and that we work with organic fabrics. They'd contacted us a little while ago wanting to interview us but we'd knocked them back as we felt it was early days in our partnership and because our partnership arrangement is an informal one at the moment.

Secondly, we'd also been approached by Jacinta Burchall, who runs the Black Cat boutique in Healesville, regarding her sustainable fashion competition - the 9lives project. Again, we had pulled out of the race but she's also been in touch again encouraging us to participate.

So we've said (or I've said) yes to both requests. I'm more than happy to share our journey with people who are interested in our story and the best thing about the 9lives project for us is the opportunity to be mentored by someone like Tiffany Treloar - a leading Australian sustainable fashion designer - should we be successful.

Tip of the Day: Balance a critical eye with an open mind when it comes to requests - a little kindness can sometimes go a long way and many opportunities can come from unexpected places.

Blogs away!

There are a number of newsletters, blogs and websites I subscribe to - mainly sustainable fashion, art & design related. Overseas newsletters include Ecouterre in New York and the Ethical Fashion Forum in the UK. Here, I love Michi Girl (check out Kat Mcleod's beautiful illustrations), How Big is Your Eco, Give Now, The Design Files, Lady Melbourne and our friend Natasha Kershaw's Fashion Rebel. There's also a lovely blog called The Balm (more beauty related) who have been kind enough to feature us in the past.

Alex Hume from online store Ecofashionista has invited Anne and I to attend her Spring Preview Night tomorrow night to view her gorgeous new range. Her friend Joyce should also be there. Joyce is a lawyer, produces Mel:Hot or Not (a daily review of all things Melbourne) as well as has her own bicycle accessories range called Cycle Style. There are a lot of clever men and women out there blogging away and I do wonder what this means for traditional print media like newspapers and magazines.

Tip of the Day: There's a great free online PR service called Source Bottle. If you're wanting to promote yourself, your product or service - check it out.

PR Darling

OK, I've mentioned before I didn't get into fashion PR for the so-called glamour and I don't think I fit the usual Ab Fab stereotype. Nevertheless, getting our name out there is something we must do.

I've just finished emailing newspapers and some magazines about our range. I'm not 100% hopeful that anything will actually come of it. It can be pretty soul destroying working in PR, journalists and fashion editors are busy people who get inundated with media releases every day so it's difficult to have any cut-through unless you have a unique angle or hook.

Which brings me to the topic of social media. Again, it's not something you can control but I've actually come around to the idea of using Twitter, Facebook and blogging. I used to think it was a bit narcissistic but I can now see the benefits of being able to interact with people, often in real time. It's much more focused on people as individuals which I also really like.

Tip of the Day: Even if you don't think you'll use it, register your brand name on Twitter and Facebook.

What's in a name?

A lot actually. Anne has never trademarked the name 'Green Eyed Monster'. There is actually a company with the same name in the UK (but with dashes between the words) who do organic kids clothes.

We'd discussed trademarking when I came on board. I think it's something you should get onto early if you can afford it. We've now spent the past two years being known in Australia as Green Eyed Monster with me doing a concerted PR effort these last 6 months...there's also the cost of having to change artwork, labels and tags to take into account if we change names.

I've just spent the past few days getting media releases out on our Spring Summer range and Anne's also sent our e-newsletter out to all our customers. I'll talk about traditional PR vs social media in my next instalment.

Tip of the Day: Protect your property! Trademark as soon as you can and make sure you can also get the website address (domain name) of your choice.

Keepin' it local

Yesterday I submitted our application to the Heide Design Square being held at Heide Museum of Modern Art next month in Bulleen where I grew up (which is around the corner from where Anne and I live now). We would so love to be considered for it or the Heide store. Heide is one of the best things about living around here.

One of the things I've discovered with running a business from home is that it's best to start off with those people closest to you. For me, it means telling my friends and family what I'm doing. Anne feels it's a bit Amway and isn't comfortable with the idea of 'selling' to her friends and family but for me, a lot of my nearest and dearest are into fashion and independent design and want to support what we do (you know who you are). I don't believe in shoving things down people's throats either - people will either like our stuff or not but with my PR hat on - at least give people the information so they're aware of what we do and can make their own decision.

The other thing we've recently realised is that it's simply too hard for us to get out and about and as working mothers, it's easier to concentrate on our online business and stay in the local area which is the City of Banyule. One of the things we've done more recently is join our local business association and this has given us access to a free business advisory service.

Tip of the Day: Check out your local city council website and find out what services are available to you

Let's start at the very beginning...

Green Eyed Monster's vision is to be a leading socially and environmentally responsible fashion label designed and manufactured in Australia.

This blog is all about the journey behind the scenes of our start up label and while we're not claiming to be the experts on sustainable fashion, we are one of the few brands giving it a go. From here on in, I am going to share our tips with you as a fledgling label and let you know from our experience what works and what doesn't.

I also want to share with you some of my past career experience. I have a B.A. in Public Relations from RMIT and have spent over 15 years working in marketing communications both as a consultant and in-house in industries including fashion, beauty, retail, food & wine, utilities and media communications. My desire to work for a values-based company also began a long time ago in my second job as PR for global environmental beauty company Aveda.

My first tip of the day: A good media release will include the 5 W's and one H - who, what, where, when, how & why. Start with answering these questions when writing your release.

C'mon!

It's been a while since I last wrote. I got really sick over the school holidays and Anne now has a sore knee that requires surgery. If it's not one thing, it's another. We ended up postponing our meeting with Bhakti from So Ethic and our business mentor.

We have made some decisions regarding our ongoing partnership and business direction. Thinking of concentrating more on the online business until our kids are a bit older. This means overhauling the website and spending more time on the social media side of things - Twitter anyone? Stuff we can do in our own time from home rather than trying hitting the streets of Melbourne...

We've had some good stuff happen too - Julia Zemiro's got back in touch with us so we've supplied some T-shirts for a doco she's filming and we're applying to exhibit at the Heide Design Square at Heide Museum of Modern Art in Bulleen where I grew up. Just got to keep trying to move forward.