Planning and Selling Out My “Breakfast for Dinner” Women Who Brunch Event

September 25, 2014 ~ Nicole Monahan ~ Leave a comment

Earlier this month on September 4th, I celebrated Women Who Brunch’s One Year Anniversary the only way I knew how, with a “Breakfast for Dinner” party. I can proudly say that we sold out the 100 person event and had 15 amazing sponsors. I am also honored to say that the majority of these companies were women run businesses! Here’s a snap shot of all of our wonderful sponsors from the event.

We also had the amazing Christina Vuleta as our speaker. She’s the founder of one of my favorite websites 40:20 Vision, a resource to start conversations and facilitate mentoring between generations. The struggle of being a 20-something is very real and her advice was definitely a highlight of the evening.

Running Women Who Brunch has taught me a lot in the past year. Such as the harder you work the more it pays off — free drinks, brunches, great partnerships and collaboration opportunities, meeting so many great people. These are all great benefits but it really all comes from building a brand and community from scratch, putting love into your attendees and client relationships. Overall, what has been most rewarding has been making a great resource for women and helping to support each other.

This experience has also taught me to listen to my inner voice and go do something that truly drives you. Don’t settle. For me, this is event planning and management. I’ve learned I really enjoy the little details that go into events, from setup, finding the right speakers, potentially partnerships, to even designing the event. For example, for this event I took up calligraphy to make cocktail mixer tags and signage. I’m passionate about making experiences memorable.

Bonus lesson, it’s ok to #treatyoself. Events are a ton of work. Get the dress, manicure, and blow out. You deserve it and will feel like a million dollars!

I’m excited to find out where the next year will take us. There’s so many opportunities, for now we’re planning our next brunch. I’m also going to as many women leadership events as possible and going where the energy flows.

Until next time, brunch on! xoxo

Here’s a few of my favorite photos from our event, more can be found here.

Inbox Overload: A Weeks Worth of Email Marketing

August 22, 2012October 3, 2012 ~ Nicole Monahan ~ Leave a comment

This is a look into a weeks worth of email newsletters.

I have had to do similiar competitor research at an internship for an online publication where emails are the core to their business. I used to look into everything from advertisers, contests, events, to even design work. Admittedly, I miss that weekly research report. It was so interesting to see what others are doing out there.

So naturally I let my emails pill up just to explore a weeks worth of newsletters.

Publications explored included: Flavorpill, DailyCandy, Urban Daddy, and Tasting Table.

An Email Subject Line:

First things first, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling or if you have the best peice of content you’ve ever written. If no one clicks to open your email, all that stuff doesn’t matter anymore.

Make it count by providing a subject line your readers will be sure to make the next move on.

Here are recent examples that have caught my attention lately.

DailyCandy’s:

Draw Men Naked

Any and all from UrbanDaddy my favorites are:

There’s a Stranger Making Dumplings in your House
When You Think of Guacamole, Think of This
Murray Hill’s Best Hope Yet
24-Hour Beer Delivery to Your Doorstep

Tip:

Be funny. Be creative. But most importantly know your audience and who you’re taking to.

Tip:

Try A/B split testing. This allows tracking such things as subject lines. Two different subject lines that you want to test out will be sent to a certain percent of your audience. The results of which subject line performed better, based on open rate will be sent back to you, go with the better one.

Continue reading →

4 Top Campaigns of the Week | 7/23/12 – 7/30/12

July 30, 2012October 3, 2012 ~ Nicole Monahan ~ Leave a comment

Campaigns killing it this week include social “geo-targeting” snack giveaways, a hide and seek social twist to an old school game, what store locations have to do with branding, and a retail partnership I never saw coming. Here is a look at the top campaigns that caught my eye this week:

Clif Bars “MojoGo” Campaign

I am going to kick things off with Clif Bars “MojoGo” Campaign. Clif claims that this is the first geo-location Twitter campaign , the even sweeter deal is that Clif will give away Mojo bars. All you have to do is go on an outdoor adventure and tweet your geo-location to @ClifMojoGo. In return you will receive a coupon to get a free Mojo bar. I really want to go hiking now, I love free snack bars. Here’s the video for more details.

Birchbox Hide & Seek Pinterest Campaign

Birchbox is at it again for the second week in a row. Who thinks of these ideas? I must know!

I feel Pinterest is becoming a shrinking platform, that caters to a very specific target group of women. And yet Birchbox just gets it, they know that’s their target audience and they just go for it. I also love the Hide & Seek approach, it’s a classic game with a new school social twist. This approach also forces fans to search all of their Pinterest content. This can only mean one thing… they will get distracted by other amazing Birchbox product and will want to buy. While at the same time getting a discount. Genius, Birchbox.

Chobani SoHo Store:

This is not so much a campaign unless I were to include all their new Olympic Ads. This is about Chobani’s store in SoHo. How many people have opened only greek yogurt stores? Only best idea ever.

What I would like to point out that really connected with me was one of the many reason most restaurant succeed or fail… location, location, location. I was blown away when I saw this in SoHo. Instantly what came to mind was the last branded stores I’ve been to, which was M&M World and PopTart World. Both in Times Square, or as I like to think of it as nightmare city, yet just a hair above Chinatown. Given, yes, tourists go to both Times Square and SoHo, but there’s something about SoHo. Maybe it’s the fancy high-priced shops and restaurants, but I instantly associated Chobani with this higher quality with higher standards brand. While I think of Pop Tarts and M&M’s as being cheap and kid friendly, which are also other ways to think about Times Square.

Gap + Threadless

This partnership blew my mind as I walked into the Gap. I have gone so far back with Threadless, like high school back. I remember the only times they would ever do sales was during summer and right before Christmas (now there’s one every other week). They were exclusively online and only had one store in Chicago where they are based. The uniqueness and rarity of their shirts is what really made me fall for the brand in the first place. Sadly, I can now get Threadless shirts at the Gap for $25 now.

I am still one of those that wants a Threadless store in their town. But a store or even Threadless vending machines are way better approaches than partnering with a specific brand. Now you’re limiting yourself to that brands specific style, it doesn’t seem like a Threadless thing to do. No bueno.