Digital Mindshare Spotlight: Melanie Notkin, Founder of Savvy Auntie (www.savvyAuntie.com)
Digital Mindshare is pleased to present Melanie Notkin in this week’s Spotlight. Melanie is the founder and CEO of the 2009 Webby Award nominated SavvyAuntie.com, the first online community for cool aunts, great aunts, godmothers, and all women who love kids. Before launching Savvy Auntie, Melanie was an interactive marketing and communications executive for global Fortune 500 companies, including New York Times Digital and American Express, as well as L’Oréal.
Melanie is a regular panelist on the Strategy Room on FoxNews.com and a contributing editor to Toy Wishes Magazine. She and Savvy Auntie have been featured on NBC and CBS and in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, The Charlotte Observer, More Magazine, Huffington Post, Mashable and TechCrunch, among others. SavvyAuntie.com was ranked as one of Springwise’s Top 10 Entrepreneurial Ideas of the Year (2008) and Melanie was recently named a Heeb Magazine HEEB 100.
DM: How did you get the idea to make a site for “Aunties”?
MN: When my nephew was born, it was such a beautiful part of my life. But how does a small child understand that you are an aunt, when they don’t get “family” yet? Then, one day, when he was about two and a half, he looked up at me and said, “We’re family.” It was such a gift, so I wrote a “board book” calling it Auntie and Me-We’re a Family.
About four years later, I was working at L’Oréal, and wondering what to do with my career. I had a strong calling to do start something of my own, and I thought of that book I had written. I spoke to some literary agents about it, and though they liked it – and even “got it” – they said that I didn’t have a platform from which to launch it. “Maybe you need a blog,” said one agent. That got me thinking that perhaps my platform could be more interactive than a blog – that it needed a community.
I realized there were no modern resources for the cosmopolitan aunt. Anything out there was more for “old aunt Sadie” – and it didn’t reflect me and my sensibilities and an executive in a worldwide beauty company. So I created Savvy Auntie – a community for cool aunts, great aunts, godmothers, and all women who love children. “Aunt” is a great word for a woman who is not your mother. Our site caters to ABRs (Aunts by Relation), ABCs (Aunts by Choice), LDAs (Long-Distance Aunts), and even “mommy aunties” – women who are mothers but also aunts.
We are all part of the “Village” that it takes to raise happy, healthy, responsible kids in today’s world.
DM: How much time did you invest in building your brand before going “live”?
MN: It took about a year – literally, the launch took place 13 months from the day I woke up and decided to be an “Aunt-epreneur.” In terms of branding, that aspect of the business took about three months. By branding, it was not just the logo, but also the color palette, the look and feel of the site, the business cards…every detail. I had also spent 15 years of my career understanding brands, so I came in to my business with good ideas of how vital branding was for my company.
I worked with Syrup – an agency that I had worked with at L’Oréal a few times. I knew that they really understood women and the women’s market, and they have a remarkably stunning aesthetic.
DM: So, what exactly is the brand?
MN: The Savvy Auntie brand is “playful luxury.” Our target reader is playful, and has a love of and connection with children. She also has discretionary income and time, which she spends both on children and herself…and the brand had to reflect that.
She can fly out and see her nephews, nieces, or godchild for the day; she can get them three scoops of ice cream! It’s however you define luxury. In terms of advertisers, considering our largest demographic, PANK (Professional Aunt, No Kids), we have companies like Hasbro or Disney interested in us because our demographic is interested in products for children, but we also have contracted with Warner Brothers to help promote the Sex and the City movie. In fact, today, we are announcing a new promotion with Turner. We will be “live Tweeting” the show Saving Grace with Holly Hunter, whose character on the show is an aunt.
Basically, the advertisers are interested in this woman in terms of her buying power, as a woman (married, partnered, or single) who buys stuff. It’s the same as in any other site, but we have grown a great demographic niche.
DM: Your business is “social media” … do you keep your personal networking separate from professional networking in the social media space?
MN: That’s a great question. I think it is a mix, because as the founder of Savvy Auntie, social media is what I do with most of my time and energy. After my nephew and nieces, it’s my number two passion. Now that I have a Facebook fan page that works really well, though, I can spend less time talking about my company on my “own” Facebook page, and keep that more for me.
Then again, I have a lot of people who have “friended” me on my Facebook page. I don’t know them, but they are fans of Savvy Auntie, so I guess at this point I don’t have a separate public / personal persona. I am my brand.
I think a social media conversation is like an in-person one in many ways. At a cocktail party, you quickly figure out if you are talking too much about yourself, and you should use those same skills when conversing in the social media space.
DM: What is the single greatest challenge you’ve faced in business?
MN: There are a number of challenges – with every milestone comes a new challenge. For example, it was great to get queries from advertisers within a day of the launch of my website, but I didn’t have an ad platform built yet! I thought it would take at least a couple of months before I would need that. I tackle every challenge by making sure I realize that I can’t know everything right away, and by being patient enough to trust that I will either be able to find the answers…or the people who have the answers.
When you start a business, you can’t believe you know every single aspect of it. There’s so much to know, from branding to trademarks, from PR to sales and business development, to raising money, and legal considerations. You can’t possibly be an expert in everything as a new entrepreneur. You learn as you go and ask people for help.
I will say, though, that I have never once had a problem I couldn’t find someone to help me solve.
DM: You get some incredible press opportunities. First of all – how do you get them?? Second, how do you manage the day-to-day part of running a business, as well as the PR (traditional and online)?
MN: It’s not the first time I have been asked this question. In terms of the press coverage, I have been fortunate. I also believe there are three prongs contributing to the success of Savvy Auntie, or to any similar venture, in regard to “buzz”, press, or momentum:
- The product must be strong – really strong. When you visit the site, Twitter page, the fan page Facebook, or see it described on air, you are seeing a very professional, on-brand product. It looks like a credible product and that I think that when consumers (and everyone is a consumer, even the press) visit the site, they “get it” and find it attractive, and know exactly what it is doing.
- A powerful niche works the best. I have a unique niche in catering to PANKs. It’s also a newly-identified niche, so it’s something for the press to talk about. Also, so many women in the media who are at a certain level in their careers are actually part of my target demographic. So they “get” it right away…I don’t have to explain it.
- Have a strong “social” influence. In terms of social media, we have a very strong presence on Twitter and Facebook, and actively communicate there. For example, you [Julien Sharp, DM] and I met on a panel at a social media event, but you kept tabs on me through Facebook and Twitter…and it led to a press opportunity!
The rest is really just luck – I am naturally comfortable on-air, and that make it easy for them to ask me back again. I think it is mostly my true passion for my brand, and what I am doing, that is infectious to the viewers.
Now, as far as time management, it’s difficult. When I am on the subway it’s hard to do business, for sure. But that’s when I do my “homework” – I use the commute time to catch up on headlines, information, etc. that I may need to be aware of for the interview.
I’m also getting a couple of interns this summer. They will be enormously helpful on one hand as far as taking on some tasks, but on the other hand, I will need to take time to mentor them (that’s why they are interns, after all).
DM: What advice can you give to women who want to start their own business in the digital space?
MN: I would say that the number one thing is to listen to your heart, mind, body, and soul. You are the only one who can hear it, after all, to determine if you truly have your mind set on starting your own business. Don’t quit your “day job” if you don’t have money to live on, don’t know how to start, or don’t know what your business is about. Remember that you will work harder than you ever have before…except you aren’t working for “the man.” You are working for your legacy.
You must: Believe in yourself, and believe in your idea. If you can do that, then don’t let anyone who doesn’t believe in your or your idea talk you out of it.
The reason for that last bit of advice is from my own experience, and from talking to other women entrepreneurs. You start to tell select people about your decision to start a business, and everyone will have an opinion. And those opinions are not necessarily educated or based on facts, they are just opinions. Some people, particularly family members, may not want you to take risks, fearing that they will have to pick up the pieces.
You can be very vulnerable when you decide to start a business. Particularly for women, it’s a very vulnerable place to be. What inevitably happens is you will have a lot of people you love very much tell you why you shouldn’t and you may be dissuaded…and wouldn’t that be a sad thing?
Finally, I would say not to forget to ask for help. If you are passionate about your business and you talk to someone just as passionate, it is inspiring to them, and they get great joy out of helping you get what they already may have achieved.
The hardest thing about starting a business is…starting the business. But once you get going, there’s no stopping you!