3Spring 2010 Women Entrepreneurs of Canada

Contents

wec4 Message from the President

5 Affiliate Organization Feature - WIFT

6 Rick Spence - Marketing on a Small Budget

8 Thought Symposium

9 Rogers - New Product Launch

Quick Guide to

MARKETING on a BudgetSee page 9 to

learn more!

4 Spring 2010 Women Entrepreneurs of Canada

I am thrilled to be bringing you the first ever WEC E-Magazine. We will be preparing this for you every

quarter and our goal is to ensure that this is one place that you can get updates and information on

what is happening across Canada in the world of women entrepreneurship.

I have been in the role of President for the organization for almost two years and it has gone fast!

Like all volunteer Presidents, I feel proud of what we have done and frustrated by what is still left to

be accomplished. Over the past two years, our Board’s mandate has been to make WEC a relevant

and truly national organization as well as to build collaboration across the country. In order to meet

this mandate we are in the final stages of changing our bylaws so that 2 key things happen.

The first is that every organization or individual in the country who has a mandate to support women

entrepreneurs can apply to become a voting member of WEC. We call these approved voting

members , Affiliate Organizations. This makes our voting membership much smaller, but gathers

a group of key thought leaders and doers together and gives them the power to approve the key

decisions that WEC makes as we support women growing their businesses.

The second is that we are changing our bylaws so that any women entrepreneur who is a member of

an Affiliate Organization becomes a non-voting member of WEC. Our goal is to build out resources

at wec.ca that our non voting members can access that will truly help you grow your business.

This e-magazine is our first step at creating a central resource that profiles our Affiliate Organizations,

brings resources from our corporate partners to everyone and provides information and insight into

the world of women entrepreneurship in Canada.

We are excited for the future of WEC as we continue to build it and work on creating collaboration

among the key players in the women entrepreneur space.

All the best to you as you grow your businesses.

Carissa Reiniger, on behalf of the 2010 WEC Board of Directors

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT | SPRING

Message from the

President

5Spring 2010 Women Entrepreneurs of Canada

FEATURED Affiliate Organization

Over the past year, Women in Film & Television – Toronto (WIFT-T) has adapted and responded to the economic and structural changes in the screen-based media industry. In response to the shift toward digital platforms and production, WIFT-T has incorporated digital elements into all programming and launched stand-alone digital events, with a full slate of programming in development.

Also this year, WIFT-T recognized the outstanding work of our members with the inaugural WIFT-T Short Film Showcase, presented at Deluxe. WIFT-T members responded­­with­over­five­hours­of ­footage­for­consideration­.­The­ result­­ was­ an­ incredible­ lineup­ of ­ short­ films­ that­reflected­­the­talents­and­diversity­of ­our­membership.­

Don’t miss Emerging Technologies, a course designed to help media professionals understand the impact of changing media, platforms, and audiences. Emerging Technologies is part of the WIFT-T Business Management for Media Professionals Program, presented in partnership with Humber School of Media Studies & Information Technology. Visit wift.com for details.

AOAffiliate Organization

WIFT

FEATURED

6 Spring 2010 Women Entrepreneurs of Canada

Affiliate Organization PROFILES AND STORIES, WHO THEY ARE WHAT THEY ARE UP TO

The problem with small business has always been its in-ability to market on an even basis with larger competitors. Big business has network television and national newspa-per­and­TV­ads;­small­businesses­had­classified­ads,­direct­mail,­and­flyers­on­telephone­poles.­

But now smaller companies can use the same interactive marketing­tools­as­big­business.­If ­you­figure­out­which­of ­today’s Internet media work best for your business.

When’s the last time you updated your website? Why aren’t you sending e-newsletters to your customer list? Are you building your brand on Twitter, or aggregating your fans on Facebook? These social media are nearly free opportunities that let you zero in on your preferred target markets.

Rick Spence

Best of all, electronic media allow you to measure your results . With conventional advertising, you rarely know how effective your ads were. You’re shouting in the dark.

But when you advertise through social media, the feedback is fast and measurable—you’ll know right away what messages­­ work­ better­ than­ others,­ enabling­ you­ to­ fine-tune your headlines, ad copy, offers and pricing. The result: self-correcting communications!

Your options are wide open. To brand yourself to your mar-ket or community, start with a robust, attractive website that explains what you do and who you are, and offers detailed descriptions of your products and services. Include testi-monials and customer feedback that prove your solutions work. Back up your website with an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy that will ensure your site ranks high among the search results whenever prospects Google your products.

Marketing on a small budgetAre you taking advantage of the new com-munications technologies to level the playing field with big business?

7Spring 2010 Women Entrepreneurs of Canada

Affiliate Organization PROFILES AND STORIES, WHO THEY ARE WHAT THEY ARE UP TO

To build customer loyalty, join Facebook and Twitter. Set up your own company’s fan page on Facebook, and get your employees to participate; they can post product reviews, promotions, new product information, industry events, and other information that your customers would love to know more about. Invite them to contribute to your page, with questions, user stories, reviews, testimonials and suggestions.

Blogs are powerful tools that allow you to continuously communicate with the people who care about you most: your customers. It’s a license to market to them regularly —as long as you tell stories and share useful information rather than simply promote yourself. You can set up a blog for free in just minutes at Blogger.com.

But using blogs usually means you need a writer on staff or on call. That’s why I’m a big fan of Twitter, which is blogging on steroids. Instead of writing a few paragraphs about what is going on in your shop, you just Tweet a single sentence or two totaling about 20 words. Your limit is 140 characters (including spaces and punctuation), but you can Tweet as often as you wish. And the people who choose to follow your Twitter posts are­exactly­the­people­you­most­want­to­influence.­

For precise targeting, there’s nothing like pay-per-click advertising , which is offered by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo

and Facebook. As you may know, pay-per-click lets you target any customers you like, anywhere in the world, by selecting keywords that you think customers will use to search for information on product like yours. You choose how much you are willing to pay for each lead – say, 25 cents to $2 a click – and your ad will appear as a sponsored link when people search for the keywords you’ve chosen. You pay only when the prospect clicks through to your site. If they just read the ad and don’t click, you don’t pay.

Pay-per-click services are ideal for small budgets. You select the maximum amount you’ll pay to pay for each keyword, you decide how much to spend per month, and you choose where (Toronto? Alberta? All of Canada?) and when your ads will run. Plus you can track your results in real time, to learn which keywords and offers pay off best. Keep tweaking your campaigns to create intelligent better results.

Today, money is not an obstacle to smart, effective marketing . The barriers are time, energy and imagination. Your future is in your hands.

Rick Spence is a Toronto business writer, speaker and consultant , and the former editor of PROFIT Magazine. He can be contacted at rick@rickspence.ca

Today, money is not an obstacle to smart, effective marketing

8

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Spring 2010 Women Entrepreneurs of Canada

Thought SymposiumOn January 26, 2010 WEC hosted our 1st Annual Thought Symposium. We had leaders from around the country and all industries. Economists, corporate executives, executive directors from numerous regional women’s organizations, success-ful women entrepreneurs, academics and jounalists. It was a diverse group of people and the structure of the day alllowed for everyone to come to the table and share three key things with the group.

1. What was the biggest learning or accomplishment you had in the last year?2. What trends are you seeing in the women entrepreneur space in Canada?3. What­is­one­significant­project­or­mandate­you­are­working­on­in­2010?

Throughout the morning session each person had 10 minutes to give their report on these 3 things and then we spent the afternoon­in­groups­trying­to­figure­out­what­patterns­were­coming­through­from­our­collective­input­and­what­sorts­of ­deliverables we could all work to accomplish together when we left the symposium.

The three things that have stuck with me since the discussions in January.

1. We acknowledged that there is a difference between small business owners and entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs have huge ideas, often raise capital, build something out of nothing and their primary incentive is growth. Small business owners­are­typically­self ­funded,­don’t­have­significant­growth­aspirations­and­are­building­something­smaller­and­a­bit­more­steady.­­­For­some­reason­the­significant­majority­of ­women­fall­into­the­small­business­category­as­opposed­to the entrepreneur category and more thought needs to go into why that is.

2. There is a lack of collaboration among the leaders in the women entrepreneur space and every single person learnt something new by being there that day. The power that we have to share ideas for programming, research, and ideas amongst the leaders in the women entrepreneur space is quite exciting.

3. The­access­to­information­for­the­women­entrepreneurs­in­Canada­is­very­scattered­and­hard­to­find.­­I­realized­that­there are a lot of very impressive programs, events and support resources available to women entrepreneurs through all of the participants in the Thought Symposium, but a lot of the women entrepreneurs do not know that.

In response to these three things that I continue to think about WEC has created this e-magazine as a place where we can profile­what­is­happening­in­Canada­and­give­the­thought­leaders­in­the­country­a­platform­to­speak­from.­­We­are­also­in­te­midst­of ­a­website­re-design­so­that­it­will­truly­become­a­one­stop­shop­to­find­the­different­resources­available­to­an­individual woman entrepreneur.

We hope that as we continue to host these Thought Symposiums and some Regional Roundtables there will continue to be more clarity on how we can bring the leaders in the women entrepreneur space together in order to see more individual women entrepreneurs succeed.

Thought Symposium

9Spring 2010 Women Entrepreneurs of Canada

Rogers Communications Inc. and Novatel Wireless , Inc. (Nasdaq: NVTL), a provider of wireless broadband access solutions, today announced the launch of the Novatel Wireless MiFi™ 2372 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot , the latest addition to the portfolio of Rocket™ mobile internet devices offering high speed internet access anytime , anywhere on Canada’s Reliable Wireless Network.

The Rocket™ mobile hotspot (Novatel Wireless MiFi 2372) provides­convenient,­flexible­broadband­internet­access­­for­up­to­five­Wi-Fi­enabled­devices­simultaneously,­extending­connectivity to multiple laptops, printers, and cameras for mobile professionals and teams, as well as to music players and gaming devices for personal or family usage. Compact and simple to use, the device creates a Wi-Fi hotspot cover-ing a 30 foot radius and users can also leverage up to 16 gi-gabytes of microSD expandable memory storage capability to­share­files.­The­small­wallet-sized­­device­is­designed­for­use on the go with a removable, rechargeable Lithium Ion battery for up to four hours of use on a single charge.

ROGERS ESSENTIAL WEB TOOLS

Rogers Adds Novatel Wireless MiFi™ 2372 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot to Rocket™ Portfolio

“Rogers is dedicated to providing customers with innova-tive solutions to stay connected to coworkers, friends and family while on the go,” said John Boynton, Executive Vice President, Marketing, Rogers Communications Inc. “Our cus-tomers, whether small business, mobile workers, families or students, will take advantage of the unrivalled capabilities of the Rocket™ intelligent mobile hotspot and the seamless, reli-able and easy to use, portable Wi-Fi access .”

“With a broad customer base and years of wireless technology expertise, Rogers is ideally positioned to meet increasing demand for cutting edge mobile connectivity solutions for both business and casual users,” said Rob Hadley, CMO, Novatel Wireless. “The MiFi 2372 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot provides Rogers’ customers with streamlined, ultra high-speed wireless Internet for their portable devices virtually anywhere they want to go on the Rogers wireless network.”

The Rocket™ intelligent mobile hotspot is available on Rogers.com and at Rogers stores across Canada starting from $49.99 on select 3 year plans.

To learn more visit www.rogers.com/mobileinternet.

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WEC thanks Staples, our title sponsor, for contributing to our inaugural issue