Merry in Malvern: Stoking the Fire, Herding the Sheep and Sleeping Among Shepherds Huts!

Each year my closest group of friends and I make sure we get together a couple of weeks at Christmas before our lives get too busy. This year we decided to head to my friend Rowena’s home town of Great Malvern for a cosy Christmas getaway, and we weren’t disappointed!

We arrived late on Friday night, with just enough time for a catch up by the open fire at Rowena’s childhood home and have a little look outside at the gorgeous Shepherds Huts that have been lovingly restored by Rollin, Rowena’s Dad. Rollin has dedicated so much time and commitment to renovating them and it hasn’t gone unnoticed... only last week he was featured on George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces and you can catch it on 4oD here.

On Saturday we were woken up early by the sound of Rowena shouting outside, it was hard to tear myself away from the beautiful morning view as I opened the curtains, but (after taking an obligatory picture) we rushed downstairs to find that a herd of sheep had broken through the back fence and were having a great time running around the garden!

After gently herding the sheep back into their field and a good full English breakfast with Rowena’s old school friend, we put on our winter woollies and headed out for a trek up the Malvern Hills. We parked at the foot of the hills next to a lovely new cafe called Cafe H2O at the Malvern Hills GeoCentre where we indulged in a cup of tea and a delicious teacake and studied the interactive maps available of all the potential routes. We decided to take on the highest point of the hills, and walk the Worcestershire Beacon.

This isn’t the first time we’ve walked the hills, we also did this back when were at University, which as we walked at pace, brought back some wonderful memories. Emma told us about her Three Peaks challenge for charity, and we all decided that in 2014 we need to embark on a challenge as a group. So, there is nothing like making something happen than to write it down for the world to see – in 2014 we aim to climb Mount Kilimanjaro!

We finally reached the highest point after a few stops to take pictures of the breath-taking view which looks out over Worcestershire and Herefordshire before we made our way back down again. All that walking and talking left us a little frazzled but nothing a little Christmas Market couldn’t sort out! We made our way into Malvern Town Centre where we browsed the many independent stalls and paid a visit to the Great Malvern Priory to find carol singers and Christmas storytellers!

Great Malvern is a gorgeous getaway from city life and I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone looking for a countryside retreat. If you get chance while you are there, pay a visit to the gorgeous Grange Farm Nursery, an award-winning garden centre located in Guarlford where you can buy a whole host of trees, shrubs and beautiful plants. As I drove down the long & windy roads of Hanley Swan on my way back home, I left Malvern feeling totally relaxed and ready for a Christmas full of friends, family and fun!

Have a lovely Christmas,

Katie x

Virgin Unite Loves our Pinning Skills!

This month, Virgin Unite featured Katie & Jane on their inspirational website after they chose our Pinterest board 'Feel Inspired' as one of their favourite entrepreneurial boards.

We were reading 'Screw it, Let’s Do It and Screw Business As Usual' by Richard Branson about this time last year, as we were at the crucial tipping point of taking the leap out of the 9 to 5 and into the rollercoaster world of working for ourselves.  Little did we know when reading it back then that only 12 months later Katie & Jane would be selected as one of Virgin Unite’s featured entrepreneurs.

We've really enjoyed populating our 'Entrepreneur Interviews' blog section after speaking to Nataly Kogan from Happier, Inc. Nikki Cooper, creator of Inner Me and Becca Reeves from Hattie's Wines over the past few months so this is a real highlight to celebrate the end of our first year of business.

Follow the link here to read about our journey, find out a little more about the great work done by Virgin Unite and of course see our winning Pinterest board!

You can watch Richard Branson talk to Pinterest Co-Founder and CEO Ben Silbermann via Google Hangout here where they share an insight into their own entrepreneurial journeys.

Jane x

A Walking Weekend in the Cotswolds

Every Winter we pack the car (and the dog!) and head to the Cotswolds to stay in a gorgeous little traditional cottage. Our favourite place is the small town of Winchcombe in Gloucestershire so, if it's available, we book Windsor Cottage from Owner's Direct and drive there for a few nights stopping to stock up the kitchen at Daylesford Organic near Kingham along the way! I especially love Daylesford at Christmas.

Winchcombe is a picture-perfect Cotswold town with sandy Cotswold stone buildings, beautiful countryside and cobbled streets. The weekend consists of relaxing in front of the cottage's real log fire (a luxury I unfortunately don't have at home), pottering around Winchcombe's independent shops and enjoying delicious local food, but the main reason is to spend time walking along the picturesque Cotswold Way with the dog!

Winchcombe is perfect for exploring as it sits on six long-distance footpaths, including the famous Cotswold Way; a 102-mile trail up and down hills with beautiful views for miles and miles around. The town is a member of the Walkers are Welcome network of towns and even holds a walking festival every May. Winchcombe's 'Welcomes Walkers' website is a fantastic place to get further information and download self-guided walks. We used three of the walks ranging from 4 to 10 miles and despite a few turnarounds (we're great at getting lost on foot or in the car!), found them very useful.

Another reason we love Winchcombe is that although it's got a 'small-town' feel it's got everything you could wish for from independent shops to small supermarkets and a number of lovely pubs and restaurants. It is also close to Sudeley Castle and the remains of Hailes Abbey so there's lots of history to take in. Whilst on one of our walks we stumbled upon artist Damien Hurst's restoration project, the 300-room Toddington Manor where he plans on displaying his artwork.

After all that walking, the perfect place to retreat to was the Wine and Sausage at the White Hart Inn in the centre of Winchcombe. We had a well-deserved drink in the window of this lovely, traditional pub every day and enjoyed a meal of sausage and mash one evening. They only use ingredients sourced seasonally and regionally to the Cotswolds (and it's not just sausages!) and also have a 'wine shop' within the bar for reasonably priced, carefully selected takeout wines.

Despite quite a bit of whinging from my other-half about the number of miles we walked, we all had another lovely stay, enjoying the fresh air whilst recharging our batteries in probably my favourite place in the UK. I'm already looking forward to next year!

Jane x

Highlights

• Winchcombe itself is really a highlight - we've stayed in many other places in the Cotswolds and Winchcombe has to be the best
• Lovely walks and scenery - with the range of walks available there's something for everyone from a quick jaunt to a six hour trip!
• Lighting a real fire - I love the smell of real fires and the cottage provides all the wood (and firelighters!) needed

Must-Dos

• Explore the Cotswold Way taking in the views over the Welsh and Malvern Hills and local towns
• White Hart Inn - a must-visit when in Winchcombe

Win a Social Media Advice Session with Katie & Jane!

Last month we launched our Facebook eCourse for business, and we’ve had a great response. To motivate those who take our course to complete all the lessons and upload a final project, students will be in with the chance of winning a free social media advice session with us!

Our eCourse on ‘Creating an Effective Facebook Strategy’ is packed with 12 video lessons (short ones, with no jargon!) where we bring our real-life social media experience and knowledge to you. There are also downloadable toolkits, class notes so you can go over what you’ve learnt and a wealth of helpful bits & bobs to ensure you are on the right path with Facebook for your business.

The social media advice session can be on anything related to social media, whether for your business or even for you! Simply enrol onto the course today for £14/$23 here.

If you have any questions about the eCourse tweet us at @janiexx & @KatieAMcD or email us at smile@katieandjane.com

Have fun!

Katie x

Simple Social Media Advertising Tips

We often get asked during our social media training sessions about advertising, particularly on Facebook and Twitter. It's clearly something people are confused about so we wanted to share with you some frequent questions and a few key tips on getting the most from advertising on social.

Why pay for adverts through social media?

From our experience, the brands we've worked with have really benefited from social media advertising, not only achieving objectives (like more Facebook likes or engagement) but have been able to use feedback from adverts in real-time to direct social activity and help plan future initiatives.

We particularly find social media advertising effective as you can reach a mass audience of targeted people very simply and quickly. You can see exactly who is engaging with each advert and what posts are more responsive than others, almost instantly making it more effective for managing budgets too. Also, the great thing is you control the adverts (and budget!) and your audience growth and objectives are based on real data.

It's no surprise that by 2017, social media advertising revenue is set to grow to 11 billion dollars becoming a massive part of advertising buying efforts! 

What's the difference between advertising on Facebook and Twitter?

The obvious difference is you'll probably be targeting different people and you will have different advertising objectives for each platform although the creation of the adverts itself is pretty similar.

Set your objectives...

On Facebook there are a number of types of adverts you can run to meet different objectives. You can optimize adverts for website conversions, page likes, website clicks, post engagement, app installs, app engagement, offer claims and for event replies.

On Twitter it's more simple - you can advertise a specific key message through Promoted Tweets or gain more followers through Promoted Accounts.

Selecting where the advert will appear...

With Facebook adverts can appear in News Feeds or on the right-hand side of the page. Facebook will give you the best option according to the objectives set.

The creative element should be taken into account here as this is where you can upload images (on Facebook) and create different forms of copy (see tips below).

Targeting...

Targeting people by demographics such as location, gender, interests, language or workplace, etc is easy on Facebook so go in with a set target audience in mind.

Over on Twitter there are two types of targeting; keyword and interests & followers. Keyword means you can target those who tweet about, search or engage with a particular term. Interests and followers allows you to target by broad interest categories (like beauty for example) or target those who follow accounts that tweet about categories.

Budgets...

Finally on Facebook you can pick a daily or lifetime budget and decide how you want to pay for actions. For example, you can pay for likes or for impressions. This all depends on your objectives but don't worry, Facebook will help with selection.

On Twitter again, you can set lifetime or daily maximum budgets. If you go down the Promoted Tweet route you set an amount you are willing to pay for every reply, retweet, favourite, click or follow. For Promoted Account adverts you pay per follower.

Do I need to pay someone to create adverts for me?

In a word, no! If you have large budgets to play with and are unsure about creating your adverts of course we'd say to talk to an expert but by no means do you have to. Facebook and Twitter have made it very simple to create your own advertisements and even give you lots of tips and feedback. The process is very straightforward and once you've done one test (maybe with a very small budget) you'll have lots of fun creating and managing your own adverts.

A note here... we've seen some brands allow 'experts' to manage their adverts on social media (there's really no need!) and get exploited in some way, whether it's taking a big percent of the budget for 'fees' (not if you create ads yourself!) or by not understanding the target market or objectives and getting hundreds of likes from Portugal when the company only trades in the UK! Remember, setting up the adverts in one way means every new like the page receives will be paid for so targeting is important, paying for likes in Portugal was very frustrating for the brand!

Key Tips...

• Set objectives before you create the adverts whether that's on Facebook or Twitter. Create a purpose for promoting your content maybe it's to increase Facebook likes, encourage more users to visit your website or to increase awareness - objectives are key and will help you when setting up the adverts
• If possible, create adverts around campaigns, even if it's a small-scale Facebook competition - this will give users even more reason to engage with your advert and give them something to invest their time in online
• Include Facebook advertising in your marketing budget but remember you don't need to spend thousands a month to see results. We've worked with brands before who have moved a very small percentage of their budget into Facebook advertising and gained a lot of traction
• Use a number of creatives... try to use around four different images in one advertising campaign (Facebook will rotate these automatically for you) and use a number of copy alternatives even if it's changing a few words around. This will help you to test what your audience responds to better

Hope that's helped in the seen-to-be confusing world of social media advertising but we promise... it's simple! If you have any questions just email us at smile@katieandjane.com

Visit Facebook Ads and Twitter Ads to find out more.

Jane x

The Best Things in Life... in December

We're nearly at the end of 2013 and our blog has been 'open' for six months now which has flown by! Over our 'Best Things in Life' posts every month we've talked about many of our favourite things from Pilates to The Sunday Times, Sophie Dahl to Alpro Soya Milk and here's December's...

Katie

Best Things in Life...

Bradgate Park & Swithland Wood Country Park in Leicestershire is my favourite haven to visit in the winter, and this weekend I’ll be visiting the Christmas Fair. I love walking around and seeing the deer and peacocks and exploring the ruins of Bradgate House during December, and it looks even more gorgeous in the snow too!

A weekend with friends in Great Malvern - December is a great time of the year for me because although my friends live all over the UK (mainly in London, but as far as Spain too) as we embark on the festive season lots of plans are made to make sure we spend as much time together as possible. We even extend it into January too as a helpful pick-me-up after the come down from Christmas. I have just returned from a weekend with my friends in Great Malvern where we walked the hills, stoked the open fires and even herded some sheep! Stay tuned for a blog post all about it soon.

Advent calendars - I’ve been very spoilt already this year with not one but two advent calendars! My Hotel Chocolat Advent Calendar is such a luxury to look forward to each day, it’s the first time I’ve tried it and each milk chocolate is delicious! Of course, my mum never fails to make sure we have an advent calendar even though we are adults now, this year I was given a Disney Princess one… I think I’ll have to increase my spinning classes this month!

My favourite Christmas ritual is...

On Christmas morning every year for as long as I can remember we have visited my Nan to share Christmas gifts and watch as one by one our aunties, uncles and cousins arrive to see her. My nan turned 90 last month and on her birthday, as two generations of sisters sat together watching Coronation Street and indulging in Birthday Cake, I asked her if she could give me one piece of advice from her 90 years of life experience and she looked me straight in the eye and said ‘be honest’. I’ll carry that with me for the rest of my life.  It was also a funny moment too as we’d all been lying to her for months about her surprise birthday party and with a glint in her eye I wasn’t sure if she was trying to catch me out!

My happiest 'Katie & Jane' moment of 2014 was...

Featuring on Virgin Unite - I remember reading Screw it, Let’s Do It and Screw Business As Usual by Richard Branson last year as we were at the crucial tipping point of taking a leap out of the ordinary and into the rollercoaster world of working for ourselves.  Little did I know when reading it back then that only 12 months later Katie & Jane would be selected as one of Virgin Unite’s featured entrepreneurs. You can see us on the Virgin Unite website here.  

Jane

Best Things in Life...

My morning runs with my friend Lucy who has sort of turned into my personal running coach! It's amazing how she motivates me to get up at 7.30am on cold mornings to run 3 miles (I'm not a morning person!) and it's great how we talk (or at least try to!) the whole way round to make it fun. If you want to start running I encourage you to find a Lucy!

Not on the High Street - There is no hiding I'm a big fan of Not on the High Street (read my earlier post here) - not only for its unique, personalised products but also its inspiring founders. This Christmas I have purchased nearly all of my presents online from my favourite shop and they're starting to arrive from each individual seller from all over the country... exciting!

Mary McCartney's cookbook 'Food' - Mary's cookbook is all about vegetarian home cooking using recipes from her late mother and some delicious editions of her own. Meat-eaters and veggies alike will love it, my current favourite recipe is Chocolate Brownies which I add macadamia nuts to. Mary is a photographer so the book is packed with gorgeous, inspirational images too.

My favourite Christmas ritual is...

Putting up the tree is probably my favourite time at Christmas... I love putting on my Christmas songs, drinking eggnog and roping everyone in to help. I cook a big meal from Nigella Christmas to say thanks and we all watch a Christmassy film (Elf!) amongst the new twinkling lights. Read my blog post here for my 'Seven Steps to Creating the Perfect Christmas Tree'.

My happiest 'Katie & Jane' moment of 2014 was...

Seeing our first app Countdown Keeper for the first time! After so many months of waiting for our app to be developed, having it on my phone to test was the best feeling ever. We have invested so much time and effort into Countdown Keeper from the design to the wireframes that it's so good to see our vision actually on our phones! Now, we can't wait to share it with the rest of the world!

For the Knackered Cows & Grumpy Bullocks Out There… A Cowshed Full of Christmas Gifts!

Born in a shed in 1999, Cowshed has quickly expanded from a spa set in the gorgeous surroundings of Babington House in Somerset to a suite of global store locations all over the world offering natural and honest bath, body and skincare products.

With British heritage still very much at the heart of all Cowshed products, every thing is created using the very best organic, wild crafted and fairly-traded plant extracts and essential oils. The team at Cowshed believe that there are few things in life better than an English country garden, and we wholeheartedly agree!

      

Each of the products carry playful names including Knackered Cow, Moody Cow, Grumpy Cow, Lazy Cow, Gorgeous Cow and many more cheeky ones, allowing customers to shop by mood. This enables the products to work on enhancing moods with formulations built on thoughtful scents, mood-lifting colours, botanical ingredients, indulgent textures and herbal remedies.

Cowshed offers a huge variety of indulgent treats for the body, but you can also browse their Living & Home section including handy travel products and colourful notebooks, or if you want to try an organic baby range, check out their cute Baby Cow products too. 

With Christmas gifts in mind as we are approaching the festive month of December, we thought we’d share our top picks, and better still each of the products we’ve picked are included in the Cowshed 20% discount for Christmas!

If you are tired of the traditional Christmas cracker, why not shake it up a bit this year and try the Cracking Cow, a cracker filled with two little Cowshed bath & shower treats, this could also work for a fun stocking filler too!

If you know someone who is on-the-go a lot for work, why not treat them with this gorgeous travel candle gift set, to set the mood in the hotel room after a long day! The scents include Knackered Cow for relaxation, Wild Cow for invigoration and soothing Lazy Cow.

Upgrade the Lynx aftershave gift set this year to the cheekily named Bullocks for Men Duo Set, ideal for a man in your life that could benefit from a little grooming. He needs to know the set includes a ‘Bracing Body Wash’ and a ‘Soothing Moisturiser’, you need to know it’s enriched with Essential Oils of pettigrain and grapefruit to revitalise with hemp seed to soothe and restore. 

To see the full range of Cowshed products, click on any of our images above or head to their website here. You can also find out all the happenings in the ‘shed’ over at the Cowshed blog too! 

We love that one of our favourite Birmingham eating spots, Fleet Street Kitchen stock the bathrooms with Cowshed products only; it really makes a difference and adds an extra special touch to the overall experience. To find out more about the new trendy restaurant in the heart of Birmingham you can visit their website here.

Katie x