Meghan Simington is the co-founder of the Reinventing M Network, a website and electronic magazine that publishes advice for working moms. She also organizes the mSummit, a trade show and conference, which ran for its second year this fall.
Previously, she had started iRepair.ca, a chain of Apple products repair stores.
Simington saw success with her first event, a trade show that showcased business opportunities for working mothers, but realized that her business’ do-it-yourself branding wouldn’t cut it for the larger conference she envisioned.
“It wasn’t a clear message at all,” Simington said, “and we weren’t encouraging the outcome that we wanted from our attendees.”
The previous logo, featuring a vintage “You can do it!” Rosie the Riveter-type character, didn’t speak to Simington’s desired audience of urban, professional moms.
“I wanted to create a community and have something that was more modern and young.”
Simington worked with a professional marketer on a “brand story” to create a new name and logo for her business. The process also gave her new confidence in the products and services her business offers.
“This year, putting all that time and effort into that branding and having that as the base … it was easier.”
She equates working on a marketing plan to spending the time to put together a well-thought-out business plan.
“Once I could go back to my marketing package, it was easy, I had the key words and I could have saved myself so much time.”
After holding a successful conference that featured Dragons’ Den judge Arlene Dickinson as the keynote speaker, Simington now plans to expand the conference to other cities.
