This time in the A-Z of Marketing Experts, F could be for Families or Favouritism, because Fantasy Parties is a company that’s run by my sister.

Caroline set up Fantasy Parties in Singapore in 2001 – just one year after I started Appletree. The idea came from a panicking friend, whose daughter wanted a Cinderella party for her birthday, which of course had to be better than all her friends’ birthday parties. Caroline was asked if she would come up with a few games, organise some craft activities, create some gorgeous decorations and put together some fun party bags. Her friend also asked if someone would host the party dressed as the Fairy Godmother. Dressing up is one of Caroline’s fortes, so she jumped at the chance. Over the years, her company has grown to become one of the very best party planning businesses in Singapore, providing themed parties for pretty much any film, character or mascot that you can think of.

Keep it in the Family

When you provide a service – whether that’s coaching, consulting or party planning – one of the best ways to generate new business is by keeping in touch with your clients. Look at what else you can sell to your existing clients. In Caroline’s case, this means that when you run a party for a child, you need to find out how many brothers and sisters they have and when their birthdays are. This allows you to contact your client to talk to them, in advance of the next birthday, to offer your services for the next party. Birthdays come around every year too, so she can keep in touch with her clients and contact them a month or two before the next birthday, to offer to organise the next party.

Listen to What your Clients Want

Over the years, Caroline has added new services to her offering. New characters and themes for the parties. Face painters and other entertainers. She then started adding bubbles to her parties, as the craze started to grow. Kids love bubbles, so Caroline learnt how to make them, developing her own formula for ‘bubble juice’ to use and creating ways of making bubbles bigger and better than anyone else. In Singapore there is a high demand for parties that are unique, or more impressive than the last one, which gives Caroline the opportunity to keep being creative.

My sister is now also known as CJ the Bubble Girl and travels internationally, creating bubbles for kids, adults, business events and other bubble fanatics.

The Visual Approach

In the last few years Caroline has really embraced social media for promoting her business. Parties, dressing up and bubbles really lend themselves to visual marketing. Caroline uses Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to show what she gets up to. While photos of parties, characters and bubbles are so much stronger than just words, videos are even more powerful. Being able to see children having fun, or watch bubbles being created and even hear the gasps of delight from the audience paints an even stronger picture of what you’ll get when you hire the Fantasy Parties team for your event.

I’m very proud of my sister, who has achieved so much, despite being dyslexic and not very good at spelling. One day I’ll proof read her website for her, to make her marketing even better!

In the A-Z of Marketing Experts, who will G be for? If you would like to be interviewed for this blog – for any of the letters – please do get in touch and let me know what you’d like to share.