Great promotion planning tool!

We put together a great tool that will be very helpful to every pet business in planning their promotions for 2011.

It's a Squidoo Lens and Google Calendar that outlines all the days of the year honoring dogs. You can follow the instructions on the Dog Days Squidoo Lens to add these days to your Google Calendar, and also create a widget for your blog or website that showcases these upcoming events for your readers.

Check it out, it will save you hours of time.

Happy Holidays from Pawsible Marketing!

Crafting an effective marketing message for your pet business.

Whether it be a blog post, press release, email newsletter, Facebook message, Twitter tweet or any marketing message you are crafting for your targeted audience, there are always six main points to keep in mind.

Journalists call it the '5 W's and H,' the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How to describe whatever information you are sharing. Rudyard Kipling made it easy for us to remember in his poem "The Elephant's Child."

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

By answering these questions while crafting any marketing message, you can feel secure you are covering everything your message should convey. If not, you may be missing some important, key information, making your message incomplete.

I like to add one more 'W' to the basic '5 W's' I answer as well...

Adding the answer to the 'WOW' in your marketing message will help you grab a reader's attention, and help whatever message you're conveying stand out among the sea of messages that people are overwhelmed with day in and day out. And it will give it that punch you need to draw them in...wanting more.

Make sure every one of your messages answers the '5 W's & 1 H' and my 6th 'W' and you can be sure your message is the most effective, interesting, and informative it can be.

Tools to more efficiently and effectively run your pet business.

There are a lot of tools, apps and websites that I use to help me be more productive throughout the day.

Today I thought I would share them with you in the hopes that they may help you be more effective and efficient in running your pet business.

Let's get started...

Hootsuite.com - A great Twitter tool that helps me manage three Twitter accounts, plus my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. Not only does it message my social network accounts, it allows me to schedule those messages ahead of time. And I can view analytics associated with those messages as well. The free version allows a total of five total social network profiles. The Pro paid version starts with additional capabilities starts at $5.99 per month.

Twitter - For my Blackberry I have both Twhirl and UberTwitter installed to help me Tweet and keep up with Tweets. And I just recently installed Hootsuite for BB to post and schedule messages to all of my accounts.

Evernote.com - One of my favorite tools to keep track of notes, planned tweets and Facebook messages, and ideas for clients and blog posts. I can use it on my computer and on my Blackberry. It's completely searchable and a great little tool. Free too.

Pixlr.com - A great little image editing tool when I don't want to open up Photoshop, and Microsoft Picture Manager isn't enough.

Tether - When I'm on the road, or the Internet goes out, I use Tether with my Blackberry. A version is also available for the Android. Just purchase ($49.99) an app (or try 30 days free) to your computer and mobile phone, connect via usb or bluetooth and you've got connectivity to the Internet for your computer. I use it on my Netbook. Works great and the speed is just as good as cable. Great for when you're on the road.

Google Reader - I subscribe to a lot of blogs. To catch up on my blog reading I turn to Google Reader to quickly scan all available new posts from those blogs I follow. Keeps me up-to-date quickly and easily.

Google Alerts - Helps me keep track of all the news and internet buzz and info available that I watch and want to keep up-to-date with on a daily basis. I just enter a search term, set the alert and Google automatically finds and delivers articles about the subjects I care about to my inbox.

Remember The Milk - One of my favorite tools for creating and managing reminders and to do lists, beyond using Outlook.

YouSendIt - My favorite way to send very large files that my email provider can't handle. Free for up to 100MB, pay as you go for additional MB's.

SlideShare - The best way to share and provide a way to embed your presentations, pdfs and documents. Also integrated with FB and LinkedIn.

Prezi.com - My new favorite presentation tool. Love the customization, fun and interesting way it allows you to cover a subject and present it in an interesting way. Embedding and YouTube integration as well.

Skype - The only way I keep in touch with clients via video or outside of the US.

Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere Elements - My favorite tools for editing photos, creating graphics; and for editing and creating videos.

Instant Eyedropper - If I ever want to find out the color (and the corresponding HTML number) on a web page, it's Instant Eyedropper to the rescue. Free download.

Firefox/Chrome - I use both Firefox and Chrome as my Internet browsers. Love the Firefox add ons, and Chrome extensions that you can install to really get the most out of web browsing be more productive.

Xmarks - A must for keeping my bookmarks sync'd across all the web browsers I may be using throughout the day on my two computers. You can also access them via mobile phone through their mobile website.

Fireshot - Great Firefox add-on tool for capturing web pages in image format as full pages or screen size.

flickr - My favorite site for storing images online and photo sharing. I've been using this site for over five years and have never had any issues. Also has short video capabilities. Perfect for adding photos to the side of my blogs or on Squidoo, or sharing a quick video.

Blogging - Blogger.com is my choice for a blogging platform. It's easy to use for a beginner, yet very customizable for the advanced user. I use it for all four of my blogs, including this one. I've been using it for over five years and love it.

That's a start...most all of these sites, programs, apps and tools I use everyday to save time and money!

Before you flip that switch...

Today I was thumbing through a consumer dog magazine and found an ad for a product that I thought was interesting...maybe something for my dog, Johann.

First thing I did was type in the url for the website I found in the advertisement. Then clicked on the product that I was interested in.

Guess what I found. "Error: page not found."

Very discouraging. Would I save that url and go back another time to see if the page was working? Would I press the contact button and let the company personnel know their website page wasn't working? Would I come back and maybe purchase that product another time?

Nope...just too busy, have to move on. And it's such a shame, isn't it? I'm sure the company paid a lot of money to advertise their product in this high-gloss, high circulation dog magazine.

Remember: You only have one shot, one opportunity to grab your audience and sell them with any marketing tactic you undertake. Sad to say they missed this opportunity, and probably many others that saw the ad.

Moral of the story? Before you flip that switch on a new advertising or marketing campaign, check and make sure everything is in place for the best opportunity for potential customers to see, and hopefully buy, your product or service.

What are your expectations for your pet business this Holiday season?

All indicators show this will be a good holiday season for retailers and other businesses, especially for the pet industry. Tell us...what are your expectations for your pet business this holiday season?