The importance of change in marketing your pet business.

Marketing has never been as challenging as it is now, and all bets are that it's going to continue to be challenging. It's a conversation I've had frequently with clients over the years.

I remember 'back when.' I grew up in an entrepreneurial family.

My father owned and operated a family shoe store in a small town from the time I was born, until I was into my 30's, grown and established with a career of my own. This family shoe store serviced a community of 7,000 for many, many years and was 'the place to go' for shoes for the entire county.

I saw lots of changes in my years helping my father run his business. I remember vividly the annual sales that he used to hold. He would run a full page, color advertisement in the local newspaper, and people lined up around the block for the doors to open on the day the sale started. 'Back when' that's all it took to make a big sale successful.

As years went by, thing changed. Competition moved in, a large 'not to be named' discount chain opened a store on the outskirts of town, people started traveling to a larger town in the next county to shop at the new 'mall.'

That's when my father's business changed dramatically, and so did business for many of the other shops in the community. Many went out of business, but my father had the forethought to alter how he marketed in a changing environment. And that's where I learned that when things change, you have to change with them to remain successful.

'Back when' communities were tighter and closer knit, there wasn't an Internet, there wasn't a local mall, people didn't travel for shopping trips to larger cities. They supported their local businesses and stayed closer to home, getting their news from the local newspaper and radio station (if your community was large enough to have one.)

The World is a very different place now. We have the Internet, we have online shopping, we have many places where people can go to shop and purchase everything they need all in one place, competition is overwhelming.

What does all this mean? It means that marketing your pet business has to change with the times to be and remain successful. You need to market differently, find ways to stand out from the crowd, market in locations where people frequent, whether that be online or offline and create a good base of loyal customers that will share your great story. Marketing in the digital age is a very different ballgame than it was 'back when.'

Yet, it is very possible to be successful over time in marketing your pet business in a constantly changing environment. How? By finding and creating innovative ways to market to your specific target audience, have the forethought to anticipate changes and trends, and take action quickly, effectively, efficiently, and cost effectively.

Photo credits: Change.

Recognizing disguised comment spam on your pet business blog.

Spam

 [spam]
noun, verb, spammed, spam·ming.

1.

Trademark . a canned food product consisting especially of pork formed into a solid block.

2.

( lowercase ) disruptive messages, especially commercial messages posted on a computer network or sent as e-mail. –noun

3.

( lowercase ) to send spam. –verb (used with object)

There is nothing worse than spam, (notice the word is lowercase :), whether it's a noun or a verb.

It's been going on for years, but more and more lately I have been receiving a lot of, what I call, 'disguised spam' on my blogs. That is spam disguised as links in the url, or in the comment itself, that are left on my blog with comments related or unrelated to my blog post. This type of spam is highly annoying, but most importantly it leaves me with a complete distaste for the company that has left the spam comment; as it will for other bloggers and those that read your blog.

There are many companies, including (formerly) respected pet companies, that have hired 'link farms' to search out 'like minded' and high page ranked blogs and leave comments with url links or links in the spam comment in order to receive link backs. They think that this will increase their Google search rankings. But what this actually does is diminish the trust and respect I have for that company and quickly make me press delete.

Here are some examples of 'disguised spam':

• Comments that say just a few words, like “good post” with an additional enticement and link to visit their site.
• Comments that include URLs in either the comment itself, or the URL box of the comment submission form, which may or may not be related to a blog post or the comment. For example, a comment seems to be related to the post, but includes a link to a site to gain further information or make a purchase, but in reality is just a ploy to get a link back from your site.

Here's one of my favs from Johann's Blog:

He is so cute... Puppy Dogs are the best! Like the Beach Boys too!

By Promotional Pens on Putting my toys away! on 2/11/11

On the surface it seems like this could be a legitimate comment, but the 'By Promotional Pens' (where there was a link that I deleted for this post) gives it away that this is just a link back farm comment.

There are other examples that are a bit more obvious, including:

• Comments that are made up of completely unrecognizable characters and/or a mish-mash of words and letters.
• Comments that include only a list of links.

There are several ways to combat 'disguised spam' including:

• Setting your blog to moderate all comments before publishing.
• Utilizing your blogs word verification system for leaving comments. (Although, I don't recommend this option as it discourages comments from those who aren't registered, and I want commenting to be available to everyone).
• Mark spam comments as 'spam' left in your comments to deter further spam.
• Deleting the offending comments.

What do I do? I set comments to be moderated, make commenting available to everyone, and take the time to mark them as spam and delete them, because I want to encourage anyone and everyone to comment, whether they have an account with my blogging system or not.

The most important thing you want is to keep your blog true, honest, clean and engaging. So watch out for 'disguised spam,' help clean it up and don't fall for the trick of leaving 'disguised spam' on other blogs, because Google is watching and actually disapproves of these methods, defeating the purpose, but most importantly decreasing the credibility of your company.

There are much more effective and ideal ways to get link backs for your website or blog, and help you increase your Google rank and pagerank. More on that later.

Facebook Pages gets a new look and some great new features

Yesterday Facebook rolled out some new changes to Facebook Pages, and we're seeing some significant improvement! The changes to Facebook Pages is now mirroring the changes made recently to personal profile pages.

The first and most noticeable change to Facebook Pages is the addition of images at the top of the page. With this addition, there are some fun and informative things you can do with this section. Take a look at one of our experiments on Pawsible Marketing's FB page. We've added some informative images about what services we provide to pet businesses. (Click the image to increase the size).


Missing from the Facebook Page now is the information section on the left sidebar. So we added some information to our main graphic image/logo to help individuals learn more about our company at a quick glance.

Another big and welcome change is the addition of email notifications when someone posts to your FB page wall or adds a comment. To make sure you receive these notifications, navigate to the 'your settings' section in edit mode and make sure the box is checked to receive notifications.

Facebook Page admins can also 'like' and post on other pages as your page (business or brand). As an example, as admin for Pawsible Marketing's FB page, I could navigate to Johann The Dog's FB page and as long as I 'liked' that page, I could leave a comment as Pawsible Marketing, and that comment will show up in Pawsible Marketing's dedicated News Feed. I can just as easily switch back to leaving a comment as an individual.

Another great addition is the ability to change the category of your page, if you had selected the wrong category when setting up the page originally.

Facebook explains the difference between the 'Everyone' and 'Page Posts Only Tab' as part of your Wall feed:

Page admins can select between an "Everyone" and a Page posts only default tab for the wall. Instead of showing a reverse chronological stream of posts, the Everyone tab shows users posts Facebook thinks will be the most relevant. Recent posts by friends, posts by other users in same language or country, and posts that have received a lot of Likes and comments will bubble to the top.

The option to upgrade became available yesterday. We hear you have until March 10th to take a tour of the change, as that is when the change will become automatic.

Video marketing for your pet business.

Super Bowl advertising is fascinating to me. Companies pay very big bucks to get noticed during the big event.

With ads in the neighborhood of $3M for a 30-sec spot, utilizing dogs (and other animals) in commercials, campaigns and various advertising and marketing programs during the Super Bowl, isn't new.

Budweiser has done it for years.

This year's Super Bowl commercials didn't disappoint in utilizing dogs and other animals to engage with potential customers. I saw several companies jumping on the dog bandwagon to help them promote their products and services.

Beyond sponsoring this year's Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet, Suburu encouraged dog lovers to get out and exercise during the big day, by holding the Subaru Game Day Dog Walk Event; and foregoing traditional advertising spots during the Super Bowl.

Participants pledged to walk their four-legged friend on game day and receive a free doggy gift pack from Subaru. They also promoted their involvement with the ASPCA. As part of the promotion, they had some very fun and unique videos on YouTube, highlighting the fact their Suburu's are 'dog tested.'

Last year, Doritos held a very popular contest to promote their brand. This year they teamed with Pepsi to hold Crash The Super Bowl, a video contest to find a winner for the commercial that aired during the Super Bowl. This year's finalist featured a pug, crashing his owner to get to some Doritos. And who can forget last year's Doritos finalist featuring a dog avenging with a dog shock collar.

And Budweiser didn't let us down with their popular Dog Sitter Super Bowl Commercial this year for Bud Light. Those are some talented pups!

You don't need a $3M budget to utilize dogs (or other animals) in videos, advertising and other marketing programs to promote your product, service or business. Some of the best viral videos I've seen on YouTube were made with an inexpensive HD video camera and a dog (or a cat or other animal).

One thing that all these videos have in common is a great little story featuring an animal and a product or service.

Tell a 'laugh out loud' funny, or 'tug at the heart strings' heart-warming, story and you can increase your chances of making your video go viral.

Basic site info some pet businesses miss to help them fully market their products and services.

Many pet business websites, blogs, social media sites, emails and and other marketing tools I've seen over the years are missing some very basic, yet highly important, info for their potential and current customers, partners, distributors, and wholesalers.

Hopefully the following info doesn't apply to your pet business sites, but it's always good to do a quick review of some basics, right? So here I go:

#1 - Believe it or not the number one item I see missing from pet business sites is their location. If you have a website, social media site, blog or send out email newsletters, be sure and add in all your contact info to the site or newsletter, so interested prospects and customers can easily contact you, or at least know if you are in an area that can serve them.

I also believe it's important to have your phone number and email address available to them as well, not just a form on your site. Make it easy for those interested in your products and/or services to contact you if they need. If they have trouble figuring out how to contact you, how will they trust you to provide great products and services?

#2 - The second item I see very frequently is pet business website urls missing from the front page of their Facebook page. Why not make it easy for those that 'like' and are thinking of 'liking' your Facebook page to check out your site and review what you offer?

There is a perfect location on every Facebook business page, just under the page's main image, that allows you to add your url (example: www.yourpetbusiness.com), so that it is clickable and readily available to anyone who would be interested in visiting your site and learning more about your products and services.

You can alter this information in the edit section of your FB page. Same rules apply for Twitter too. Make sure you have a nice description of your business and a link to your url on your Twitter page/profile.

#3 - And the third item I see pet business missing is a clear and simple statement of what they provide (either products or services) featured very prominently on the front page of their website. When prospects and customers visit your website, make it easy for them to fully understand what your business does and provides.

#4 - My number four 'pet peeve' is not having contact information in regular emails that you send out to communicate with your prospects, customers, distributors, wholesalers and partners. Again, make it super simple for interested parties to contact you and learn more about your sites, products and services. Be sure and add in your name, website address, FB and Twitter urls, phone number, email address, city and state in the signature of your email. And add a nice logo graphic for punch too, keep that branding going.

Remember, all these 'marketing tools' can and will help you build your business, you just need to utilize them properly and to their maximum effectiveness. Now go check your sites!

How to get notifications for your pet business Facebook page.

Having a Facebook business page for your pet business is a great marketing tool! I have three of them for all three of my brands.

Checking the page throughout the day can be time consuming, but it's important not to miss any messages or comments that your 'likers' have left, to keep in close contact with your prospects and customers.

One of the features that Facebook hasn't implemented yet is notifications when someone posts or comments on your Facebook page. Some call it 'the feature Facebook forgot.'

The other day I came across a third-party application that does provide notifications to your email inbox when someone posts to your page or comment. It's called Hyper Alerts.

I tested it out the other day. Went to the website, created an account, added in my three Facebook page urls, sat back and waited for notifications to come to my email box. Quickly I found that it wasn't working.

After a bit of research I found out why. I made the changes and now I'm getting those valuable notifications. What was the glitch? I used my vanity url when imputing into their system, when I needed to input the original url.

If you have a vanity url, how do you find your original url? Well, it wasn't easy, but here are the instructions to make it easy for you:

1. Type out the following: http://facebook.com/pages/(insert name of your page here)/

2. Then hover over the image of your facebook page, right click and paste the url it into notepad or some similar program. Copy and paste the id number (just the number) from that url and paste it in at the end of the url that you just typed.

It should look something like this (only with the name of your page and your id number):

http://www.facebook.com/pages/PawsibleMarketing/96800537129

3. Open another tab and insert your url and make sure it directs to your page. If it does, you are ready to go.

I went back into the Hyper Alerts system and changed the url's of all my Facebook pages and now I'm happy to say I am getting notices when someone posts or comments on my Facebook business pages!