Why fonts are important to your pet business brand.

Your website, marketing materials, shelf talkers, POP displays, packaging...they all have fonts; fonts that represent your brand.

So why is the font you choose important?

It needs to convey the same exact feeling, thoughts and emotion as your product or service brand. One of the most important ways you can do that is through the fonts you use with all your marketing materials.

Let's take a humorous example...

The font used on the top paper is Comic Sans. While Sans Serif fonts are great to use and easy to read, Comic Sans gives you the feeling of frivolity, lightness, humor...and really isn't right for this occasion which is more serious in nature. And the bottom sign is correct, Comic Sans may be perfect for a Lemonade Stand, but not for a Fortune 500 company.

Interestingly, researchers Hyunjin Song and Norbert Schwarz have found that easier to read fonts convey that the task is easier to do, vs a harder to read font implies that the task is more difficult and time consuming.  So if you want your potential customers to act, make the font easy to read and simple for the most effective action.

Your brand should convey some fun and ease, especially when working in the pet industry. And yet, they should be easy to read, respectful, flow nicely from one font to the other and make it simple for prospective and current customers to understand your brand, your product/service, and your expectations quickly and easily.

If you need help in a powerful brand look and feel, contact us for a free 30 minute evaluation and discussion about how we can help your pet business be more successful.

Facebook alert: Will your Facebook personal page be deleted?

Facebook is on a mission to clean up their site. And that means they will be deleting all personal accounts that are fake.

What does this mean for your Facebook page?

Hopefully nothing if you've followed Facebook's terms of service and created a Facebook Page for your pet business, product, service, pet or pet personality.

But if you are still utilizing a Facebook personal page to represent your pet business, product, service, or pet and that personal page doesn't represent you as an individual, or if you use a personal page as a cross posting account, then most probably your Facebook personal page will be deleted.

Learn more about how you can convert your Facebook personal page that you've been utilizing for business to a Facebook business page. But remember, you will loose all your content, but can keep your personal page friends as 'likers' of your new Facebook Page.

If you need help in establishing a Facebook program, feel free to contact us for a free 30 minute evaluation and discussion about how we can help your pet business be more successful.

Over 90 percent of your online pet business market is utilizing social media.

Did you know that 91% of online adults use social media regularly?

Social media can play a big role in the purchasing decisions of your pet business customers and prospective customers.

Consider this scenario:

• A potential customer for your online pet store is looking for a new and unique dog collar for a special occasion.
• This potential customer posts friend recommendation requests on their personal Facebook page.
• Within minutes, this potential customer receives anywhere from 2-40 recommendations from their friends (depending upon the number of friends they have).

The goal is for you and your company to be one of the recommendations. But how do you do that? Here are a few tips:

• Utilize social media as a means to market your product/service and don't be left out of being included in the scenario above. 
• Get connected on these social networks with many prospective customers, get as many likers as possible through Facebook ads, running contests, and more (within Facebook's terms of service, of course). 
• Provide the highest level of service and quality so that your current customers will remember and recommend you.
• Then let the process work for you.

If you need help in establishing a more cohesive and powerful social media program, feel free to contact us for a free 30 minute evaluation and discussion about how we can help your pet business be more successful.

Business bloggers get more website traffic than those that don't.

Did you know businesses that blog average 55% more website visitors than those that don't?

Blogging as part of your business can not only drive more traffic to your site, but it can also position your company as a thought leader within your pet business segment.

It's also a way that potential and current customers can be more connected with your company, understand your brand, your product and your service, and you as a business owner, and provide amazing product/service feedback.

It's never been as important as it is now in gaining the trust of your potential and current customers, especially in the pet business industry. With all the recalls of late, pet lovers are cautious, wary and unsure of who they can trust. It's your job to reassure them that your pet business product and service is safe, healthy and good for their pet; and blogging is certainly a wonderful way to do that, as well as connect with your audience and build the trust your prospective and current customers want and need.

If you need help in establishing a successful and powerful blogging program, feel free to contact us for a free 30 minute evaluation and discussion about how we can help your pet business be more successful.

Is your pet business market declining? How you can successfully market to the shifting demographic of pet product and service buyers.

For the first time since pet industry statistics have been tracked, pet ownership is down in the United States.

Just this month the American Veterinary Medical Association provided a sneak peak at the 2012 Pet Ownership Demographics as part of their Sourcebook that will be available this fall.

In 1988, the first year the survey was conducted, 56% of U.S. households owned a pet as compared to 62% in 2008.

Growth has been steady in pet ownership, however the latest AVMA's report indicates, 'Americans had 2 million fewer dogs and 7.6 million fewer cats at the end of last year (2011) than at the end of 2006."

Their survey also indicates most pet owners have dogs at nearly 70 million, or 36.5% of U.S. homes. Cats are in 30.4% of homes at 74 million.

This is in comparison to their 2006 statistics indicating the canine population dropped from about 72 million in 2006 to 70 million in 2011, a 2.8 percent decrease, while the feline population fell by 9.3 percent, from about 81.7 million in 2006 to 73.1 million in 2011.

What are the factors precipitating the decline in US pet ownership? There are several factors, we believe.

The first being the economy. Since the decline of the economy starting in 2007-2008, many US households have seen a decline in income, topped with higher expenditures, job loses and more.(simplified). As individuals encountered more difficulties in finances, pet ownership declined as less pets were brought into homes.

The second precipitating factor is the aging baby boomer population who have historically become four-legged parents as their two-legged kids have left home. The baby boomer generation has been the primary pet purchaser over recent years. As the baby boomers age, and their pets reach old age and the end of their lives, this aging population is less likely to add another pet to their family.

With population growth hovering around percentage growth rates of .90 over the past years and predicted to range from .90 to .70 percent in years leading to 2050, where is the market shift to indicate this decline?

Taking into account the pet business market, which historically has been women between the ages of 25-55 primarily, you can see a shift occurring in the overall population growth within these ranges. Within the general population, the number of women in age ranges of 35-45 has been declining over recent years.

In addition, the number of women, ages 15-34, has been leveling and/or slightly declining in recent years. Compare this with women, ages 45-65 (which has been the pet business market over the past 15-20 years) has significant growth rates over many past years.

What this means is that the market for pet business products and services will be declining slightly in years to come.

So what is a pet business to do?

The coming years will see a shift in who purchases pet business products and services; shifting from the present day market of women, ages 25-55, to the upcoming market of women currently between the ages of 8-51.

This next generation of purchasers of pet products and services include the 13th Generation or GenX, who are presently 31-51 years old, and the Millennial Generation or GenY who are  presently 8-30 years old.

The Ethics Resource Center has put together a great study on the behaviors and characteristics of these various generations in comparison to the Baby Boomers.They indicate:

• While Baby Boomers (also classified as the 'Me' Generation) were raised during a time of economic prosperity and are classified as hardworking, idealistic and committed, they are also classified as self-centered, workaholics that have a sense of entitlement.
• The GenX generation is entrepreneurial, flexibile, creative and comfortable with technology, yet are cynical and skeptical, question authority and are sometimes considered more 'lazy'. 
• The GenY generation is very tech savvy, are skilled multi-taskers and appreciate diversity, yet have a short attention span and are not loyal to organizations, segmentally.

This would indicate that the present and recent past way of marketing to the pet business market which is/was to appeal to their pet's sense of entitlement and the idealist vision of pets as four-legged family members and pushing loyalty, is beginning to turn to the present and forward thinking marketing tactics for GenX through 'proof in the pudding,' 'what's in it for me,' educational through an easy means of communication via technological advances, such as social media and the Internet, will progress even more to quick, pointed, flexible, social and visual messaging through even more advanced technological means that satisfy the GenX lifestyle.

It's not difficult to market to those we know and understand. What will be a challenge is understanding those generations that come after us and how best to reach, interact and satisfy their wants and needs to keep your pet business successful in future years.

For help in planning your future marketing strategy, tactics and messaging, feel free to contact Pawsible Marketing for a 30 minute exploratory discussion about how we can help your pet business.

Sources: AVMA, APPA, Google Public Population Data, Ethics Resource Center, Wikipedia. Photo/chart courtesy of Janet Loehrke, USAToday. Photos courtesy of Sean MacEntee and Yukari.

Reinvention is key to successfully marketing your pet business!

To keep up with your prospects and customers busy lives and most effectively reach and connect with your target audience, re-invention is key to the marketing success of your pet business.

There may be times when the marketing tactic or promotion that worked so well for your pet business last month or last year, just isn't bringing you the results you expected this year.

That's why it's so important for you to keep up with what your audience wants and needs, as well as marketing tactics and promotions that they like and respond to; and, just as important, track, analyze, evaluate and measure the effectiveness of  every marketing tactic or promotion you undertake.

If you didn't get the results you expected. take a step back and see how you may be able to improve or expand upon your promotion to make it more effective taking into account the lives and behaviors of your target audience. And don't be shy about tweaking mid-promotion. It may make or break the effectiveness of your sales.

With the barrage of messages that your target audience receive each and every day, you need to continuously reinvent, reinvent and reinvent your marketing strategies and plans to keep up and stand out with your marketing, and make your pet business marketing plans and strategies the most effective to get the results you need to be successful.