Content marketing can be a powerful tool for your pet business.

Content marketing can be an amazing marketing tool for your pet business.

What is content marketing?

"Content marketing is a marketing activity revolving around the creation and distribution of relevant and valuable content and information to engage, attract, and acquire a clearly defined and understood target audience with the objective of increased sales."

For pet businesses, with millions of pet owners, content marketing can be very powerful as this audience is always on the hunt for information to help their pets with health and wellness issues, new and innovative products, activities and fun things to do, the latest news and information, and more.

By providing rich, original content to your target market and audience, you have the ability to attract and draw this prospective audience right to you virtual or physical doorstep, if you do it right.

Here are a few key thoughts that I've found to make a content marketing program for pet businesses the most successful:

• Content marketing is not an 'island.' By integrating your content marketing into your marketing mix and utilizing all your marketing resources together and effectively can greatly increase your marketing efforts and stretch your marketing dollar.
  
  
• The content you provide needs to be original, geared and targeted to your specific audience, whether it be national or local in scope, and designed to engage and attract.
  
  
• There are various ways to provide content marketing including via a blog, YouTube, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, email newsletters or via your website, all designed around your brand and your expertise.
  
  
• Experimenting with your content, and consequently gauging acceptance and response from your target audience can provide valuable insight into what your customers and prospective customers want and need from your pet business.
  
  
• Your content needs to be the best in your pet business niche to stand out from the crowd, and as a result can effectively build your brand and increase sales.
  
  

• The planning of your annual content marketing is imperative, and delivering on that plan is very important to providing a reliable and consistent program that your pet business audience can rely on and trust, and come back for more, often.
  


• To outsource or not to outsource? That's a big question. You may be able to outsource your content marketing program, but if you do make certain that your provider is creating original content (not content copied from other sources) and be sure that the content your outsourcer provides is powerful, extremely relevant to your audience and provides a consistent voice for your brand. Outsourcer must be experienced, and fully understand and have the ability to speak to your audience.
  


• Content marketing can be time sensitive. Pet parent issues often are seasonal in nature, revolve around holidays, and can be reactive to national and local news related issues. Be prepared to move quickly with your content when the need arises.
  

If you do decide to add content marketing to your marketing mix, be sure you are ready for task, plan your program well, deliver original, relevant and powerful content that helps your pet business stand out from the crowd to provide the most effective informational program to increase sales for your pet business.

For more information about how to add content marketing efficiently and effectively to your marketing mix, feel free to contact Pawsible Marketing for assistance in building your program for the highest level of effectiveness for your pet business.

Photo credits: DougWoods and Angela N.

Leslie May, founder of PM, featured in Progressive Grocer Magazine.

Leslie May, founder of Pawsible Marketing, was featured in the May issue of Progressive Grocer Magazine, in an article discussing what consumers are looking for in healthier options for their pets.

"Big-box stores and supermarkets already

committed to the pet-loving market will

continue to grab market share and

expand shelf space, concentrating on

consumer demands of healthier

products for their pets."

- Leslie May, Pawsible Marketing

Read the full article here on Progressive Grocer's website.

One of the most important Facebook tips you can utilize for your pet business.

As I visit pet business Facebook pages throughout the week, I frequently see one glaring improvement I wanted to share with you that can greatly improve your Facebook page, get you website more traffic, and increase sales.

It's a little known tip for many and if you found it, congratulations! If you haven't here it is...

In the About section of your Facebook page, that appears just under your Profile photo, is a small text area where you can share info about your company.

But what many people don't know is that you can also add a clickable link to your website in this location (local business pages excluded). (See an example image below, click to enlarge).

The best information you can place here is your branding statement - what you provide and to whom, what makes your stand out from the crowd, and what makes your pet business the best in it's category! Then add a clickable link, (with the http://) so that visitors can go right to your website when they are ready, making it very accessible to increase sales..

To adjust this section of your Facebook page, simply click 'Edit Page' in your Admin Panel, and click on 'Update Public Info,' then click on 'Basic Information' and you will see the 'short description'

box where the information is pulled to appear on the front page of your Facebook page.

Keep the sentence simple, quickly read, with a little wow and punch to draw in your prospective customer, then add the clickable link and see the increase in traffic to your website.

Online sales tax bill moves to the Senate; what this means for online pet business retailers

Yesterday, the Senate voted 75-22 to advance the online sales tax bill, also called the The Marketplace Fairness Act, SB. 743.

With this latest vote it is suggested that supporters of the bill are likely to see it win approval in the Senate later this week.

It's path through the House, is not as clear.

The bill would require online retailers to collect state and local sales taxes for purchases made over the Internet. The sales taxes would be then be sent to the states where a shopper lives.

The bill would exempt small businesses that earn less than $1 million (calculated from the preceding calendar year) annually from out-of-state sales (and requires states to provide retailers with software to calculate sales taxes based on a buyer’s zip code.)

Under current law, states can only require stores to collect sales taxes if the store has a physical presence in the state, such as a headquarters, distribution center, affiliate business and more.

Proponents indicate that many online sales are essentially tax-free, giving Internet retailers a big advantage over brick-and-mortar stores. Opponents say it would require complicated regulations for retailers and doesn't have enough protections for small businesses.

According to CBS, 'Last year, Internet sales in the U.S. totaled $226 billion, up nearly 16 percent from the previous year, according to Commerce Department estimates.'

So what does this mean for your pet business?

If you are a small online pet business with under $1M in out-of-state sales, you would be exempt from this proposed law. If you are a larger pet business with sales over $1M in out-of-state sales, the bill would require you to calculate (with potentially supplied software from your state) sales tax based on the purchaser's zip code and then pay local and state sales tax on those purchases to each state based on these calculations.

UPDATE: May 6, 2013 - Today the Senate voted 69-27 to pass the The Marketplace Fairness Act, also known as the "Internet Sales Tax." The bill is expected to face more opposition in the U.S. House.

Photo courtesy of DerekGavey.

Dadvertising: What you need to know to reach men and dads in your pet business advertising

You may have noticed recently that Dad's have at last become a worthwhile adverting proposition for products other than home improvement, power tools and beer.

Companies looking to target a wider range of demographics for product and service sales are increasingly targeting men and dads in their advertisements. Take recent advertisements such as Yoplait's GoGurt, as an example.

Times have changed and no longer can we say 'mom does all the shopping.' Companies have finally recognized that dad does a bit, as well, hence the birth of 'Dadvertising.'

With the changing demographic of the pet loving and pet purchasing audience, which I wrote about in my 'Top Pet Industry Trends for 2013' blog post, I've been thinking a lot about how the pet industry may be missing out on targeting new and upcoming audiences to broaden and begin to build a newer, and often missed, prospective purchasing demographic.

The first demographic we'll be discussing in our series of untapped markets is men, and the 'dads' of the household.

Is the pet industry missing out on dad as a target market?

In looking at Facebook demographics recently of many of the pet product and service Facebook pages I manage, the overwhelming audience is primarily women between the ages of 25-55. Not surprising as this is currently the primary purchasers of pet products.

Digging a little deeper I am seeing a very gradual increase in another demographic; males, primarily within the 45-54 age range, and secondarily in the 35-34 and 55-64 age ranges; consisting of approximately 17-19% of the entire audiences.

For years, a wide variety of companies from beer to cars have utilized dogs and other heartwarming messages to capture the hearts of potential purchasers. Are they utilizing these ads to appeal to men? Not necessarily; they are looking to expand their markets outside of the their usual demographic (men) and targeting their secondary demographic - women. Take Tide's early involvement in Nascar, as an example.

However it's very rare (and virtually non-existent) to see a man being targeted in a dog product/service related advertisement or commercial.

Who are the men that pet product and service companies can target?

According to a study by DB5 and Hunter, dads (and men) are more and more involved in household tasks and purchasing decisions.

In terms of having primary responsibility - 51% are responsible for grocery shopping, 41% are responsible for the laundry and 40% are responsible for the house cleaning.

In terms of being the primary decision maker: 60% are responsible for purchasing consumer packaged goods products, 55% for personal care products and 54% for home goods.

Dads (men) and moms shop differently:

• Dads find shopping more personally enjoyable than moms. 
• Dads are more likely to buy premium and branded products, as they are more brand conscious than moms. 
• They are more influenced by research online. 8 in 10 dads will leverage online resources, such as review sites, retailer sites and even online ads, to learn about and decide on brands from “unconventional” categories.

And ads from traditional mom categories don’t 'speak' to dads and they are craving for them to improve:

It's the male who is responsible for the purchasing within the household for SAHD (stay at home dads) and currently older men who have more responsibility for purchasing within the household (men in the 50+ year old range).

Targeting men isn't easy, especially since the pet industry has been so ingrained in targeting baby boomer women. So caution is warranted in reaching this target intelligently, respectfully and effectively.

How do you target men in the pet industry? Generally speaking, let's take a look a some differences in speaking to men vs women as primary purchasers of pet products and services:

Women think of their pets as family members and enjoy the 'awwwww,' cute, heartwarming and cuddly moments. They want to be spoken to about how pet products and services will bring out that emotion in them. However...

• Men  think of their pets as their best friends, enjoy the fun, relationship moments with them and want to be spoken to more directly and succinctly, and in a more factual way that will enhance that relationship with their pets.
• Targeting men in pet related advertising needs to be well thought out, intelligent, direct, without gender preferences, smart, and respectful, without 'talking down' to the audience. Pet 'dads' want to be empowered.

Generally speaking (and without being too stereotypical) men who purchase pet products may be more active, enjoy time with their dogs in the outdoors and engaging in sports. But they also enjoy time hanging out together, watching the game, grilling in the backyard. And they may be stay at home dads with the primary responsibility of caring for pets in the family, as well as the kids.

Bottom Line:

As an untapped market in the pet industry, targeting men may be a worthwhile endeavor  in building brand loyalty for your pet products and services. However companies looking to tap into this target segment should consider adjusting the messaging of their ads by incorporating information that helps this new market intelligently make more informed decisions, and by speaking directly to this new audience.

For more information about how your pet business can target additional emerging markets, feel free to contact Pawsible Marketing to explore ideas and prospective plans to grow your pet business.

Photo courtesy of AfroDad on Flickr.

Pinterest launches analytics tool for help in measuring ROI for your pet business

Pinterest has finally launched an analytics tool to help better understand who is accessing your Pinterest content, repinning, viewing and clicking, and ultimately help you better understand ROI in utilizing Pinterest for your pet business.

From the Analytics tool you can view how many people are pinning from your website, seeing your pins, clicking your content, which pins are getting the most repins, who pins them and what others are pinning along side your pins. In addition, you can export your data to track over time.

To see your Pinterest analytics you will first need to verify your website with Pinterest. To do this:

1. Login to your Pinterest account
2. Click on settings
3. Scroll down to where you've inputted your website address and click on the 'Verify Website' button
4. Follow the instructions to either download a file that you will upload to your web host, or capture the meta tag that you save and upload to the host.
5. Once you've uploaded the file or the meta tag go back to Pinterest and click to complete the process.

Once you have verified your site with Pinterest (and clicked on the 'switch to the new look' if you haven't done so already) you will be able to see your analytics by clicking the drop down arrow by your name.