Online consumers shopping plans for Black Friday and Cyber Monday (infographic)

An interesting graphic outlining shopping interests for men, women, seniors and Gen Y for Black Friday and Cyber Monday courtesy of Tada.
Get more coupon data at Tada.

What should pet businesses expect for the upcoming holiday season?

Two reports recently surfaced giving pet businesses a bit of insight into what they can expect for the upcoming holiday season.

According to the National Retail Federation, 'faced with continued economic uncertainty and used to doing more with less, consumers will take a conservative approach to spending this holiday season.'

The survey, conducted by Prosper Insights and Analytics, also indicates average shoppers will spend approximately two percent less than they spent last year. When asked if the overall state of the economy would affect their spending, 'more than half (51.0%) of consumers said the economy would in some way impact how they spend this holiday season. Specifically, 79.5 percent plan to spend less overall, looking to cut corners and tighten budgets where they can.'

To make more room in their budgets this year, consumers plan to cut back on “self-gifting,” or treating themselves to something, according to the report. 'Shoppers’ budget will go towards gifts for family members, with the average person planning to spend $415.50 on mom, dad, and other loved ones, down slightly from the actual $423.36 they spent last year. Additionally, people will spend $72.14 on friends, $23.59 on co-workers and $25.63 on others, such as pets and community members,' the report indicated.

Consistent with results seen the past 11 years, the report also shares information about when consumers will start their shopping:

- 41.2 percent of Americans say they will begin holiday shopping before Halloween.
- 12.4 percent say they started before September,
- 8.2 percent began in September.
- 20.6 percent will begin in October.
- More than one-third (38.8%) will begin in November.
- 16.0 percent plan to start shopping in the first two weeks of December.
- Almost four percent (3.9%) will wait until last minute and shop in the last two weeks of the month.

Additionally, the report indicates more than half (51.5%) will shop online.

On the other hand, a recent report from American Express Spending and Saving Tracker (which tracks higher income levels) indicates, 'with a late Thanksgiving and the shortest holiday shopping season in years, consumers say they’re starting their holiday shopping sooner and spending more this year.'

The report goes on to say, 'consumers say they will expect to spend $1,260, up $400 from last year. Aiming to find the best deals, more than a quarter of Americans say they’ve already started holiday shopping and will finish before December 1st (27% vs. 24% in 2012), while others expect to finish a week before Christmas (37% vs. 33% in 2012).'

The AMEX Spending and Saving Tracker indicates, 'for the first time, Cyber Monday is beating out Black Friday as the most popular shopping day, as more consumers (55% vs. 39% in 2012) say they’ll shop the virtual blowout sales instead of fighting the crowds the day after Thanksgiving (52% vs. 45% in 2012)./

The report also shares many will go social in their savings this year 'as 66% plan to take advantage of offers via social media sites, up from 60% last year.' And when looking for discounts consumers look toward social media as well as, 'consumers “like” Facebook as the most popular social resource (49% vs. 46% in 2012), followed by Groupon (43%, up significantly from 27% last year), Pinterest (20%, up from 10%) and Twitter (20%, up from 15%).'

It's not too late to quickly reformulate your holiday marketing plan of attack and strategy to take full advantage of the upcoming holiday season and maximize sales for your pet business. Feel free to email us for a 30 minute free consultation to explore ideas of how we can help you make the most of the holidays.

Sources: American Express Spending and Saving Tracker and National Retail Federation. Photo courtesy skirtpr.

Want to know if your pet business marketing is working? Measure it!

You've tried some public relations, some advertising, a little social media, sent newsletters, implemented contests and giveaways, but are you getting the results you need?

Results and a strong return on investment is what what you want with your marketing activities.

But how do you know if your marketing tactics, individually and collectively, are working?

You need to measure them.

Measuring your marketing program is something every company, large or small, needs to do to see if their marketing activities are working, and to see if they are achieving the strong return on investment to build your brand equity, generate leads and increase sales for your company.

Measuring marketing needs to be a big part of your marketing efforts, just as any marketing tactic you may choose to implement. Integrated into a full marketing plan, measuring activities can tell you if you are utilizing your marketing dollar the most effectively to achieve your goals.

How do you measure marketing? It's one of the questions I get everyday from my clients and my prospective clients.

The reality is there are multiple (and sometimes imperfect) ways to measure most forms of marketing. There isn't any definitive metric for many forms of marketing and no single metric can help you evaluate the effectiveness of all of your spending. Yet, you need to track your progress and hold your marketers accountable.

The overall the methodology of measuring your marketing dollar has three specific steps:

Tracking your marketing activities: 

Track impressions, reach, website visitors and from where they come, open rates, likes, comments, new followers, leads, and more.

Determining your sales cycle: 

Take your sales cycles into consideration. Your sales cycles is the length of time it takes for an individual or company to learn of your company and take action to purchase.

Tracking sales: 

Track your sales.Any sales that results in an increase in income, and identify them from their individual sales channels.

Simply put, once you have these three segments of information you can chart and graph from when an audience learns and engages with you to resulting sales, taking into consideration your sales cycle.

Once you have your data you will need to analyze it to see how your marketing activities (individually and collectively) are impacting your sales and brand awareness. But you need to keep in mind these important factors when analyzing your data:

• Good marketers know that it takes much more than seven touches for someone to take notice and become a customer. Believing that one touch, one click will result in a sale is flawed.
• There are many outside factors that can affect your marketing activities including the weather, time of day, the economy, competitors, the quality of your sales reps and marketing team, how your marketing activities are implemented, and more.
• Multiple influencers can also affect your sales. On average there may be up to six people involved in a decision at a mid-sized company, up to 20 or more people may be involved in a decision in a large company. Remember that different marketing programs may also affect individuals differently.
• It may only take one day for an individual to see you on Facebook and click through to purchase. And it may take other individuals seeing you up to seven times on Twitter before they are ready to purchase your product. In addition, it may take months to years for you to engage a deal with a retailer that you met at a trade show.
• It's important to look beyond the "first touch" and seek to measure additional and multiple touches within your marketing measurement program.
• Larger sales are easier to measure and may be specifically attributed to an individual event. However individual consumer sales can only be measured through trending of your marketing activity measurement.
• Measuring your company's branding influence and awareness is very different than measuring your company sales. 

It may seem simple, but measuring your marketing in this manner can be a complex and time consuming process, however it is a much needed aspect of your overall marketing program.

What you put in is what you get out. By investing the time and resources into developing a marketing measurement program you increase your ability to market more effectively. Additionally, you will have the knowledge you need to utilize your marketing dollar to it's fullest by selecting and combining individual marketing tactics that work much more effectively for your business, increasing sales, profits, brand awareness and market share.

To learn more about how you can make the best use of your marketing dollar, feel free to contact us for a free 30-minute consultation.

Dog and cat populations around the world

If you are looking for statistics relating to the number of dogs and cats in various countries around the world for your pet business marketing, including the US, Brazil, Russia, China, the UK and more, Maps around the World has a fairly good estimate in the following maps:

Top Ten Countries With Most Pet Cat Population

Top Ten Countries With Most Pet Dog Population

You can click on the images to enlarge them. The numbers vary somewhat from the Dog and Cat populations numbers for the US from the American Pet Products Association and the AVMA, but they are close and can give you a fairly good idea of statistics for other countries to help you with worldwide marketing.

Why the colors you choose for your brand are important to your pet business.

The science of color in marketing has always been fascinating to me. As I help a wide variety of pet businesses, small and large, with their marketing and branding, I often find a long conversation ensues with my clients about the issue of color in their marketing planning and strategy.

Did you know that according to the Institute for Color Research, "...people make a subconscious judgment about a person, environment, or product within 90 seconds of initial viewing and that between 62% and 90% of that assessment is based on color alone."

The first and primary consideration when selecting a color for your pet business branding is your target market. Women, between the ages of 25-55, with a slightly higher income level are the primary purchasers of pet products in the US, currently.

Women have preferences, and matching those preferences to achieve a higher level of engagement in your marketing is of utmost importance. Secondary target audiences for pet businesses, including GenX, Millenials and men should also be considered when planning your pet business branding.

Before coming to any branding conclusions it's important to understand the emotions and impressions that a variety of colors provide psychologically. Let's take a look...

According to The Logo Company, various colors exude various emotions, and fit better with specific industries and product purposes. For example:

• Black is a credible, strong and powerful color that's best for financial, construction and corporate entities.
• Red is an exciting, urgent, sexy and romantic color that's best used for food, fashion, sports, and emergency services.
• Green is a natural, organic and calming color best utilized in tourism, eco-friendly, science and medical industries.
• Blue is a credible, calming, clean and focused color best used with high-tech, legal, corporate and medical/scientific communities.
• Orange exudes credibility, creativity, energy and is used widely with the child, sports, entertain and food/drink industries.
• Yellow is an encouraging, energetic, youthful and positive color that is used frequently in food/drink, entertainment and child related industries.
• Purple is a sensual, mysterious and loving color that is used widely within spiritual industries, and industries relating to the body and health.
• Brown is an earthy color, traditional, conservative and is used widely within the pet industry, construction and ecology related industries.
• White (yes, white is a color) is very clean, pure and clinical in nature; as it's used frequently within the medial and dental community.

Did you ever wonder why when you see the word 'sale' on a sign, on a website, on in a store, it's usually red?

There's a reason for that; as red creates a perception of urgency. According to KISSMetrics, other colors create psychological responses and actions for purchase including: red for urgency, blue for security, orange for call to action and more.

Some colors work well together, some don't. And some color combinations can leave a 'bad taste' with your customers and prospective customers. Color wheels can help in providing you with information about how colors work together and make a more informed decision.

While each of these colors provides a perception individually, it's the combination of well integrated colors in your pet business marketing that will tell a full story of your brand and your positioning.

What specific colors appeal to specific genders according to KISSMetrics?

• Women - blues, greens and purples
• Men - blues, greens and blacks

When thinking about your brand, your positioning, your marketing materials; think first about your customer and prospective customer. What do they like, what makes them feel comfortable, what perceptions can you convey that will appeal to them and create sales for you. It's not about what you like, it's about what they like.

If you'd like more information about how Pawsible Marketing can help with your branding, positioning and marketing, feel free to contact us for a free 30 minute consult to explore ideas.

Photo courtesy of John Baer.

Free photo tips and image editors to help you market your pet business.

Images are a big part of your pet business marketing. At least they should be!

From Facebook images, images on Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and on your website; high quality, simple images that get your idea across, and wow your audience, is key in getting noticed with your pet business customers and potential customers.

I'm a big fan of photography...have been for years. I take well over 20 or more photos of my dogs and cats on a daily basis. I keep my camera and my smartphone handy all the time, because you never know when I can capture a great photo of my pets that I can use to market my businesses. I have a library of well over 5,000 photos of my dogs and cats that I can pull from whenever I need. And you should too!

I took these two photos...the first one with my Smartphone of Gracie outside near our cabin, and the second one I took with my simple point and shoot camera of YoYo taking a rest while I work in my office.

But you don't have to be a professional photographer to get some great shots that you can use to market your pet business. Candid, interesting, clean and in focus shots are very popular now with websites and social media. And this makes it easier for you.

Not too long ago, my dog, YoYo (Johann) wrote a great article (with my help of course) about how to take great photos of your pets. Visit his Squidoo lens to get some great ideas to help make your photos pop!

And if you are looking for some quick and easy photo editing methods and tools, here is a quick list of free online image editors that can make your job easier:

• Pixlr - a free image editor that is browser based with no software download needed. It's the best free Adobe Photoshop like editor available.
• PicMonkey - PicMonkey is a web app that also includes some fun photo editing with Instagram-like filters.
• Fotor - An online image editor that is similar to PicMonkey, and boosts a wide selection of filters to help make your images stand out (but don't overdo the filters, K)

Happy photo taking and editing!