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Last Updated: Dec 21st, 2004 - 22:04:52 |
If you are like me, you're probably always wishing you had more time and money so that you could do a better job of marketing. Most of us enjoy the “production” aspects - breeding, raising, training, showing - of our canine business. But marketing is essential if we are to make money to offset our expenses, and maybe even show a profit.
Marketing challenges
Marketing and advertising in our business certainly has its challenges. These include:
1. Competition. In the dog industry, competition is fierce and everywhere. Not too long ago, you only had to worry about local competition, but now with the Internet, people are selling their dogs and related products/services nationally and internationally.
2. Regulations and obstacles. Provinces and states regulate movement of live animals and they all have different requirements. Selling of dogs outside the local jurisdiction requires knowledge and abidance of the rules. This may also be true of other related products being sold in another country.
3. Media noise. Consumers are becoming increasingly resistant to advertising, and companies are increasing their marketing to compensate. It is very difficult for a small business to have the resources for advertising that will be noticed and stand out from the rest.
4. Loss of privacy. Once you start advertising, you will be placed on various mailing lists, and contacted by companies and individuals trying to sell you something. Also, as you become successful, more people will start contacting you for free advice. This can be very time-consuming!
5. Wasted money. It is inevitable that you are going to waste a lot of money in advertising. The frustrating part is you often don't know where you are wasting it. Wastage is due to such things as:
Advertising to the wrong people
Using the wrong messages
Advertising at the wrong time
Wrong approach - 50% of people are logical and 50% are emotional
People (salespersons) talk you into things you don't need
Other controllable or uncontrollable factors.
6. Consumes time and effort. Marketing will take up a lot of your time and effort. This takes you away from the production aspects, probably the main reason you went into the dog business in the first place. You can hire people to take care of some aspects of your business, but to be effective, you need to be in charge. Your time and attention will be required to:
Preparing effective promotional and advertising materials
Implementing your marketing campaign, e.g., mailing
Handling inquiries and dealing with “tire-kickers”.
Six secrets to success
Here are six important concepts to keep in mind when planning and doing your marketing.
1. Become consumer, not producer-centered. Always keep the consumer's needs/wants in mind and focus on them. Avoid focusing on product/service features or your own interests first.
2. Make it easy for people to do business with you. Make it easy for them to:
Find you (contact information and physical location)
Contact you (24 hours a day, 7 days a week; through mail, phone - including voice mail or answering service - fax, e-mail and web site)
Get information from you (print and electronic)
Order goods and services
Pay you (cash, check, credit cards, barter and air miles)
Get follow-up support and service.
Constantly ask yourself whether you are putting obstacles in the way of people wanting to do business with you. If you are, they will simply go to your competition!
3. The number one reason people will do business with you is because they trust you. It is important to earn that trust and keep it. Some ways to promote your trustworthiness are:
Offer only quality products and services
Keep your promises (better still, exceed them!)
Be professional and honest at all times
Reduce risks to buyers (e.g., use guarantees)
Tell them how long you have been in business
Join and announce your memberships in organizations, e.g., Better Business Bureau and Chamber of Commerce.
4. Constantly do market research and gather market intelligence. The simplest way is by asking your customers and potential customers lots of questions about their needs and their satisfaction with your services. If time or resources permit, consider doing a random survey from time to time, or getting a group together for a focus group. The more you know about your customers, the more successful your marketing will be.
5. Select a market position and stick with it - whether it's high, middle or low-end. Positioning refers to what image you want to project - a supplier of high quality products or a provider of bargains. All aspects of your marketing must reinforce your positioning. For example, if your positioning is at the high-end, then your prices should be above average, your promotional materials will be of high quality, and so on.
6. Repetition and persistence are key to marketing success. Research has shown that you need to advertise 7 to 12 times to a particular audience before you have any impact. Therefore one-shot marketing should be avoided as it will be unsuccessful. If you have a limited budget, pick a few strategies and stick with them.
Classified ads
Classified ads can be a very cost-effective way to market your dog products and services. With the advent of classifieds on the Internet, your potential reach, both geographically and in numbers, has increased exponentially.
The use of classified ads as part of your marketing strategy has some advantages:
1. Classified ads have been used for many years to sell and buy products and services; that is why they exist.
2. People looking at the classifieds are either actively looking to purchase, or looking for bargains.
3. Classified ads can be purchased inexpensively, or in some cases are free.
4. Some on-line ads can be entered and managed by yourself, thus giving you total control.
5. On-line ads with links can drive traffic to your web site where you can provide more information and sell your products and services.
6. Over 50% of American and Canadian households now have access to the Internet, and thus are potential visitors to on-line classifieds.
However, classifieds also have some disadvantages:
1. Dog ads are often included with all pets, and frequently with many other categories. This significantly dilutes your exposure.
2. Your ad gets buried with thousands of others.
3. You quickly lose your top position as new ads are posted.
4. It is difficult to make your ad stand out from the rest.
5. Classified ads are the major source of e-mail addresses for spammers. Your volume of junk e-mail will increase.
6. You often have to register, remember an password, and divulge personal information.
7. If you are paying for the ads, some services operation on a “negative billing” system, i.e., they will continue charging your credit card until formally cancel the ad.
Dog-Ads.com
We spent a considerable amount of time researching potential on-line classified services that could be used to promote our Arthritis in Dogs web site and our arthritis products. I was disappointed to find very few, quality, hassle-free, classified ad sites targeted at canine consumers. (Even the ones that looked good to which I posted ads haven’t produced any results after two weeks).
To fill this void, and bring in traffic to our site, we have created a free Classified Ads service - http://www.dog-ads.com I believe that the PhotoAds software we use is the best! It allows complete control by the user through their browser, i.e., adding, editing, deleting and renewing. You can include a photograph with your ad, and it permits hotlinks to your e-mail and web site. Dog-Ads has a number of relevant categories for canine products and services, including upcoming events. And no - you don’t have to register or give us any personal information!
Our traffic will increase as we promote Dog-Ads.com. Please take advantage of this free classified ads service - it's better than anything else you will find on the Internet right now!
Tips for classified ads
We find that most people are not using the classifieds to their full advantage. So if you are using Dog-Ads or some other classified on-line service, here are some suggestions:
1. Include a phone number as well as an e-mail contact. Many people will want to call to ask questions or get more information. Also, a few people who see the ad may not have their own Internet accounts. In some cases, the e-mail address is wrong, and then there is no way anyone can contact you.
2. Put your name in the ad. People like to deal with other people and putting a name to contact will encourage responses.
3. Include your business name or brand name. You want to increase brand awareness and impress upon people's unconscious minds your identity.
4. Put your state or province (and country for the geographically-challenged). This will alert people to possible shipping and transportation issues.
5.. Have a link to your web site. Your web site can provide the necessary information and do the selling for you. Needless to say, your web site should be professional and contain all the necessary information.
6. Make your ad neat and grammatically correct. DO NOT USE ALL CAPITALS as it is considered shouting. Use paragraph breaks. If your ad is sloppy, people may get the impression that your business is as well. make a good (first) impression!
7. Include a photograph. A picture is really worth a thousand words. Be sure that your photographs look professional, are appropriately cropped, and are a high quality scan. I personally find that PaintShop 7 does a very good job of cropping, enhancing the photo, and saving it as a .jpeg image without loss of clarity.
8. Provide adequate information - description of dogs, numbers, prices and any other information to make the choice easier for the buyer. Some people want to provide as little information as possible in their ad. They want potential buyers to call them so they can give them the sales pitch. I do not agree with this approach because you are thinking of yourself rather than making things easier for the buyer. You want your ad to screen out the "tire-kickers" and make it easy for serious buyers to do business with you.
9. Advertise regularly (but not so often that you are perceived to be spamming). In Dog-Ads, your ad will be automatically removed after the specified time period. Hint: select one month, and then place a new ad rather than renewing it. That way, you will be at the top of the order again.
10. Offer something free or near-free - an article on puppy raising, a research report, a newsletter, a video, etc.
11. Research shows that the ad headline can greatly affect response rates. Think about writing a catchy headline that will attract notice. Test different ad copy and see which seems to work the best.
12. Consider getting and using “throw-away” e-mail addresses (e.g., Hotmail) to use in your classified ads. There are two good reasons for this. One is that spammers use classified ads to get their e-mail addresses. So if the spam gets too bad, simply get another e-mail address. Second, by using a unique e-mail address with each classified ad, you have an automatic tracking and effectiveness monitoring system. E-mail inquiries/orders can be counted and you can determine which ads are working the best.
Monitoring and measuring success
As I said above, a lot of money spent on advertising is wasted. Since we don't have money to waste, here are some methods you can use to assess what ads are working and what are not.
1. Alexa - this is a free browser add-on program that gives you a traffic ranking of any site you visit. Therefore, if you want to advertise on that site, this will give you an idea of how many visitors the site gets. This is especially true if you have to pay for the advertising. However, remember that a site with a lower ranking, but a highly-targeted audience may be a better investment that a site with many diverse visitors. You can download your copy of Alexa from http://download.alexa.com/
2. Asking - make it a habit to ask customers where they heard about your company, business, products and services. Keep a tally to see which of your advertising is giving you the best results.
3. Coding - this has already been mentioned, e.g., using different e-mail addresses in different ads. Other techniques include "coding" your ads so that you can immediately identify the source without asking. Examples include using address additions (e.g., Dept. 13), different telephone extension numbers (even if you have one number), and different staff names (e.g., ask for Kay or Operator 37) to track sources of information about your business.
4. Tracking - if you have a web site your Internet Service Provider (ISP) should be able to tell you the sources of traffic to your web site. This may help you analyze which ads are more successful in driving traffic to your web site.
5. Surveying - if possible, conduct annual surveys of your customers to determine where/how they first heard about your business, how happy they are with your products and services, and what improvements, enhancements and changes they would like to see. This can be done through paper questionnaires, on-line surveys or focus groups.
Conclusions
A CEO of a major retailing company once said, “To be successful we can't strive to be a 1000% better at one thing, but have do a thousand things 1% better.”
Classified ads should be part of the marketing tool kit for your canine business. However, as with all advertising, you have to pay attention to the many little details to ensure classifieds provide you with cost-effective results and raise you above the competition.
© Copyright 2004 by
Steppingstones.ca
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