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Of all the online innovations currently available to pet businesses, one of the most useful is targeted advertising. As opposed to traditional advertising campaigns, which are large in scale and promote indiscriminately to large audiences, targeted advertising campaigns are crafted for specific people in an audience of a more limited scale.
In the context of the pet business, it may mean crafting a campaign that would appeal specifically to dog owners, to cat owners, to first-time pet owners, or to pet owners that are involved in advocacies like homeless animal rescues.
For an industry like that of pets and pet merchandise, launching a targeted advertising campaign is a much more effective approach than simply casting a wide net. Targeted campaigns allow business owners to move the right products to the right people.
The goal should be to reach out to a particular demographic and showcase products that they’ll truly benefit from. To achieve that, the pet business in question should craft compelling brand messages, release eye-catching visuals, and engineer other promotional strategies that are tailor-fit to resonate with pet parents.
If you intend to start a targeted advertising campaign of your own, what should you do to succeed? To answer that question, here are five of the most useful tips for kicking off an advertising campaign for specialty pet products, like PrideBites custom dog collars.
Do Your Research on Your Ideal Customer
The very first thing that you have to do for your campaign is to zero in on your target market. You need to identify the kind of pet parent who is likely to buy your products, and who will surely get the most value out of them. Better yet, you should envision the kind of customer who’d be a repeat buyer and who’s part of a big enough community. The latter qualification, in particular, will help to spread a lot of good organic publicity about your brand.
The more granular your approach is—accounting for factors like age, gender, household size, and lifestyle choices—the better you will be at crafting content that is meaningful to your audience. To this end, you can conduct an old-fashioned psychographic study with your marketing team, or you can use modern technologies to help you gather customer information.
One example is incorporating pixels or pieces of code that pick up on visitors’ online behaviors, into your web property. If your customers’ consent to accept cookies from your website, you may be able to glean some insightful data about their needs and interests.
Release Content That Evokes a Brand Story
The second thing you should do is revisit your brand story, then find ways to showcase your brand identity in your targeted advertising campaign. Pet parents are likely to ignore ads that simply try to push a product onto them. On the other hand, they’ll be more willing to engage with promotional material that communicates authenticity, respectability, and a sense of full realization.
With that in mind, commit to releasing cohesive and engaging material that tells your customers about who you are, what you sell, and what exactly it is that you can do for them. Use the targeted campaign to build upon your brand story, cultivate a sense of connection with the members of your audience, and motivate them to interact more with your brand.
Harness the Power of Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing (SEM) will be a lucrative strategy for your pet brand’s targeted campaign, especially if you will be doing most of your business from an e-commerce website. You can hire an SEM specialist to help you set up pay-per-click ads using a platform like Google Ads. Get their input on how to use these ads to your advantage and pay off your initial investment.
It would also help to launch a content-driven campaign with long-form articles, blog posts, or other forms of web copy leading to your brand’s website. You can base your content on the localized keywords that your potential customers will type into a search engine to find your pet products.
Identify the Strategies That Lead to Conversions
Once the material for your targeted campaign is up, don’t forget to supplement it with a monthly audit. You shouldn’t need to guess which ads resonated the most with parents; you should be able to tell from the results.
Find out which promos earned the most engagement from pet owners, and which ones led to conversions like sales or preorders for a new product. Then, analyze why these ads worked better than others. It could be because they made mention of a discount, or because they used certain words that piqued customers’ curiosity. This, of course, will help you fine-tune your promotional efforts and continue with the strategies that actually work.
Don’t be discouraged if your ads get hits but don’t lead to straight-through conversions. Some of your customers may be at an earlier stage of their buying journey and may need a little more time to decide.
For example, a chunk of your website visitors may not have pets of their own just yet. However, they may be browsing your site to see which items they’ll need before bringing a new pet into their home. With this in mind, release ads that serve as follow-ups or gentle reminders to return to your site. Make sure that these customers will remember your brand when they finally become pet parents.
Add a Personal Touch
A demographic like that of pet owners are not as receptive to generic, catch-all advertisements as others may be. What will really get their attention is a customized approach. For example, marketing to pet parents who have just rescued a homeless animal wouldn’t be the same as catering to owners who consider themselves fanciers of a specific pet breed. If your brand demonstrates that you have a pet parent’s unique needs in mind, they’re likely to push through with their purchases.
Explore personalized marketing ideas, like emailing customers discount coupons on their birthdays. Better yet, you can send said coupons on their pets’ birthdays or “gotcha” days. Adding a personal touch could make a significant impact on individual customers. In turn, this will encourage them to return to your brand for their most important milestones as pet owners.
Don’t hesitate to be creative and to think outside of the box when it comes to marketing your pet products. A targeted campaign will bring your ideas to life and capture the attention of curious pet parents!
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels