Pet Marketing Ideas: 3 Inexpensive Ways to Reach Local Pet Owners

Transcript

Are you having a hard time converting leads into customers?

It might be that you’re targeting the wrong audience for your business.

Hi, I’m Carmen Sognonvi.

I recently got an email from a viewer who is struggling with that exact issue in her business. Keep watching to find out what advice I have for her.

[animated intro]

By the way, for more useful tips on running a bricks-and-mortar local business, be sure to check out my blog at CarmenSognonvi.com.

There I cover everything from how to get more customers to how to close more sales.

Today’s question comes from a viewer named Andy who lives in Las Vegas. Andy writes:

I’m a portrait artist who mainly paints people’s pets. Turning contacts into clients is what I struggle with the most. So far I have found face-to-face is the best marketing for me, which I’ve been doing at local art and craft shows. I get email addresses, which by the way thank you for your email tips, but I’m still struggling to convert them. I send out newsletters and email blasts on important announcements, like if I’m going to be at a show or offering a special. I just don’t want to hound them. What should I do? Thanks, Andy.

Hey Andy, first, I’m so glad that my video on how to collect email addresses from your customers was useful! Anyone who hasn’t seen that video yet can check it out here. [point]

So Andy. In my opinion, part of the reason you’re struggling is because you’re actually in a different business than the one you think you’re in.

You think you’re in the art business. But in reality, you’re in the servicing pet owners business. The primary motivation that drives people to buy a portrait from you is not their love of your work, it’s the love they have of their pet.

So rather than targeting art and craft enthusiasts, I believe you’ll get much better results by targeting pet owners. So here are some suggestions on how to do that.

1. Hand out flyers in front of pet supply stores

Pet owners make a lot of trips to the store because they constantly have to purchase food and supplies for their pets. So this is a great place to intercept your target customer. Make a list of the 10 largest pet supply stores in your area. For two weeks, Monday through Friday, pick one store per day and spend an hour handing out flyers to the people coming in and out of the store. See what kind of results you get and if it works well, make this part of your daily routine!

2. Do a freebie in exchange for an influential person’s review

Identify 10 influential people in your area who are enthusiastic pet owners. These could be local celebrities, like news anchors, radio hosts, performers, or chefs. Or they could be people who have a lot of sway in the animal lovers community. The key is, you want to find someone who has a large social media following and likes to post photos of their pets. Find a photo of their pet, paint a portrait, and send it to them as a gift. Let them know that if they like the portrait, you’d love for them to post a photo of it on their social media accounts with the URL to your website. Not only do they get a cool and unique gift from you, but you’ll get a valuable endorsement from this influential person and exposure to their entire network. That’s a win-win.

3. Cross-promote with other pet service businesses

There are so many different businesses that service pet owners: dog spas, pet boarding facilities, trainers, breeders, dog walkers. Make a list of 50 of these businesses in your area and approach them about doing some cross-marketing. Ask if you can leave flyers near their cash register and in exchange, ask them to give you a stack of their flyers. Let them know that you always include a pet lovers resource pack with every portrait you ship out to a customer, and that you’ll include their flyer in this pack.

Now to answer your question about what to put in the emails you send out, here’s what I recommend. Schedule a weekly newsletter that is non-promotional in nature. And on top of that, whenever you have a promotion or special event, you can send out a special email blast about that. But keep those to no more than 1 or 2 a month.

Your newsletter can be as simple as showcasing the latest portrait you’ve done. You’re in a visual business, and people who follow you are eager to see your work. So in each newsletter, simply include a shot of a portrait, maybe write a few words about the pet and the pet owner, include a testimonial from them if you have one, and that’s it. As your subscribers keep seeing your awesome work, it will encourage them to order a portrait from you when the time is right.

Now before I get to our question of the week, I want to let you know that if you found this video useful, I would encourage you to sign up to get email updates from me!

You’ll get more great tips on how to run a successful bricks-and-mortar local business.

If you’re already on my blog, just fill out the form below.

Or if you’re watching this video elsewhere, go to carmensognonvi.com/newsletter and sign up there.

And if you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future video, just send it to info@carmensognonvi.com.

Ok, now it’s time for our question of the week!

Have you ever found yourself targeting the wrong customer? What did you do to course-correct?

I’d love to hear your thoughts, so leave a comment below!

Get free marketing tips from Carmen

If you found this video useful, enter your email address below and click “Yes, Send Me Tips!” to get free tips from me on how to run a successful local, bricks-and-mortar business: