10 Ways How NOT to Promote a Pet Business or Website
Published on August 27, 2008 by Ryan O'Meara · No CommentsSomething a little different today.
Since K9 Media was set up in 1999 we have launched a lot of pet related websites. More than 40 for ourselves and we’ve been involved in the creation and marketing of many others for various clients. Over the course of nearly a decade in online and offline marketing you learn a thing or two. It’s your job to. And we are frequently approached by pet companies on how to effectively promote their own pet related ventures. My usual response is less than helpful. It’s a bit like saying, “I have a dog, how do I train it?”.
There are so many variables and so much change and evolution within the search marketing sector alone that any advice given today could be out of date by tomorrow. But let’s give it a go anyway. Here are some basics. And please bear in mind, in my position I get to see both sides of the marketing coin. In my position as editor and publisher of highly viewed pet websites I get to see a lot (a LOT) of press releases, appeals for publicity and requests for free promotion from many, many different pet businesses. I can hand on heart state that 95% of them are non unique, boring, clichéd and never likely to get any attention from me or our audience, so we don’t run them. On the other hand, the 5% that do capture our attention are also pretty sure to get the attention of some sections of our audience too. With my marketing hat on, I’m the one trying to gain exposure for our own publications. So this gives me something of an insight into what does and does not work. I am (un)fortunate in having to deal with such a barrage of mediocre promotional attempts, I have a keen eye for knowing what to avoid.
Before we get started, let me pre-qualify why I think we are in a position to dish out promotional advice. I’ll try and make it short and snappy.
This year alone, K9 Media publications have been featured on Sky, GMTV, BBC, The Sun, The Mirror, The Times, Reuters, ITV, BBC Radio (national and local), Channel 4, Channel 5, NBC, Fox News and many more. Let us, for the benefit of a quick case study, look at our dog rehoming website www.dogsblog.com – here is a quick list of just *some* of the coverage generated over the past few months which mention DogsBlog.com:
How much is that bloggy in the window?
Doting owners get ‘peternity leave’ if the dog is feeling ruff
Elevator Pitch: Dogsblog does internet cute – with a purpose
http://www.bucksherald.co.uk/news/Could-you-love-the-Blackberry.4394668.jp
http://www.bexhillobserver.net/rye/Northiam-animal-centre-takes-plart.4404075.jp
http://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/479/Northiam-animal-centre-takes-plart.4404075.jp
http://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/3605422.Help_Kinba_start_a_new_life/
http://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/3605412.print/
Here is a link for some coverage our promotion of National Dog Adoption Month:
http://www.dogadoptionmonth.co.uk/category/media-centre/media-coverage/
Here are some links to broadcast coverage achieved for various K9 Media publications:
GMTV, BBC, SKY, 5 News, Newsnight etc
I could go on, but I am trying not to bore you. There’s the first tip. Boring is not press worthy.
But before we move on to press, let us just establish – PR is not the be all and end all. In fact, it’s the icing on top of the cake at best. Too much emphasis on PR and not enough thought about the substance is the first fatal error many pet businesses make.
We will, for the purpose of this article, assume that you have a good business. There’s little point even reading this if you don’t.
So you have a good business, a good product/service, a nice website and you want people to know about it.
Here’s what you do not, under any circumstances, do (certainly not if you want to get some promotion out of me, any way).
1) Do not cc me in to a bland, boring press release where I can see the names of all the other people you’ve sent it to. You could be giving away free gold but I know that every other editor, writer or website owner has been given the exact same carbon copy story. I’m not only not going to publish it, I’m not even going to read it.
2) Personalise your message using mailmerge 101. We’re savvy enough to spot this and it is tantamount to calling the recipient of your message a pud. If you say, ‘Dear Editor, we really love (insert publication name) and we read it all the time. We thought your readers would love to hear about….” – I can tell when you are fibbing. It’s not hard. Now, if you changed only a tiny fraction of that message, you WILL at least have my attention for a little while, ‘Dear Ryan, I haven’t read K9 Magazine yet but I did read an article from your website about X/Y/Z and I was particularly drawn to…’. Now, I know you are at least honest. I’m still not totally ready to give you some exposure but you’ve started off on the right foot.
3) Clichéd cuteness. The first time we received a press release that used ‘Pawfect for Pampered Pooches’ it wasn’t particularly funny then. After 1,001st time we received the exact same line or variant of, it is downright maddening. Pet owners are not, contrary to the popular PR 101 course that seems to suggest otherwise, silly folk who whoop and clap their fins together at the idea of someone using pet related play on words such as ‘Poochified, pawisitvely, wooftastic, wagarrific’ – actually, wagarrific is my own. I hadn’t heard that one before and as it goes, I quite like it. Don’t send me a wagarrific press release though, because now I’ve heard it once, I’m already bored of it.
4) We are not obligated, inclined or even slightly motivated to help you on your way to business success so please don’t assume to the contrary. In point two I asked you to be honest, so here is me being honest. If you are a business, we expect you are keen to make money, earn profit and do well in your commercial efforts. Guess what? That’s what we’re in business for as well! So if you plea for us to help you on your way you really do need to be able to grasp the first rule of business: Free lunches, they don’t exist. And if they did, they’d probably taste bitter and give you food poisoning. No, just because you’re a ‘small up start’ it does not mean we will go out of our way to give you a leg up any more than we would if you were a multi national turning over billions. You need to give us something to work with. If your company, product, service IS great – we still don’t really care that much. You need to be able to give us something useful and interesting and appealing that will make our readers feel like their time spent with us was of value. So don’t just tell us about your business, put yourself in the shoes of an editor, have a look at the type of stories they usually cover because that’s a great indication of what that editor believes his or her audience is interested in, and then pitch your idea to meet that demand. If you happen to get some coverage out of it for your business, bonus! Even if you don’t, you’ve just made a positive impression on an editor who may well be more inclined to help you out.
5) If you are a charity or good cause. Ignore point 4. We want to hear from you. Let us know how we can help, we don’t assume you’re trying to get rich so the rules of the game are different for you.
6) Don’t ask for a link or to swap links. Just don’t. Thanks. If we think we should be linking to you, we will. If you think you have a really great website then by all means let us know why it would be of interest for us to send our readers away from our site to yours. Believe it or not, there are some sites where we are *happy* to do this.
7) If you are a client, a paying client, someone who likes us and respects us enough to actually do REAL, proper, commercial business with us the rules of the game are different for you. We treat our clients exceptionally well. We will gladly change the rules and look for opportunities where we can help promote your business over and above what we are obligated to. Some people (cough – PR companies – cough) find this notion a little distateful: “What, so you’re saying you will only cover my client’s story if they are a K9 Media client? But what about editorial morals?” Well here it is, in black and white, yes, we have editorial morals, absolutely we do. But you’re a PR company with a product or service to sell so you’re out of the morals game straight away. So if you are a client of K9 Media we will always prioritise you above anyone else. This seems like common sense business practice to me. We are, after all, a business.
8: Please don’t assume that because you haven’t seen your story, press release, message etc appear in any of our publications that it is because we didn’t receive it and then proceed to ring us up and ask when you can expect to see it covered. It’s far more likely we did receive it and we binned it in accordance with the previous ‘rules’ as mentioned.
9) Fail to be original, interesting, unique or helpful with your message and it just won’t get any coverage. You have to place yourself in a different mindset if you truly want to get ANY of your message out to our readers. We care about our readers because without them, we die. And you need to care about them the exact same way. So resist the urge to turn your ‘story’ into a great big free (you hope) advert for your business and instead focus on why the reader should be interested enough to care in the first place and then entertained/informed enough to stick with it. If you can do this, you will have a chance.
10) Please, please, please – this is the biggest bugbear of mine – do not conjure up an image in your mind of a generic ‘pet owner’, they simply do not exist. Pet owners are normal, real, genuine people who happen to share ONE common trait, they are, in some way, interested in SOME aspect of pet ownership. That does not mean they are pet obsessed, it does not mean they are likely to jump for joy upon hearing news of a new chewy dog toy reaching the market, it does not mean their eyes will gloss over in admiration for your ‘Pawwfect Press Release’ and it does not mean ANYTHING other than the fact that they are people who have a multitude of interests of which pet ownership is merely one. Think of it like this, if you happen to own a car it makes you a motorist. Nobody in their right mind would try to define a person’s entire character on the basis that they are a motorist. They own a car, they have SOME interest in SOME things related to that aspect of their lives. They might be interested in saving money on motoring, becoming a better driver, avoiding accidents or some new, genuinely interesting motoring products or services. Pet owners are normal, intelligent members of society. Their pet ownership does not define their whole lives. They eat normal food, use mobile phones, go to normal places and live in normal homes. Please, try and remember that and don’t pander to them on the cutsey level.
So there. If you can avoid any of the 10 fatal mistakes you might just be able to promote your pet business with some degree of success. That’s how we’ve done it and it’s worked very nicely thank you. More than 8m visits to our network of 40 pet websites and two national pet magazines and we’re very grateful for it.
Highly Recommended: This could be the most important link you EVER click as far as your dog’s life is concerned – see why….!
