CSIT 155: Week12A - Analyzing Online Marketing

Hi again Friends and Fellow Bloggers!

Again, a quick reminder of my STUFF:

www.sharonscozypets.com

www.facebook.com/sharonscozypets

https://twitter.com/SharonsCozyPets  

www.instagram.com/SharonsCozyPets

www.pinterest.com/SharonsCozyPets
www.tumblr.com/SharonsCozyPets
www.LinkedIn.com/in/SharonsCozyPets 
www.yelp.com/sharonscozypets 

So, this has been a very interesting week for me. An eye-opener, if you will… 

As it is difficult to find five businesses like mine, it is equally difficult to find a collection of platforms these competitors might utilize for sales. For this assignment, I have elected a number of animal advocate businesses that provide a type of warmth for their customer’s pets, like clothing, heating blankets/mats, or insulated pet houses. When it comes to pet warmers, there are few on the market, which gives our primary competitor “The Akoma Hound Heater” a chance to monopolize the market.

  

Which brings me to the Hound Heater folks: through the research I have performed for this class, I recently discovered that this company, which sells their product for roughly $30 more than my father’s product, outsources their manufacturing to China. Sure, this is cheaper, and in the event a company chooses to even use a single part from an overseas producer, the company can no longer state it is made in the USA (California restrictions on this are even more strict than most places in the U.S.) which I believe gives my father and his company the upper hand (and changes my opinion of our primary competitor). 

 

The primary marketing tactic I utilized when competing with the “other guys” was the fact our pet warmer cannot be manually adjusted by the customer, risking injury, burn or death to their pets – unfortunately, some folks feel their pets would prefer a 95-degree dog house in the winter, which is truly none of my business. Then, what I focused on, was the fact our warmer was portable – allowing the customer to place it anywhere they felt necessary, and changing that location as they see fit. The opposing company fixates their device to the inside of an animal house, and would require tools to remove and relocate.

So, anyway, with that said, I did my research on the Akoma Hound Heater, and discovered that, outside of a facebook page, there is little advertising. Even the facebook account has had little activity since October, which is understandable (due to high volume orders) but also disappointing, as they should certainly invest in a Social Media manager to handle this department of their business.

https://www.facebook.com/Houndheater

 

Other pet warmth services can easily be found all over a variety of social media platforms, and more than likely started there as a little facebook page featuring their tiny, pet-sized, knitted/sewn clothing line. 

Here’s a few:

This company warms your animals’ food:
https://www.facebook.com/petfoodwarmer/

 

This company provides a collection of products that offer warmth to animals (including, but not limited to, heated animal houses, mats, and food warmers):
https://www.facebook.com/khpet/

This company makes clothing and beds to keep small animals warm – and I’m fascinated by the name:
https://www.facebook.com/WeenieWarmers/

 

All of them are pretty active socially, and seem to engage with their customers when prompted. Of course, they all feature the "Shop Now" call to action button, as our company also does.

When it comes to social media marketing, photos and videos create the most attention grabbing content for me, personally, and I believe it is the same for most. To post a single comment, or a link to a web page without a thumbnail is a marketing style sure to flop. People would scroll past that information before they ever knew what they were missing. I truly believe the auto play on videos is probably the best audience-attention-getter, but pictures are fantastic as well. It all matters on the artistic perspective, and content. 

Personally, I think all these methods work for me, and I utilize them all (including pay-per-click advertising on AdWords and Facebook, and personal, organic advertising on all platforms I am connected on), but there must be something I am overlooking, as I am still not receiving the response I hope for.

Well, every good journey is an unknown distance, I can only be patient and keep learning where to go from here. 

Thanks for reading!

Cheers!

JennL.