CSIT 155: Week13A - Advertising & 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

 

Okay, so I touched on this briefly in my last post, and can revisit it today in greater detail. Again, I want to mention, that basic “pay advertising” on social media sites, especially as a small business, will not bring the sales you’re interested in without some backbone. Your company needs branding, personalization, and interaction with people in real-time for any of this to truly be successful. Also, certain types of products and services do better on one social media platform than the next, and the only way to really determine this is with experimentation.

 Also, I would like to point out the incredible benefit of this class. Despite being a mountain of work and maintenance (if you have a real, existing business) the fantastic and helpful knowledge provided will certainly drive more attention and sales to your brand. Which brings me to branding. Regardless if advertising brings sales, or clicks on your site (especially if you have a very specific product/service), it can bring attention to your name. 

 When people remember who you are, and what kind of thing you provide to the community, they will be more likely to think of you when then opportunity presents itself. For example, my father sells a pet warmer – and that’s what I advertise to the public, yet not everyone has a pet, or an outdoor pet that would require such a device, but the odds of anyone knowing someone that has a pet in need of the pet warmer is absolute.  Advertising the warmer to everyone is exhausting, but a wise idea, because we will get the brand name out there, without being overwhelmed with sales by addressing such a large audience. I have done this on Google AdWords Express and Facebook Ads. Here's some stuff to look at:

 To be quite honest, I couldn’t have taken this class at a better time. I elected to take this course, not as part of a degree or certificate (although I could probably get a certificate when I was done with all my elected classes) but because I truly wanted to know more to benefit my father’s business. As his product is a seasonal product, which is currently in season, the information I have learned throughout this class has been immeasurably beneficial to me, and I will continue to use the information I have collected in this course for years to come.

Also, on a side note, despite my many attempts to create a Twitter ad of my personal preference, I have been getting denied for different syntax errors. Ha. Figures. If I do end up using a pay service to advertise through Twitter, I will be sure to include my efforts here. Otherwise, the organic advertising is currently working just fine. 

Thanks for reading!

Cheers.

JennL.

CSIT 155: Week12B - 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 is a very interesting topic for me, because I truly feel that Facebook Ads can be hit-or-miss, depending on how they are handled. You could have the most wonderful product or service in the world, but simply tossing up an ad (anywhere, really) is not what is going to attract customers, or sales. There are many ways to go about advertising on all social media platforms, and Facebook is no stranger to the millions of online yard sale pages, local business reviews, and the shameless promotion of a product or service through an acquaintance, friend or family member (which, I admit, I am totally guilty of) – not to mention all the GoFundMe, Kickstarter, and other crowd-funding campaigns, and wrapped in icing with groups about… well, everything. There’s potentially a gazillion contacts to be made, and just as many to advertise to – so, do we pay Facebook to do the deed? 

 

Well, I think there’s conditions: the first being: a good, active social network. Let’s take my father’s business, for example: he’s a pet lover, who attracts other pet lovers, to sell his pet product. Simple, right? Sure. But, what of all the other interests my father, as a person, has? He loves guitar, he loves surfing, he loves Donald Trump, he loves politics – most of this stuff has no place in his business, and therefore he required a persona to be the “face of the product” – granted, it is still his face, but it’s just one perspective of it. 

Okay, with that said, now we have a person that can direct others to a page with the product – but how will this one person (or persona) keep their friends if all they do is advertise? Ahh, now it gets a little more complex. Well, this persona needs friends, and the friends will need a healthy relationship with this person to continue to be friends and the requires a level of dedication and attentiveness. This person joins all the clubs, likes all the pages, comments on your wedding, wishes you a happy birthday, hearts pictures of your kids, sending prayers through your difficult times and of course – shares tons and tons of animal related stuff! So, now we’re friends with a pet lover, that has a product – and after he liked that picture of my kid’s graduation, I’ll remember him when my neighbor says: “I wish there was something I could put outside with my dog to keep him warm.” BAM!

 Now, with this information, what one can do is engage with their social outlets and advertise when the opportunity presents itself – mentions here or there, an attractive photo with the product or displaying the service, a comment by a friend or family member, or a flat-out, hand-crafted-add. There’s yard sale sites to no end, and new and interesting ways to reach unlimited numbers of audience members – and not counting the time and energy all this takes – it’s technically free. Organic interest, as Facebook likes to call it.

Then there’s paid interest, which is taking that same product, creating an advertisement, and having Facebook place it randomly in people’s newsfeeds to reach large numbers of (specific) audience types. Each click on the ad doesn’t guarantee a like to your page, a visit to your website or a sale of your product or service, but it’s a level of branding that reaches a ton of people and no one can point the finger at you (or your persona) to call you annoying.

 

The problem with combining these things is: if you are running an ad, and doing your own advertising, Facebook will still count the organic views, clicks and sales you have achieved through your own time an energy – so, in this case you’re also paying for your hard work. So, be weary, and pick one or the other at a time.

 Okay, I could literally go on for days about this, so I'll just leave it at that.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

Cheers!

JennL.

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.