The Bigwag Blog Century Mark - secrets for other local businesses

This is our monumental 100th post. Not too bad for a fairly young blog. Why do I keep up with a blog for a small pet business? Is it because we're crazy? I refuse to answer that last question on grounds it may incriminate me.

It's fairly common knowledge that newspapers are on the decline. Readership has diminished over the years. More and more younger people are turning to blogs for their source of news and information. I'm 36, and blogs and the Google RSS reader are pretty much my entire source of news these days. The RSS feeder allows me to digest a lot of articles every week quickly, including my local news.

Why is this important? Surely there are more important things we could write about.

The concept for us started back with the Menu Foods pet food recall. Our customers were starving for information, and trust was at an all time low for packaged dog food. We didn't have a good way of getting updates out to our customers, so I began researching what could we do that we could post news updates and blurbs to. By the time we figured out we could write a blog, most of the recall news had subsided, but the blog still seemed like a good idea. Our blog has evolved over the months to be more of a community, where we let you into our world, talk about products we found that are remarkable, keep you up to date on important news we find, and maybe even give you a laugh or two.

As a small business, a blog is an invaluable marketing tool. I think it's important for every small business to find a niche that they can use a blog for. For us, binding the pet community together seemed like a natural extension of our newsletter, our customers, and the events we participate in. It's just one of the tools that help people transcend from "Know about us", to "Trust us", and finally to "Love Us". It allows us to feature other pet businesses in NW Arkansas, talk about the pet community, and give glimpses inside a real dog bakery - which is a fairly new concept for NWA. The products we feature or review are typically items that "actually work" or performed better than we would have guessed, or are super nutritional for your pet. We try not to just post advertisements for products that we have overstocked and want to sell through on. So far, they haven't really been about our every day treats either.

So, what benefit has our blog given our business? Well, our website traffic has increased 1200% since this time last year. Our internet orders had increased 400%. More people find us, and have a chance to really learn about the folks that you are trusting your pets health with. Few companies give that kind of transparency, let alone local businesses, and I think that feeds the "Trust Us" level that we work very hard to get to. I think it's important for our customers to hear stories like: we've been trying to figure out how to make doggie suckers and pops, because a customer asked us about some they saw somewhere else, but the only thing we can find to use for the stick are rawhide straws, and we refuse to carry rawhide, so we still don't have any doggie suckers or pops. We're keeping our eyes peeled for a natural, non-rawhide, popsicle stick idea, but still haven't come up with anything. If anyone has a good idea - please let me know!

Someone might ask, "Whats he got against rawhide?" The information is there, but what you might not know, is that it is largely a personal choice for me. I had to extract a piece of rawhide from my dogs throat to save his life several years ago. A little research turned up rawhide was dangerous to swallow, and I don't know of any dogs that don't try and swallow rawhide chew toys.

It's impossible to convey that kind of information in a newspaper advertisement, or at least we haven't come up with a good way to yet. There are still a lot of people that hear the term "Dog Bakery" and think birthday cakes, or trips for treats after the vet or groomer. What they don't know (yet) is that we feel a personal responsibility to elevate your pets lives, through nutrition, better health, aroma therapy products that actually work, toys that challenge and expand their minds, chews that are made in the USA and are 100% digestible. We help dogs that have food allergies, dogs that are diabetic, dogs that need tougher toys, and dogs that need homes.

More and more people research products and companies on the internet first. Having a great internet presence is not optional any more. I feel like our internet presence really speaks to who we are about, and once a customer loves you, half of the battle is done. The other half is delivering on your promises day after day.

The Funniest Thing I've Read All Week

I've been trying to come up with a new post today that is related to dog health, but I'm having a hard time getting past a comment that was made on our myspace page, so I thought I would talk a little bit about internet marketing and diverge a bit this week.

We are, of course, a small business. In Rogers, AR. I believe whole heartedly in our treats that we make, so selling this is easy for someone like me who isn't so strong of a sales person. But how do I tell our story to everyone out there that wants to hear it? There are definitely people who want our treats for their dogs and cats. I see them every day. But how do I reach you? Traditional advertising has not worked very well for us. We'd run coupons in the newspaper, radio ads for a month at a time, attend dog events as much as we can. There's only so much time and money you can put towards advertising.

A new trend that is emerging is "Flop Shopping". This is where someone will shop for what they want on the internet, and when they find it, they will go to the local store to get it "right now, without paying shipping". You may even do this and not even know it. Scour the internet for the best deal, find it at Best Buy, then hop over there the next day to pick it up. Even walmart.com is allowing you to ship to a store where you can pick it up for free now.

What does this have to do with marketing you say? Well, in order to be considered for a purchase, you have to have your sign out there for everyone to see, and with Flop Shopping, that sign has to be on the internet, especially if you are in a competitive market. And this doesn't mean you can just put a website up and pray people will find it. Those days are gone. You have to promote your website, optimize it for search engines, create quality links back to your site as much as possible. I have managed to get our website (www.bigwag.com) ranked in the top 12 on google if you search for "gourmet dog bakery" - all for free. I think that is a huge accomplishment, if you consider the unspecified nature of the above search query, and how many dog bakeries are out there. "Dog Bakery Arkansas" and we are number one, or any city we are next to in Northwest Arkansas.

Part of my execution has been to create as many links to my website as possible, this blog included. I love the blogs, because they give me a chance to tell you how great our treats are, or share some marketing wizardry like this. One of these links is myspace. If you have never been to myspace, be prepared to spend some time learning the ropes. Start by just creating a user page for yourself, before you delve into creating one for your business. See how this social networking phenomenon works. Find some friends, and then let the magic take hold.

Understanding your customer is a key component to any marketing, and our ideal customer target is a 46 year old female. The dating mechanics of myspace lets you zero in like a bullet to find your ideal customer (if you know them) within any mileage radius of your location. You can be as pinpoint or as aggressive as you want. It is slightly time consuming to search out these people, but the trade off is that it costs you nothing. If you have a small marketing budget, this is a great way to target your ideal customers for your marketing message, and to open 2-way dialogs with them.

So, as part of our marketing scheme, I have been "befriending" hundreds of people on myspace trying to find our target customers within Northwest Arkansas, as well as Little Rock, where we have our treats for sale at local pet boutiques. Most people either quietly ignore us or add us. Every once in awhile someone is so excited, they rush over to the store, or order online. Some people who are not very conversed with myspace do email back and question how we found them.

Someone actually responded back to me "I don't like dog people! And oh yeah, bones either! Have a nice day". Wow. I was a little taken back by this response. I wanted to respond, but what do you say to that? I finally came up with " Thats ok, I'm 100% homo sapien. Those dog people scare me too. I've never seen one, but I've heard about them. Atrocious. You too!" I didn't want to offend anyone, so I hope this wasn't too crass. She definitely was not in our red zone as far as marketing goes. Probably too young. She still might have made comments to her friends or family, and I wanted them to hopefully be positive comments, not that I ripped her a new one even if she was asking for it. I still think that was too funny. Who doesn't like dog people? I guess cat people maybe. We have a kitty corner too.

Either way you look at it, it could potentially be marketing that works - if this gal goes to work and mentions to her friends that a dog bakery tried to be friends with her - even if it were short sighted on her part in her own marketing efforts. She works at a hair salon, and all across her myspace page were adds to go to the salon where she worked at and ask for her. I won't be asking for her, since she doesn't like dog people. I am definitely a dog person, but I do have a cat too. Maybe if she were a cat person. Might depend if she were declawed I guess. I think the marketing bang I got for my buck will be more than she just got with her comment. I had never heard of her salon before, but I have now. And boy do I have a story about it, not to mention this was a missed opportunity. Did I mention our target market is female, aged 46, with disposable cash to spend? If they like pampering their dogs, they might like pampering themselves. Who does a salon and spa sell to? We have at least three salons that are on our friends list now - and they get it.

The point here really, is that you are always marketing, especially on the internet. I think this gal's comment was negative marketing and she didn't even realize it. Most of my friends are dog people - unfortunately for her. Hopefully I was positive marketing, even if she doesn't like dog people. If she tells one person about us, than it worked. If you can create some positive buzz around your business, then you are doing your job. People tend to email and comment without really thinking about it. This gets lots of people in trouble and sometimes fired. If you are trying to market yourself or your business, you need to give positive responses no matter what.

So, in an attempt to have your sign on out there in the Flop Shopping world, remember that honey gets you more flies than vinegar. It's important to have yourself out and visible where people can search and find you, but just be careful of what message you are giving out - especially with these new mediums like myspace. It's very easy to get caught up in it and not realize whats going on. Not everyone will be a fan - just don't take it personally.

BTW - I found some more people that worked at her salon on myspace, and I'm currently asking them to be friends too - we'll see if it's just her or the culture of that salon in a follow up.