By Peter L. Getman
Principal Brand Director

Is it true, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

Although the Pet Industry is going “healthy”, the Pet Industry as a whole is asleep when it comes to Internet Marketing and Social Media Strategy. As I walked the floor of this weekend’s pet show in Chicago I visited with 25 people from 25 companies who appeared to be in the ‘know’ surrounding their brand marketing communications. I asked the same initial question and then proceeded my inquires from there:
“Do you have a documented or formal Internet Marketing Strategy for 2010?”

Here is what I learned:

• Two out of 25 companies have a documented Internet Marketing Strategy for 2010. In both companies, they did not have a “documented” Internet Marketing Strategy in 2009, beyond pay-per-click (PPC) search engine marketing. Both companies ballparked that in 2010, >25% of their total marketing budget was allocated to Internet marketing and social media. Although neither company would divulge the size of their marketing budget, based on my understanding of marketing budgets for brands of this size, I would confidently estimate their Internet Marketing and social media marketing budgets are >$1 million for 2010. Both companies have an agency like MicroArts to lead them in their Internet Marketing Strategy. Both brands engage their customers (the actual pet owner) in online conversation, on a daily basis. A primary objective for both companies is to double their customer contact (pet owners) databases from >100K to >200K. Because I appreciate their candid conversations with me and understand their strategy is a major competitive differentiator for them, I will keep their identities to myself. I will say, however, that one was a long time brand leader in the Pet Industry and the other is a young, fast growing company.
• Fifteen of the 23 companies that did not have a documented Internet Marketing Strategy for 2010 did not even understand the question. I went on to define the benefits of Internet Marketing but it most cases, it didn’t help.
• In fact, on five occasions, the response was, “the pet owner is not our customer, we sell through distributors.” I’m sure the look on my face was priceless. In all five cases, these companies owned multiple brands. And the only customer contact (pet owners) database in all cases was a rewards program that seemed to give them all a headache to talk about. Four out of five of these companies have brands selling in Target®. Honestly, I left these booths perplexed. Normally, in these situations, I’d leave the booth thinking, “hey, this could be a great client for the MicroArts Internet Marketing Team! But, these five companies clearly attributed “little value” to Internet Marketing and also felt it was the responsibility of their distribution partners.
• Three of the 23 companies became interested with Internet Marketing and didn’t want our conversation to end. One company had ear marked 20% of its marketing budget towards Internet Marketing because they knew it was important, but hadn’t taken any initial steps.
• Five of these 23 companies believed, in fact, that they did have an Internet Marketing plan because they had a Facebook page and a Twitter account.

In sum, the Pet Industry is a sleeping dog and appears to be settled into a long nap. Which I’m happy about, selfishly, I say, “let sleeping dogs lie.” Kudos to brands that will profit from Internet Marketing and Social Media Marketing efforts, your brand deserves every penny of it.

If you found this blog because you did a search on “Internet Marketing in the Pet Industry” or “Social Media Marketing in the Pet Industry” … Good Morning!

To engage MicroArts in a discussion about your brand strategy, brand design, Internet marketing and social media marketing in the Pet Industry, ping me, Peter Getman.