How to Market your Kennels and Cattery

by Melanie Mines

MARKET RESEARCH

In preparation for updating or creating your company corporate image, some basic market research will provide you with a sound platform to work from. Gather information about your competitors by looking at other companies' advertising, literature and signage, even attitude to customers. Open files on each of your competitors. If you see how other similar businesses are promoted, you will be able to differentiate yourself and offer that something extra.

Produce a questionnaire for your customers’ comments. Gather valuable information such as, ‘Why they chose to entrust their pet in your care’, and ‘How could you offer a better service’.

Keep a notebook by the phone and record the source of your calls. Are people, ‘existing customers’, ‘have they been recommended by a friend’, ‘come from yellow pages’, ‘responded to an advert (and note the source)’, website/search engine. In this way you can determine which form of marketing works for you.'

PRESENT YOUR MESSAGE CONSISTENTLY

A mission statement should also be compiled. Get to the core of what your company stands for. Make sure everybody is clear of the company’s beliefs and values.

A corporate identity forms the basis of all marketing (advertising, promotional literature, signage, staff uniform). Unless you have a creative streak, you will need to take on the services of a graphic designer to create your logo, image and maybe a slogan. Use the market research you have gathered to brief your designer. Mix his creativity and your inside knowledge to create a unique corporate image. The initial ideas should be shown to a variety of people for feedback. If you are at all unsure, reject the designs and go back to the drawing board. Gut instinct can often be right. Make sure that your image cannot be confused with any of your competitors!

Once your company’s image is created it should be carried through in every piece of marketing carried out. The way a company name is written, whether it is in logo form, or in a particular font and colour, it must be constant. The basis of a company corporate image includes the name, logo, slogan and corporate colours. This should be used without fail in all advertising, signage, stationary, promotional material, website and price lists. Keep your company image constant and people will start to recognise it. This is a way of creating ‘a brand’ and ‘brand awareness’.

ADVERTISING

PROMOTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

Aside from ‘paid for’ advertising, look at promotional opportunities and local sponsorship deals. Work with other dog- and cat-related organisations in your vicinity. Build a good reputation with local groomers, vets, training and canine societies. It often takes two or three connections with a business before people take the bait. New customers could see an advert in a local publication, notice a card on a vet's notice board and then drive by and see your sign. Several pieces of marketing will create a trust in the customer’s eyes so, when they need a kennels, yours will be the obvious choice.

DEALING WITH THE MEDIA

The basics of Public Relations is supplying your company news to ‘the media’ (magazines, newspapers, radio and TV) in order to receive positive publicity. Using the media to communicate with your customers is a marketing tool that just about all companies can benefit from. Although Public Relations is only part of the way you market your business, good media coverage can be a cost effective and rewarding way of promotion. If a story is reported as a piece of editorial (rather than an advertisement), readers tend to consider the facts to be endorsed by the editor and the story to have more credibility.

PRESS RELEASES

When you see pieces of news in a magazine or newspaper much of the copy could well have been supplied to the editor as a press release. If a press release arrives on an editor's desk well written, interesting and correctly targeted, it is easy for them to use it word for word. The person who supplied the press release is helping the editor produce an interesting, factually correct and newsworthy section to their publication. So remember, when you plan your advertising schedule, build PR into the equation too - it could well provide the icing on the cake!

GETTING THE STYLE RIGHT

The most professional way to approach the media is by way of a press release, which can be faxed, emailed or posted. Unless you have had previous experience in journalism, it is unlikely that you would be able to produce your own press releases without some help. The press release will have a strong newsworthy headline and tell the story in the opening few sentences to grab the readers’ attention. It will only be about 400 words long, be in plain text with double line spacing. The press release must portray news. You should build a database of media and contact names that you wish to target with news. Press cuttings can be framed and mounted too. Keep your eye out for a story all the time and don’t be afraid to circulate it!

Radio and TV works in a similar way to editorial in newspapers. News should be supplied to named editors by way of a press release. A spokesperson from your business should be available to be interviewed about the story. If press releases are circulated, it is vital that those receiving calls realize that a journalist or editor could be contacting them. Brief your staff to respond quickly and knowledgeably to contacts from the media. General editorial could be required from time to time as it may be offered free with advertising or as part of an editorial feature. It is sensible to have somebody with the right skills who knows your business on stand-by to produce press releases and editorial at short notice.

Whether it's corporate image, advertising or PR, remember what they say... failing to marketing your company is like winking at a girl in the dark -not a lot of point really is there? Good luck!