The Marketing Dogs – April News

The Marketing Dogs April News

The Marketing Dogs April News

Bonjour humans, George here, back again on the blog. A lot has changed since my last blog in January.

 

We have been busy on our dog project this month, Costa Del Dog, converting the human foyer into a beautiful paradise for us marketing dogs. Now we are finally seeing a little sun, our glass fronted premises is heating up nicely.

the marketing dogs enjoying costa del dog

We have a nice mat to lay on for catching the rays, or some cool tiles for when you’ve spent a little too long in the light, and need to cool down. The humans did lay some towels down for us, but I may have mistaken the towel for a toy, so they were quickly removed. Luckily though the area is pretty comfy anyway.

We don’t encourage sun hoggers (I think you humans have them too, the ones who put their towels down in the middle of the night) but we have had to have some words, with canines who will remain unnamed *snortSammysnort*.

sammy stealing all the sun

We asked the humans if we could build a pool, but they denied us planning permission unfortunately.

But overall, we are enjoying our little bit of paradise, though the sun is quite temperamental at the minute. Sammy keeps escaping to the corner desks when the sun moves, to catch a few last rays before home time.

Speaking of Sammy, she has certainly come out of her shell the last few weeks, bounding around like a deer in the office. It is great to see such enthusiasm from a new member of staff. She even did a little dance on Wednesday (or as the humans keep calling it, hump day), which made us all laugh.

Chops has mainly been on Costa Del Dog supervising duty, making sure our facilities are up to scratch, but she’s still be continuing her other supervising duties, such as keeping us groomed.

chops licking george

And me? Well I’ve not been very well, I ate a bad bone and had to have a nasty trip to the vet, but mum give me lots of extra hugs and love, and I’m back to my normal mischeavious ways now.

 

Love and licks

George xoxo

The Marketing Dogs – January News

The Marketing Dogs January news

The Marketing Dogs January news

Bonjour humans!

Chops and Sammy have left me to take charge and paw the first dog blog of the year.

This month’s took a lot of getting used to! We had a very sleepy start, and did not appreciate the early morning wakeup call after a nice Christmas break with lots of lie-ins. We did make it into work ready for the start of the New Year, though I may have made mum walk as slow as possible to prolong our break. But we started 2016 as we meant to go on – with a quick play and then rewarding ourselves with a nap.

However January is not our favourite month. December and Christmas were brrrilliant, as we ate lots of pigs in blankets and had lots of sleep in snuggly blankets. Though mum did take us on lots of walkies so we didn’t begin to look like pigs in blankets ourselves. But January? January is just a little too cold and wet for our liking. (Though I’ve found chasing pigeons a good way to warm up when on walkies).

Bark Back in the office, Sammy is getting settled. She has decided to create a new role of just supervising Ash, which means she has to sit on his lap and snooze supervise everything he’s doing. She’s very thorough and even inspects his lunch to make sure it’s a good choice. She’s doing a really good job, and rarely leaves his side, except for when she has to cover barking at the postman duties with us, or greeting clients.

Myself and Chops are keeping the rest of the team on track, supervising from our new perch in the office.

Chops thought we were doing such a good job she’d treat the three of us to a pamper and made me get my hair and paws done. Mum and Dad were very impressed with the results and I have to admit I thought I looked great. Sammy was almost asleep she was so relaxed!

Chops, George and Sammy all groomed

 

Now I spy a rogue plastic bottle in the office which definitely needs my attention, must dash!

Love and licks

George x

The Marketing Dogs Need You!

the marketing dogs need you

the marketing dogs need you

We need your help.

We know the humans wouldn’t function at work without us. We think we are certainly the most professional, happy, cuddly, four pawed bosses assistants out there.

But we know some of our pet pals have to help their humans throughout the day too. With the general stuff, you know like helping them empty the bin, alerting them to intruders and helping them eat their lunch.

We’d love to hear your stories though, just to remind the humans of how much we really do for them. It doesn’t have to be much, just a little on your daily routine, the best part of your day or your favourite human to distract help from 9 till 5.

So please send us your pictures, and what you’ve been up to in the office, to one of our humans Lauren (lauren.keeling@themarketingpeople.com) or tweet us @TheMrketingDogs and we’ll pop it in our next doggy blog, showcasing your skills, and mentioning your humans company too!

In the meantime, take a look at how we’ve helped humans with advice on SEO, strategy, exhibitions, blogging, and lots of other great tips, in our Marketing Dogs Blog.

Must dash, the dog and bone’s going! Speak soon.

Trick or Treat … From The Marketing Dogs

Trick or Treat

Trick or Treat

Bonjour humans

You’ve not heard from us for a while, as Autumn has fallen and we have been very busy protecting our humans from all of the leaves throwing themselves from the trees. The humans laugh at us but we think they’re barking mad!

We’ve also been busy greeting the human’s customers, making them feel very welcome, and sometimes giving them some of our extra fur to keep them warm. Which is all part of our pawesome customer service.

So we’re already at that spooky time of year George in fancy dressagain, which means mum and the team have had chance to dress us up.

Though I woof love to strut the show in my outfits, Chops is not a fan, and normally gets me to help her rip it off straight away. It is definitely my favourite time of year, being wrapped up nice and cosy, getting to wear brrrrrrilliant outfits and running around in leaves.

Chops seems a little bit disappointed that the sun bathing in the foyer season is over. I’ve tried to convince her it’s the best with tails tales of warm sausages, cosy blankets and extra fuss from the humans as they want warm cuddles, but she is still feeling a little blue that summer is over. So I thought I’d tell her some Halloween jokes to cheer her up and get her as excited as I am.

Did you want to hear them?

Why don’t ghosts like rain on Halloween? … It dampens their spirits!

What’s a monsters favourite dessert? … I-Scream!

Why did the skeleton go to a BBQ? … For the spare ribs!

What do witches put on their hair? … Scare Spray!

How do you fix a jack o lantern? … With a pumpkin patch!

I know; I am hilarious. What do you think chops?

Chops looking unimpressed

Hmmm she doesn’t seem impressed …

I think maybe I’m better at tricks than I am jokes, and we both love doing tricks if it means treats!

George, Chops and Puppy being well behaved

Just look how well behaved we are! This is when our clients WKD trained dogs bought one of their puppies in to see us. She knew a lot more tricks than we did! But we kept up as best we could.

We do know a lot of tricks though like … sitting … and sleeping …and saying hello to the team. They might not be backflips and riding skateboards, but we’re business dogs, we’ve got a bit more decorum!

We’d love to see our fellow canine pals though doing some fantastic tricks, so feel free to comment, or come see us on twitter!

We’re off to devour the rest of our treats now.

Love and paws,

Chops and George

Happy Halloween!

Until next time, you can catch up on all our adventures in our blog!

A dog’s view on SEO

a dogs view on seo

a dogs view on seo

I’ve heard the humans talk about the importance of SEO, but I’m not sure if we’re barking up the same tree! My whole life is SEO, sleeping, entertaining and ogling, but the humans seem to think it’s something to do with a search engine?

George the business dog

All I know is I have a really hard life. For example, every day the humans drag me to work, they make me walk all that way! That’s like at least 100 metres! As you can see I am a very busy business dog, and I do not need to be wasting valuable energy on something like walking!

 

Sleeping 1

 

So how does a successful dog like me run my day? Well the first thing I have to do, once I’ve said hello to everyone of course, is to have a little sleep. The humans say I snore, but really I’m just multitasking and protecting the humans from nasties by making my presence known.

 

George playing with bin

 

Then its play time, I love to be social and have to get everyone to give me a fuss and choose a toy. Sometimes its snake, sometimes it mouse, sometimes it’s even the bin. I thought it was brilliant I could even make the chore of emptying the bin fun! But instead the humans laugh at me and talk in weird baby voices, so at least I know I’m entertaining them.

 

George ogling cake

 

Then I have to ogle at the human’s food that they are mean enough to keep away from me. One day, I will ogle enough that they will give me their lunch! It hasn’t worked so far, mum never cuts me a slice of cake! But sometimes Laurie gives me a bit of ham … he might be coming round …

 

George the marketing dog giving tips

 

Then once I have given David my professional opinion on business things, I usually have another snooze. Funnily enough when I wake up to go home, he doesn’t seem to have used any of my ideas of an extra paw print here and there, adding my toys to exhibition stands or making the brochures sausage scented. So I will try again tomorrow …

I’d woof love to hear if you agree with my idea of SEO (Sleeping, entertaining and ogling) but I suppose if you want to see what the humans say about SEO, you could click here.

Dogs on Show at Bingley Hall

dogs on show at bingley hall

dogs on show at bingley hall

We had a trip to Bingley Hall this weekend as spectators at the Stafford District Canine Society dog show.

It was our furst time at an event like this and wow what a day. There were six show rings where all manner of different dogs paraded themselves after being primped and preened for days by their humans.

The pugs were in ring 6 and I have to say all looked fabulous. Apparently I’m classed as a toy dog, well I’m a real dog I can tell you! The Frenchie’s not looking too shabby either strutted their furry stuff in ring five and are classed as utility dogs. Dobermans and Rottweilers are also classed as utility dogs so George was feeling particularly hench.

It was all in the preparation. Having chats with fellow four legged friends and their humans it seems they spend days preparing, bathing, trimming, brushing and pampering. They also attend some strange sounding place called ring classes which helps you to walk on a lead properly and stand like a champion. Some dogs we spoke to say they have been in training and preparing from 8 weeks old.

Well I`ve decided that rolling in the mud and other unmentionable smelly stuff is much more fun although George believes with his pedigree that a Crufts trophy should surely fall at his paws.

You can’t get anywhere without preparation and planning, so if you need a paw with planning and preparing your marketing pick up the dog and bone or bark us an email and we will get the humans to have a chat with you.

The Marketing Dogs on Exhibitions

the marketing dogs on exhibitions

the marketing dogs on exhibitions

You may know that we run a group of humans at The Marketing People. Well they keep talking about exhibitions, and giving tips on how to make the most of them. But, they don’t have the dogs eye view on things! So we thought we would take a break from running around the office, put on our best ties and give you some tips from a different perspective.

If dogs were in charge of shows, they would be pawesome, and we would focus on these three things:

Free Food … yum

George and Chops with Ice Cream

We will always follow our nose, and if you have tasty treats on your stand, you know we’ll be there! The humans say it’s not essential to offer free stuff, and you should focus on your key messages, and we suppose they’re right, but we just can’t resist some ice cream!

Following your nose doesn’t always take you to stands though. We love to hang out in the café, to try our best puppy dog eyes to get lots of food. But the humans seem to gather there to network, which actually seems a good idea to make the most of the day out! We’d be greeting our 4 legged pals if they were here, and making lots of new acquaintances too. The humans seem much more relaxed doing business here too.

 

Ooo … Shiny Things

George and Chops destroy their toys

If food isn’t your fancy to get visitors to your stand, shiny things always work with us. Humans seem to react the same when they see pens, highlighters or mugs. I would think something better like a bottle would be good. I love bottles.

We love new toys, and if we see something new, we’re going to run straight to it, and drag our humans with us! So if you’re going to spend all that money on freebies, why not go for something a little more unusual and have people running for the stand? Humans seem to treasure their new ‘toys’, unlike ours, which we seem to destroy quite quickly, so I guess it would be important to have your messages on your freebies. Once you have got our humans attention to the stand though, you need to give them some attention to get them to stay!

 

Lots of fuss … Ahh

George having fuss from David

We love fuss. And humans do too. We love fuss in the form of someone rubbing our ears or giving us a cuddle. Humans don’t work quite the same, in fact they seem to find it strange if someone rubs their ears. (They don’t know what they are missing!). They seem to enjoy being asked about their business though, actually being listened to, and just having some attention we think, which keeps them talking at a stand.

 

So there you have it, to gain the humans attention at exhibitions:

  • Meet them in the café (but don’t steal their food!)
  • Put interesting shiny things on your stand to gain attention
  • Once you have their attention, use it!

 

Then at the end of it all, have a little sleep, because doing business is tiring work and can be a little ruff rough, as is running the office! That reminds me, it’s time for our 10am snooze meeting. Must dash!

George going to sleep

 

If you want to see more of what the humans say on exhibitions, talk straight to them by calling 01543 495752 to talk through your exhibition set up.

Barking in the boardroom; it’s a dogs life!

barking in the boardroom, its a dogs life

barking in the boardroom, its a dogs life

Bonjour et nihao Humans,

I don’t know about you, but we’ve had a busy day today; Gareth, Lauren and Laura from Morgan Signs & Design have been in talking about digital marketing and social media.

Our good furiends at Morgan Signs & Design design manufacture, install, maintain and renovate signs for pubs, restaurants, hotels, shops, businesses and more. (Which reminds us, we must send Gareth an email asking if he can create us a sign for the kitchen saying ‘No Cats Allowed’, that’s our bedroom cats!)

The humans had a chat with them about how they could help them with their digital and printed marketing material and are now looking into creating both printed and digital brochures and newsletters fur them.

For those of you who don’t remember the great print is dead debate of 2012, both of us have strong feelings towards print and digital. Chops favours printed marketing material, while I prefer digital marketing material so I can view it on my iBone.

Being furry and clued up, once the conversation moved to social media we were able to take ofur and talk to them about how social media could help their business.

A couple of weeks ago we created a LinkedIn Company Page for Morgan Signs & Design and after todays bark, we are planning to design, develop and build a blog which is integrated into their existing website and help them manage their blog.

Of course, when we say we’re going to do it, we mean we’re going to delegate the task to the Humans and take up a supervisory role.

Once we’d set them straight on social media, things got more serious as we turned to the topic of office pets.

We’ve been told that they have an office goldfish (zzzzzz) and Lauren and Laura feel they need something a bit furrier and woofier in the office.

We sat Gareth down and had a furry serious conversation with him about the benefits of office dogs. In fact, that’s what we’re doing in the picture above; we put on our best puppy dog eyes, tried our best to stop moulting for a minute and looked adorable.

It was lovely to meet Gareth, Lauren and Laura and we would like to extend our paws and them them for their time and the tasty treats and hope they got something out of it, other than dog slobber and fur. We look paward, oops forward, to seeing them soon and there better be a dog in tow next time!

Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to snore very loudly.

Love and licks,
George & Chops

P.S Gareth, when you get your office dog, you can bring him or her to us for office dog training where we will be able to teach your new recruit how to;
– Snore all day
– Bark at the postman
– Empty the dustbins
– Ride chairs
– Clean up leftover lunch

Best of all, it will only cost you a chewy bone…each.

How the Mobile Phone Has Changed Marketing & Website Design.

How the mobile phone has changed web design

How the mobile phone has changed web design

Earlier this week the mobile phone celebrated its 40th birthday. As a modern dog who spends pawlenty of time on his iBone, I wanted to look at how the mobile phone has changed marketing and website design.

At the end of 2012, Portio Research found that there were 83 million mobile subscribers in theUK, 36 million of which were smartphones.

Thanks to smartphones, humans (and dogs) can get on the internet. Read product reviews and buy regardless of where they are. For example, if you’re out walking your four-legged friend and they lose a ball. You could order them a new one right there and then.

As a result, marketing, advertising and even website design has had to adapt and change as the popularity of smartphones grows.

 

Social Media is furry very im-paw-tent

Last week research was released which found that smartphone users with a Facebook account check their Facebook 13.8 times a day on average. If that’s not proof of how important phones and social media are to humans, then I don’t know what is.

For businesses who use Facebook, that’s 13.8 additional chances for them to target and engage their ‘fans’. That’s before we’ve even though about the likes of Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or Tumblr.

In short, businesses no longer have to rely on their audience being at their computer to try and engage with them through social media.

How businesses use social media varies greatly. Some will use it to create and drive interest in them. Some will use it to engage with their customers or try to drive them back to their website. Some go the whole hog and use Facebook commerce apps to sell their products directly through Facebook.

From a consumers point of view, social media is useful for finding out customers thoughts on a product or service before they spend their hard earned money.

Consumers also find social media, Twitter especially, is one of the best and fastest ways to resolve an issue. As a company wants to be seen to be active in helping its customers resolve a problem. As a result some companies have Twitter accounts dedicated to customer support.

Both of these allow businesses to get a feeling for how people are feeling about them and their products. To flag up whether there are any issues they need to resolve. Or if there is anything they need to do to improve the publics perception of them.

While some of the above would be possible without smartphones. With people spending so much of their time on their phone there are now more opportunities for businesses to generate leads and get conversions and to create loyal customers.

 

QR Code

QR codes were originally used in the automotive industry, but again thanks to the capabilities of smartphones they’re now frequently used in advertising campaigns or on business cards.

QR codes can be used for a number of things, such as to encourage people to;

  • Sign up to a mailing list
  • Pre-order or buy a product
  • Enter a competition
  • Find out more about a product

 

SMS Marketing

Of course, without the mobile phone SMS marketing wouldn’t be possible at all. Some businesses use text messaging to get in touch with their customers. To remind them about their business, alert them to offers and competitions or ask them to fill out a survey.

In fact, every Friday Mum and Dad receive text messages from Domino’s Pizza trying to tempt us into ordering a big tasty pizza.

 

Email Marketing

During the second half of 2012, 28.98% of emails were opened on mobile devices. Meaning that marketers are now having to take mobile into account when designing their emails.

In some cases where the majority of email opens come from mobile phones. A business may decide which day and what time to send an email based on a peak time for mobile phone use.

 

Mobile Optimised Websites

It isn’t just marketing that’s had to adapt due to the popularity of mobile devices. Website design has also changed over the years.

Ideally businesses should now have a mobile friendly version of their website. This means that people who view their website from their mobile will be able to use it easily without having to scroll or zoom in too much.

Mobile friendly websites are especially important for ecommerce websites as if it’s difficult to navigate or search for a product the user wants, they will just use a user friendly competitor instead.

As well as creating mobile friendly websites, some retailers have also created phone apps. Big brands such as eBay, ASDA, Forever 21, Topshop, Amazon and ASOS have mobile apps that allow users to browse and buy products.

Getting users to download your app means they’ll constantly be reminded about your company, increasing the likliehood that they will use your app instead of browsing the internet and using a competitor. It also means you’re likely to create loyal customers as they’ll use your app out of convenience.

Thanks to the mobile phone businesses have more opportunities to market and sell to their target audience and consumers have products at their fingertips wherever they are.

 

Must dash, I have a iBone chess match scheduled with Chops. We are intelligent you know.

Paws and Licks,

George.

 

Contact Us

If you’re a small business based in Burntwood, Lichfield, Staffordshire or the West Midlands and need help with your marketing or website design, get in touch with my humans who can add real benefit to your business. Fill out the contact form on their website or pick up the dog and bone and give them a call on 01543 387 047

If you want to read more from our website series of blogs, just click here to see what other resources are available.

Four Tips For Writing Pawesome Product Descriptions

four tips for writing awesome product descriptions

four tips for writing awesome product descriptions

Bonjour Humans,

I spent last night surfing the internets for a new iBone cover (Chops chewed the last one). And I couldn’t help feel frustrated at the amount of poor product descriptions.

Being the friendly Marketing Dog I am. I thought I’d give you folks some hints and tips to help you write the best and most pawesome product copy you can!

To explain my points I’m going to use an example product throughout. This is the Holy Grail for most dog owners, a dog proof bin.

 

Get Found – Keywords

To help your products perform well in both search engines and in your websites search function, you need to include keywords in the product title and description.

Let’s imagine this dog-proof bin comes in three colours; silver, black and white.

The colours and the words ‘dog proof’ and ‘bin’ need to be included in both the product title and description. For example, if someone is browsing your website and your product title just says ‘Black Bin’, they won’t know that it’s a dog proof bin, which means you’ve just lost a sale.

It’s very important to include keywords but don’t be tempted to go overboard use too many. This is called keyword stuffing; search engines don’t like it and will punish your search rankings for it, and in some extreme cases they will banish you from the listings all together and send you to your bed with your tail between your legs and no treat after dinner.

 

So What? – List Benefits

Even if it seems really obvious, and most of the time it will do, list your products benefits. The whole time someone is reading your product description and pondering a purchase, there’s a little voice in their head going; ‘So what? If I part with x amount of my hard earned money, how will this product help me or solve a problem for me?’

People are being careful with their money and they want to know that they aren’t wasting it by buying your product and that it will help them.

Let’s think about the dog proof bin, the benefits are obvious, but let’s list them;

  • It holds rubbish
  • Your dog can’t get into the rubbish
  • This means your don’t won’t injure themselves or make themselves ill after raiding the rubbish
  • You won’t have to spend your evening picking the rubbish up off the kitchen floor

Humans are being careful with their money and want to know that your product will help them and won’t be a waste of money.

Thankfully the only money issues us dogs have is, whether that 50p we swallowed is going to cause us problems.

 

Know Your Target Audience – Know What They Want

You’re all good business owners and marketers, so you know exactly what kind of person your customer is and what kind of information they want to know.

There will be certain questions your product description will need to answer for your customer. Such as;

  • Will it arrive fully assembled, part assembled or in bits?
  • If I need to do some assembly what tools will I need?
  • How big is it so I can figure out where to put it in my kitchen?
  • What size liners will I need?

This of course will vary depending on what your product is, but take time to think carefully about what questions your product description needs to answer.

Knowing your target audience also means you can gauge what kind of tone of voice you can use. With something like a dog proof bin, you can get away with a bit of humour and a few puns, but only if all of the information is there.

 

Formatting

Formatting is important, people don’t want to read huge paragraphs of text, so short and succinct sentences and paragraphs are important.

When listing your products advantages, you may have a lot to bark about, so listing them as bullet points will make it easier for people to digest. Figuratively of course, eating a website would be more impressive than raiding a bin.

Keep an ear out for The Marketing Dogs tips for pawesome product listings which will be on the blog next week.

 

Contact Us

If your e-commerce website isn’t performing as well as you’d like, or you need help with your product descriptions, get on the dog and bone and talk to my lovely humans, The Marketing People. You can call them on 01543 387 047, or drop them an email on contact@themarketingpeople.com. Don’t write to them though, I’ll only eat your letter.

 

If you want to read more from our website series of blogs, just click here to see what other resources are available.