Marketing to Pet Owners

Marketing to Pet Owners, Finding Ideal Targets

63% of Australian households own pets, we are one of the highest pet owning countries in the world.  

There are approximately 37 million pets in Australia and we spend massively on them - nearly $8 billion per annum and growing.  Of the homes that don't have a pet 53 percent would like to get one in the near future.

The pet industry is one of the few industries to not have slowed down during the global financial crisis.  In fact it grew from $6.02 billion in 2009 to 7.8 billion in 2011-2012.  

Attitudes to pets have changed considerably also.  No long do they live outside, fed table scraps and considered just a pet.  Nine out of ten pet owners, they prefer to be called pet parents, consider their pets family.

As pets are increasingly considered part of the family, consumers are showing that they place significant value on their health and wellbeing.

So pet companies are likely to think that they have this huge enthusiastic audience and marketing to them should be easy.  

Do some advertising or marketing and you'll reach the 10 to 11 million owners, right?

Wrong.  

This technique is known in the marketing industry as “spray and pray”. Marketing to the masses and pray that your audience responds. 

Even though two out of three families have pets, this doesn’t mean they all need your service.
Your customers must meet all three of these criteria:

1. They must have interest in your product or service.
2. They must be able to afford what you’re selling.
3. They must be willing to spend the money; they must see the value.

As you can see, the number of people who meet these criteria is much smaller than two-thirds of the public.

Furthermore, this also assumes you don’t have competition. Now your product must be more interesting, more affordable, or offer greater value than your competitors.
Suddenly, “spray and pray” doesn’t seem to have a prayer.
Who are ideal pet owners?
Children love animals… but they don’t have jobs.  Families with children have incomes… but many also a priority list that doesn’t favor the pets. Mostly they purchase pet food, supplies, and health care but won’t spend excessively.

There are three Ideal pet owners:

• Women - with jobs which earn a minimum of 50k per annum.  They may be single, in a relationship or married, they may have children.  But they have the money and the lifestyle and they love to spend on their pets.  Women are the main carers of pets, of course they are!   

• Couples with families where the children have grown - they no longer have to spend on their children and now they consider their pet(s) their children.  They have total income greater than $100,000 and own a home.

• The highest spending pet owner market now is female baby boomers.  They now spend more than any other market.  They totally consider their pets as children and have the money to spend on them.

Defining your ideal market with absolute clarity gives you the ability to target them with laser focus. Having a clearly defined customer means you can purchase mailing lists or place ads where these potential customers live and work.

However, your ideal customer may differ from the example above. Your medical specialty, services or unique factors in your community can shift the demographic of your ideal client.

Many of your customers won’t match the criteria of “ideal”. Ideal doesn’t mean exclusive. Ideal customers are simply “targets that give you the best return on your marketing investment”.

Four Paws PR can help you clearly define your ideal client, then help you market to them with laser focus.  www.fourpawspr.com