News Matt Aldrich News Matt Aldrich

We're Headed to SuperZoo 2023!

A short breakdown of what you can expect from Pet Engine Marketing at SuperZoo 2023, including founder Matt Aldrich’s educational presentation on the importance of your pet business’s Google Business Profile!

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Matt Aldrich Matt Aldrich

Pet Engine Marketing is Headed to SuperZoo 2022

A short breakdown of what you can expect from Pet Engine Marketing at SuperZoo 2022, including founder Matt Aldrich’s educational presentation on pet store marketing and the importance of your pet store’s Google Business Profile!

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Pet Engine Marketing Pet Engine Marketing

How to Start a Pet Store: Marketing Checklist for New Pet Store Owners

If you’re starting new pet store or pet business, it’s important to get off on the right foot (or paw)! Use our Marketing Checklist for New Pet Store Owners for free marketing ideas for your pet store to start growing your community, customer base, and profits as soon as possible!

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SEO Pet Engine Marketing SEO Pet Engine Marketing

Top Five 2021 SEO Trends for Pet Stores

If you’re a pet store owner and you think it’s important that you are ranked on the first page, or in the top three results, of Google in 2021, you’re going to find this article worth reading to improve your pet store SEO results.

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Strategy Pet Engine Marketing Strategy Pet Engine Marketing

COVID Impact on Pet Stores and How Marketing Can Help

The COVID-19 pandemic has been, for many pet retailers, the single biggest challenge in the history of their business. Whether you’ve been in business for one year or thirty years, the impact has been widespread and damaging to retailers everywhere. How can pet store marketing help lead your through to the light?

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Social Media Pet Engine Marketing Social Media Pet Engine Marketing

Pet Store Social Media Marketing Calendars

In this Insider post for pet store owners, we’re going to go over the benefits of a pet store social media marketing calendar, how to get started making one, what platforms or services to use, and our best practices in creating and executing on these calendars!

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Freesources, SEO Pet Engine Marketing Freesources, SEO Pet Engine Marketing

Jet's Favorite Freesources: Google Search Console

Optimizing your pet store website for conversions and/or leads is one of the best investments (time and money) that you can make for your business. Your website is selling while you sleep, so ensuring that it runs smoothly and provides you with actionable data can be a lifesaver, and Google Search Console can get you to that point.

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Email Marketing Pet Engine Marketing Email Marketing Pet Engine Marketing

5 Tips to Improve Pet Store Email Marketing

As more and more pet stores have shifted towards eCommerce solutions due to COVID-19, email marketing has become increasingly more important. The biggest issue is that many pet store owners that are just beginning their pet store’s email marketing campaigns face an uphill battle in fighting for attention.

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Email Marketing, Social Media, Event Marketing Pet Engine Marketing Email Marketing, Social Media, Event Marketing Pet Engine Marketing

May 2020 Marketing Calendar for Pet Stores

Given the current circumstances, most monthly marketing plans and campaigns are being t̶h̶r̶o̶w̶n̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶n̶d̶o̶w̶ adapted appropriately by our clients and those marketing their pet businesses smartly and responsibly! Check out our May 2020 Marketing Calendar for Pet Stores to join that group!

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Strategy Pet Engine Marketing Strategy Pet Engine Marketing

Consumer Profiles: Pet Parents & Pet Product Purchasers

As a pet store owner, finding and targeting your ideal audience is the number one way to drive revenue growth year after year. With a specific set of questions and this infographic, we can help you get a better idea of who your ideal customer is, the life they lead outside your store, and the rest of their consumer profile.

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Marketing Help for Pet Businesses

The new face of Pet Engine Marketing on Facebook will be our Group page: Marketing Help for Pet Businesses. Read on to learn more!

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Social Media, eCommerce Pet Engine Marketing Social Media, eCommerce Pet Engine Marketing

Adapting to Crisis: Pet Store Social Media

For our clients, pet store social media, and social media in general, is so much more than sharing heartwarming animal-related stories, posting about the cute pets in the store, or selling a few extra bags of food or treats. Now more than ever as COVID-19 spreads across the country and businesses are shutting their doors, social media is the primary communication outlet for businesses, agencies, the government, and people.

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Social Media, Strategy, SEO, Event Marketing Pet Engine Marketing Social Media, Strategy, SEO, Event Marketing Pet Engine Marketing

April 2020 Marketing Calendar for Pet Stores

With everything going on right now, it is more important than ever that your store stays active, communicative, and responsive online. Our April 2020 Marketing Calendar for Pet Stores is a good way to use your pet store social media feeds to create easy, relevant content for your audience to absorb as online-time skyrockets.

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News, Strategy Pet Engine Marketing News, Strategy Pet Engine Marketing

COVID-19 Survival Guide: Pet Store Strategies to Weather the Storm

The world is changing, faster and more suddenly than most of us expected. And beyond the fraught health emergencies that so many of us are going through, many of us in the pet industry are being asked to adapt, change, and roll with the punches, uncertain of what the future looks like. At Pet Engine Marketing, we have been encouraging our clients to do a few things:

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Strategy Pet Engine Marketing Strategy Pet Engine Marketing

The 5 P's of Pet Store Marketing

As pet store marketers in today’s globalized digital age we have to think bigger and stretch past principles and guidelines into a framework that still fits today. That brings us to our 5 Ps of Pet Store Marketing.

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Strategy Pet Engine Marketing Strategy Pet Engine Marketing

How to Keep Your Best Pet Store Employees [Infographic]

Your business won’t succeed without reliable, competent, trustworthy employees. So when you find those A+ pet store employees, what are you as the pet store owner doing to keep them there for longer? Are you providing relevant rewards, more responsibility, less of a task they dislike or aren’t proficient at?

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Pet Engine Marketing Pet Engine Marketing

The Pet Parent's Journey to Loyalty (Part 3)

Congratulations! You have won over a customer and nurtured the relationship to ensure that your pet parent keeps coming back every month. This is your pet store’s lifeblood: the loyal shopper. It’s a good feeling, seeing familiar faces, isn’t it?

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Strategy Pet Engine Marketing Strategy Pet Engine Marketing

The Pet Parent's Journey to Loyalty (Part 2)

You can’t rest on your laurels once you’ve convinced shoppers of the value of your brand. To retain customers, you have to consistently deliver relevant and personalized content based on their preferences and past behaviors.

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Strategy Pet Engine Marketing Strategy Pet Engine Marketing

The Pet Parent's Journey to Loyalty (Part 1)

How do you turn your pet store’s customers into true brand advocates? The kinds of pet parents that speak to their friends about their excellent experience in your store, the kinds of pet parents that you can’t get enough of. We’ll share some thoughts on it in this Insider series on the pet parent’s journey to loyalty.

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News, Strategy Pet Engine Marketing News, Strategy Pet Engine Marketing

2020 Marketing Trends for Pet Stores

It’s interesting how marketing needs and trends reflect human desires and growth paths. In our lives, we continue to see an influx of technology, just like the marketing world. We cover some 2020 marketing trends for pet stores, taking the broader, industry-wide marketing trends and focusing them for local, independent, family-owned pet stores.

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Social Media Pet Engine Marketing Social Media Pet Engine Marketing

Facebook Image Cheatsheet [Infographic]

Keeping up with the changes that Facebook continually introduces can be tough. Check out this infographic for all the details of Facebook image sizes and dimensions to ensure that your content and page looks, sounds, and feels the best on Facebook.

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Pet Engine Marketing Pet Engine Marketing

Our Thoughts: Pet Spending by Generation

Following up on The Pet Business Professor’s recent post on 2018 U.S. Pet Spending by Generation, we figured we would help share this excellent data and share some of our thoughts, takeaways, and action items.

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Social Media, News Matt Aldrich Social Media, News Matt Aldrich

Social Media Habits by Generations

A report recently came onto our desk based on research done by The Manifest on social media habits by generation. We summarize it and give some of our insights as to what it means for pet stores, and how the data might affect pet store marketing strategies and tactics.

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Strategy, Event Marketing Matt Aldrich Strategy, Event Marketing Matt Aldrich

Holiday Retail Marketing Trends 2019 (Pt. 1)

When we really think about it, holiday shopping is about finding the perfect gift for the special people (or pets) in our lives. So how do you find that perfect gift? Santa doesn’t deliver it. Elves aren’t building it. Here’s our five holiday retail marketing trends of 2019, and some actionable takeaways for pet store owners and your pet store’s marketing strategy to thrive with these trends.

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Social Media Matt Aldrich Social Media Matt Aldrich

How to Set Up Instagram for Your Pet Store (Infographic)

Instagram is a hugely powerful tool for pet stores, and this infographic on how to set up Instagram for your pet store (or other pet business) can help you get the most ROI from it. Head to the bottom of the post to see our 3 major takeaways for pet businesses when it comes to setting up your business Instagram profile.

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Email Marketing Pet Engine Marketing Email Marketing Pet Engine Marketing

Email Content Ideas for Pet Stores (pt. 1)

Want to start email marketing for your pet store but you don’t know what kind of content to put out? Our team here at Pet Engine Marketing has come up with a handful of email content ideas for pet stores that you can put to the test, going beyond the standard newsletter.

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Making the Most of your Marketing: 2019 Trends

For those of you that weren’t able to make it to Pet Connections Expo this past year, we’re going to break down one of our popular campfire session topics. This particular topic was focused on 2019 trends for retailers, marketers, and pet store owners, ultimately providing some takeaways and ideas for pet store owners to market their stores in creative ways that will draw the eye and bring in business.

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News Matt Aldrich News Matt Aldrich

Pet Connections Expo Review

In this Insider post we’re going to give a brief review on our impressions of Pet Connections Expo, go over some pros and cons, and try to answer some questions that pet store owners might have regarding this expo, ultimately tackling the main one: is Pet Connections Expo worth attending?

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Strategy Pet Engine Marketing Strategy Pet Engine Marketing

Enhancing Customer Loyalty for Pet Stores (Part 3)

Our philosophy for pet store clients is to maintain a continual focus on attracting new business, but also maximizing business from current existing customers. To do that, we need to enhance their loyalty to their pet store and continue to build loyalty from customers that are not as far along in the customer journey.

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News, SEO Matt Aldrich News, SEO Matt Aldrich

Pet Store Google Updates

Most of the time Google will update it’s algorithms without warning, news, or notifications of any sort. However, the most recent core updates have come with an announcement from Google on what’s changed. We’re here to take all of that data and drill it down into something manageable when it comes to marketing for pet stores.

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SEO Matt Aldrich SEO Matt Aldrich

SEO Checklist for Pet Stores

If you want your pet store to rise up the rankings in Google, get more organic traffic online, and ultimately result in more foot traffic through the door and more sales at the store, this is worth your time!

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Customer Service, Strategy Pet Engine Marketing Customer Service, Strategy Pet Engine Marketing

Enhancing Customer Loyalty for Pet Stores (Part 1)

Marketing isn’t just your advertising, your signage, or your logo. It’s everything that happens when pet parents encounter your pet store’s brand, from all of your online or offline advertising to the experience they have speaking with your employees in the store. So it’s everything that goes into their interaction with your brand, and these interactions are what enhance customer loyalty.

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Email Marketing Matt Aldrich Email Marketing Matt Aldrich

3 Steps to Improve Email Personalization

Did you know that 90% of consumer say they find email personalization appealing? Or that 80% are more likely to purchase from a business that offers personalized marketing and experiences? Check out these 3 steps to improve your pet store’s email marketing and get more customers, more visits, and more revenue!

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Email Marketing, Social Media, Strategy Pet Engine Marketing Email Marketing, Social Media, Strategy Pet Engine Marketing

7 Powerful Ways to Promote Content Organically

Running a business, big or small, means weighing the ins and outs. Is the juice worth the squeeze? What’s the return on investment? Is the money I put in going to get me the results I want? These are questions all business owners come up against, especially when it comes to marketing. As a pet store owner, how can you effectively promote your pet store and it’s content without breaking the bank?

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SEO Matt Aldrich SEO Matt Aldrich

Case Study: Beating Local Competition

The team here at Pet Engine Marketing have made massive increases to organic (unpaid) traffic through search engines like Google and Bing with one of our clients, Wags to Wiskers Pet Supplies, in Ann Arbor, MI (a saturated market when it comes to pet stores, both independent and big box). So if you wanted proof of our work and our results, here it is!

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Freesources Matt Aldrich Freesources Matt Aldrich

Jet's Favorite Freesources: Jet

A final Freesources post as a kind of catch-all for everything we’ve gone over in the fast few months while building our community. We’ll also go over a few other of our favorite resources that didn’t fall into one of the broader categories but could still be useful for pet store owners and other pet professionals.

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Strategy Matt Aldrich Strategy Matt Aldrich

Six Steps to a Successful Tradeshow

We’re going to add to our Freesources post on tradeshows with our six steps to a successful tradeshow, ensuring that you get the most out of your expo experience whether it’s at Global, SuperZoo, PetConnections, or otherwise.

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Freesources Matt Aldrich Freesources Matt Aldrich

Jet's Favorite Freesources: Tradeshows

We’re going to sneak this one in here because technically, retailers attend tradeshows for free. They are meant for independent and family-owned businesses to build connections, find new products, get free samples, learn, and build those small, local pet stores that we all love.

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SEO, Strategy, Websites Pet Engine Marketing SEO, Strategy, Websites Pet Engine Marketing

5 SEO Tips for Pet Stores

Since we are primarily a pet store marketing agency for brick-and-mortar retailers, we’re going to dig into some tips that are primarily meant for that type of business. Nonetheless, what we give out here can be appropriated and adapted to other pet businesses, whether it’s for exotic birds, livestock and feed, or fish and aquariums, this will help.

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Social Media Pet Engine Marketing Social Media Pet Engine Marketing

6 Reasons to Use Social Media Management

6 reasons why you need to use a social media management tool for your pet store’s marketing strategy. Let’s dive right in - you’ll notice that most of these reasons fall under a few main tenets: it saves you time, it makes your life easier, and it improves your social media marketing capabilities.

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News Matt Aldrich News Matt Aldrich

What to Make of the Chewy IPO

Our team and founder weigh in on the recent pet industry news that Chewy has gone public and offered up it’s stocks through an IPO. Read more to see what it means for pet industry retailers.

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News Matt Aldrich News Matt Aldrich

We'll Be Speaking at Pet Connections Expo!

We are so excited to announce that we’ll be speaking at Pet Connections Expo on October 15-16 at the New Jersey Convention & Expo Center! It’s free for retailers, so we’re hoping to meet a lot of you face-to-face and make the most of our time there.

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Freesources, Social Media, Email Marketing Matt Aldrich Freesources, Social Media, Email Marketing Matt Aldrich

Jet's Favorite Freesources: Canva

“Look good, feel good, play good, paid good.” Deion Sanders said that, but it applies to pet stores, and pet store marketing, as well. Whether you like it or not, potential customers are going to judge your pet store before they ever set foot in it via your Instagram feed, your Facebook page, and your website’s appearance.

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Freesources, Business Tools Matt Aldrich Freesources, Business Tools Matt Aldrich

Jet's Favorite Freesources: HubSpot

As a pet store owner, we recommend HubSpot as a place to learn more about marketing, sales, and services that can help build your business. As a small business within the pet industry ourselves, we utilize HubSpot for their free CRM, their free sales platform, their free marketing resources, research, and reports, and their helpful community of generous business owners and marketers.

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News Pet Engine Marketing News Pet Engine Marketing

PetSmart & Petco Losing Ground!

After more than 20 years of watching PetSmart and Petco enjoy the lion’s share of consumer spending in the pet specialty channel, it appears that independent pet store chains are gaining ground and PetSmart & Petco are going downward dog!

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Websites Matt Aldrich Websites Matt Aldrich

Optimizing Your Pet Store's Website

Today we’ll go over some quick tips and tricks to improve your website that maybe you and your team overlooked in the case of not needing a complete website overhaul. Let’s learn about optimizing your pet store’s website.

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Websites Pet Engine Marketing Websites Pet Engine Marketing

Must-Have Pages for Pet Store Websites

When it comes to content creation for a newly created website, every pet store is unique and needs something to differentiate itself. However, visitors to your website (your potential customers) have set expectations of your website: what information they expect to find on it and where on your website they expect to find it. So, we’ll advise you on what our experience tells us are the must-have pages that all pet store websites need.

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Websites Matt Aldrich Websites Matt Aldrich

Modern Pet Store Website Needs

We’re going to go over a few reasons why the modern pet store needs a modern website and how it can be used to build your business. As always, we’ll be using real-time examples, real-time data from one of our clients, and real-time statistics to back up all of our claims.

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Business Tools Matt Aldrich Business Tools Matt Aldrich

What's Your Time Worth?

Pretty big question right? Maybe an even more pertinent question to our pet store owners is why does it matter for me to know what my time is worth? What’s the point of this question? What’s the point of anything?

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Social Media, eCommerce Pet Engine Marketing Social Media, eCommerce Pet Engine Marketing

Social Media vs. Traditional Media

It’s official: social media is taking over. It might be even safe to say that it already has taken over. As a pet store owner, you see it in your customers (both furry and human), you see it in your daily lives outside your store, and you probably see it at home. It’s pervasive in our lives and in our business.

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Business Tools, Freesources, Strategy Matt Aldrich Business Tools, Freesources, Strategy Matt Aldrich

Jet's Favorite Freesources: Analytics

Today let’s learn a little about Google Analytics. For a brief overview, Google Analytics is a plugin that can be added to your website for free that tracks users across it. The scope of Analytics is impressive, as you can look at your website’s data from a really broad perspective as well as drill into minute details with ease.

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Email Marketing Matt Aldrich Email Marketing Matt Aldrich

Email Isn't Dead!

We’ve heard a few arguments that email as a marketing tactic for pet stores is dead, or even dying. That spending money sending advertisements to your audience when a 30% open rate is considered exceptional.

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News Matt Aldrich News Matt Aldrich

Petland Discounts Closing Locations

Pet supply retailer Petland Discounts has become the latest victim of the collapse of brick-and-mortar retail. Management said it would need to close a large number of its stores. The retailer was founded in 1965.

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News Matt Aldrich News Matt Aldrich

Petco and Champion Announce Partnership

Petco and Champion Petfoods today announced a strategic partnership that will bring Champion's award-winning ACANA and ORIJEN dog and cat foods to all Petco stores and petco.com beginning March 4.

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News Matt Aldrich News Matt Aldrich

Superzoo 2019 Registration is OPEN!

SuperZoo, a pet retail trade show and conference produced by World Pet Association (WPA), has opened registration for the 2019 annual industry event. SuperZoo will be held at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, August 20–22, with education sessions on August 19–22.

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News, Strategy Matt Aldrich News, Strategy Matt Aldrich

3 Pet Industry Trends to Watch in 2019

According to Michelson Found Animals, an animal welfare nonprofit organization, there are three major trends worth looking out for in the pet industry this coming year. The organization conducted a survey of over a thousand dog and cat owners and analyzed their findings. With the right planning, mindset, and marketing, independent pet stores can capitalize on all of them!

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